This transnational historical study seeks to trace the evolution of ideas, local practices and public policies associated with the commercial use and conservation of ocean resources by three key stakeholders in the North Pacific: Japan, the United States and Canada. It will consider the impact of new technology on industrial practices and the role of scientific research in shaping the transnational policy discourse on conservation and the preservation of marine bio-diversity. This project will also aim to compare the rise of the modern administrative state in these three industrial societies and how the respective state apparatus situated the protection of this environmental-dependent primary/extractive industrial sector in their strategies for sustained economic development. Finally, this study will seek to enrich policy debate by providing a historical background to the formulation of the contemporary international ocean resource management regime based on the 200-mile fishing zone. Such policy-relevant concern will simultaneously help expand the new sub-field of transnational environmental history.