102 STAT. 4766
Exports. Imports.
Imports.
International agreements.
Conservation.
PUBLIC LAW 100-711—NOV. 23, 1988
participates and is based upon observer coverage that is equal to that achieved for United States vessels during the same period, except that the Secretary may approve an alternative observer program if the Secretary determines, no less than sixty days after publication in the Federal Register of the Secretary's proposal and resisons therefor, that such an alternative observer program will provide sufficiently reliable documentary evidence of the average rate of incidental taking by a harvesting nation; and "(V) the harvesting nation complies with all reasonable requests by the Secretary for cooperation in carrying out the scientific research program required by section 104(h)(3) of this title;"; and (3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraphs: "(C) shall require the government of any intermediary nation from which yellowfin tuna or tuna products will be exported to the United States to certify and provide reasonable proof that it has acted to prohibit the importation of such tuna and tuna products from any nation from which direct export to the United States of such tuna and tuna products is banned under this section within sixty days following the effective date of such ban on importation to the United States; and "(D) shall, six months after importation of yellowfin tuna or tuna products has been banned under this section, certify such fact to the President, which certification shall be deemed to be a certification for the purposes of section 8(a) of the Fishermen's Protective Act of 1967 (22 U.S.C. 1978(a)) for as long as such ban is in effect.", (b) Paragraph (2) of section 108(a) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (16 U.S.C. 1378(a)) is amended to read as follows: "(2) initiate— "(A) negotiations as soon as possible with all foreign governments which are engaged in, or which have persons or companies engaged in, commercial fishing operations which are found by the Secretary to be unduly harmful to any species or population stock of marine mammal, for the purpose of entering into bilateral and multilateral treaties with such countries to protect marine mammals, with the Secretary of State to prepare a draft agenda relating to this matter for discussion at appropriate international meetings and forums; and "(B) discussions with foreign governments whose vessels harvest yellowfin tuna with purse seines in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, for the purpose of concluding, through the Inter-American Tropical 'Tuna Commission or such other bilateral or multilateral institutions as may be appropriate, international arrangements for the conservation of marine mammals taken incidentally in the course of harvesting such tuna, which should include provisions for (i) cooperative research into alternative methods of locating and catching yellowfin tuna which do not involve the taking of marine mammals, (ii) cooperative research on the status of affected marine mammal population stocks, (iii) reliable monitoring of the number, rate, and species of marine mammals taken by vessels of harvesting nations, (iv) limitations on incidental take levels based upon the best
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