My position, and that of the science community generally, is that the 200-mile limit is an incredibly important conservation tool that allows coastal states to be good stewards of their resources. It hasn't always worked out, but it has worked in some cases.
I talked to policy-makers in Washington last week, and they're now taking the success stories in their own waters and asking other states, through RFMOs or directly, to follow suit and basically translate their successes within the territorial waters to the high seas environment.
Bluefin tuna is a good example that I raised with the minister this morning. Rebuilding has been incredibly successful for haddock, which is within the 200-mile limit, and that's only because the entire stock is entirely within the 200-mile limit.
Bluefin tuna resides a lot within the territorial waters of the United States. It spawns in the Gulf of Mexico, goes up the coast, and comes to Canada, where it's fished. It also goes across the Atlantic, where it's fished as well. It's a mixed-stock problem. There's an eastern Atlantic stock and a western Atlantic stock.
That species has been under a rebuilding plan for the last eleven years, but the biomass has actually declined slightly, rather than increased, as in the haddock example. That's not due to biological reasons, but rather because it's managed by a multilateral body that has been ineffective in bringing down exploitation rates. That is true in almost all cases for internationally managed stocks. So there hasn't been the broad international will to bring down exploitation rates for those stocks, as required by science advice.