Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs)

Abstract

The U.S. participates in transboundary management of migratory and high seas fisheries species as a signatory to 14 major intergovernmental conventions, treaties, and regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) throughout the Atlantic and Pacific basins. The U.S. is also a participant in several other international living marine resource (LMR), conservation, and scientific organizations. The reason is that in addition to domestic fisheries resources contained within its EEZ, international, transboundary, and high seas fisheries contribute significantly to U.S. fisheries landings, revenue, and LMR-based employments. This chapter briefly describes those participatory RFMOs and related organizations, and presents some summary statistics related to the ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) criteria noted throughout the regional chapters in this book. Significant progress has been made toward greater understanding of Atlantic and Pacific ecosystems within RFMO jurisdictions, but as expected, generally, progress toward EBFM in RFMOs has been slower than in other regions within the US EEZ, with several challenges remaining unique to what are often taxa-oriented organizations. Given that advances toward EBFM have been occurring throughout several RFMOs, with specific progress of adopting ecosystem considerations occurring in various jurisdictions, particularly in the Antarctic.