I certainly think it's not just the convention and the measures themselves, but that another thing we have to look at is the attitude of the people who are doing the fishing. In my humble opinion, the attitude has changed. The amount of overfishing has been reduced substantially over the last few years; there's no question in my mind about that. And although I did not see a commitment to improved conservation for a long number of years—and I mean decades—I am now beginning to see it, particularly over the last three or four years. The amount of overfishing is down. The catch of moratoria species, which was basically way up there for many years, is now down as close as it can get to zero.
One of the best indicators I've seen recently of a commitment to conservation and the rebuilding of stocks was this year, when the scientists came to the NAFO table and said two of your species, two of your stocks, are in much better shape than they've been for maybe ten years. If we had followed science in a pure science management relationship, we would have said okay, start fishing some redfish and cod in 3M. But the decision of NAFO, collectively, was not to start fishing but to give the stock additional time to rebuild and then to go and catch it.
So I've seen these things happen. And I guess, in many respects, stock recovery is now starting to happen in areas I didn't expect it would happen. At our last meeting we listed off four or five of the stocks that were showing some improvement and a trend upwards, as opposed to flat or downwards.
So I would have to say yes to the measures and the convention, but more importantly, the activity on the waters has changed substantially, and we are seeing big improvements.