It is hereby declared to be the policy of the state to encourage the conservation, maintenance, and utilization of the living resources of the ocean and other waters under the jurisdiction and influence of the state for the benefit of all the citizens of the state and to promote the development of local fisheries and distant-water fisheries based in California in harmony with international law respecting fishing and the conservation of the living resources of the oceans and other waters under the jurisdiction and influence of the state. This policy shall include all of the following objectives:

(a) The maintenance of sufficient populations of all species of aquatic organisms to insure their continued existence.

(b) The recognition of the importance of the aesthetic, educational, scientific, and nonextractive recreational uses of the living resources of the California Current.

(c) The maintenance of a sufficient resource to support a reasonable sport use, where a species is the object of sport fishing, taking into consideration the necessity of regulating individual sport fishery bag limits to the quantity that is sufficient to provide a satisfying sport.

(d) The growth of local commercial fisheries, consistent with aesthetic, educational, scientific, and recreational uses of such living resources, the utilization of unused resources, taking into consideration the necessity of regulating the catch within the limits of maximum sustainable yields, and the development of distant-water and overseas fishery enterprises.

(e) The management, on a basis of adequate scientific information promptly promulgated for public scrutiny, of the fisheries under the state’s jurisdiction, and the participation in the management of other fisheries in which California fishermen are engaged, with the objective of maximizing the sustained harvest.

(f) The development of commercial aquaculture.

(Amended by Stats. 1982, Ch. 1486, Sec. 4.)