Moratorium on commercial fishing of the Beaufort Sea
Encyclopedia
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
Gary Locke
Gary Locke
Gary Locke may refer to:*Gary Locke , Chinese American politician; U.S. Secretary of Commerce and former Governor of Washington*Gary Locke *Gary Locke...
announced a moratorium on fishing the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska.
According to Locke:
There is no widespread commercial fisheries in those waters now.
The moratorium was imposed in anticipation that global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
would make those waters accessible to commercial fisheries.
The moratorium stirred controversy in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
because the region where the USA announced the moratorium included a large wedge-shaped region of disputed waters.
Randy Boswell, of Canada.com
wrote that the disputed area covered a 21436 square kilometre section of the Beaufort Sea.
He wrote that Canada had filed a "diplomatic note" with the USA in April when the USA first announced plans for the moratorium. Jack Layton
Jack Layton
John Gilbert "Jack" Layton, PC was a Canadian social democratic politician and the Leader of the Official Opposition. He was the leader of the New Democratic Party from 2003 to 2011, and previously sat on Toronto City Council, serving at times during that period as acting mayor and deputy mayor of...
, leader of the New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...
of Canada, called the U.S. moratorium over the disputed waters in the Beaufort Sea as the "largest encroachment on Canadian territory in our history."