Picture: © Chris Gomersall 2020 vision

Today, Norway decided to go its own way on mackerel by deciding to increase its quota share by 55% from 191,843 tonnes to 298,299 tonnes. The mackerel stock is highly migratory and widely distributed passing through the waters of several coastal states in the Northeast Atlantic. Since 2014, EU, Norway and Faroe Islands have managed to agree on a joint sharing and management arrangement. Unfortunately, Iceland, Russia and Greenland have never been part of this arrangement.

Gerard van Balsfoort, chair of the EU pelagic industry, comments: “Norway’s unilateral increase by 55% of its share in the Northeast Atlantic mackerel fishery is a new low in our fisheries relations and totally undermines the effective management of our shared and widely distributed pelagic stocks. The EU should seriously consider to use its power as the world’s largest import market for seafood to take action to stop such reckless and irresponsible behaviour by Norway”.

Since 1 January this year, the UK has left the EU and became a new and independent coastal state. Everybody knew that this would create new uncertainties for all players in the Northeast Atlantic as the UK had to establish new fisheries relationships with the other coastal states, among them Norway. Until now it has not been possible for the UK to reach a fisheries agreement for 2021 with its direct neighbours Faroe Islands, Norway and the EU. UK’s negotiations with Faroe Islands and Norway have now officially been terminated without an agreement, while negotiations between the UK and EU are still ongoing.

Gerard van Balsfoort concludes that “it is extremely disappointing that Norway, that markets itself and its seafood products worldwide as the nation with the most prudent and responsible fisheries management system, now has chosen to act in such an irresponsible manner. It seems that Norway has left the path of constructive collaboration with other coastal states. The first signal of this was given already around Christmas last year when Norway unilaterally decided to unlawfully grab part of the Svalbard cod quota allocated to the EU for its own benefit”.

Press contacts:

Gerard van Balsfoort: Phone: +31 651 411 431 | Email: gbalsfoort@pelagicfish.eu

EP and EAPO Press Release – Norway’s unilateral mackerel quota increase

As an analogy, let us imagine a driver that systematically ignores a red light, every day, for around thirty years. This traffic light was set by an authority to address an issue at a crossroads, including a video-camera to monitor compliance. While the driver is identified, no ticket is handed out. This authority believes that penalties do not help to bring change and simply calls the driver from time to time, to tap on the shoulder and encourage to do better next time. To no avail. At the same time, hundreds of cars crash to avoid hitting the non-compliant driver. To add injury to insult, the reckless driver is rewarded with a car insurance fee discount every year. One would think such a situation cannot happen in reality.

Nonetheless in the world of fishing, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a Resolution in 1991 calling upon all members of the international community to implement before 31 December 1992 a global moratorium on all large-scale pelagic drift net fishing on the world’s oceans and seas.[1] Despite the UN ban, in 2012, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) expressed concern that these gears were still widely used in both high seas and coastal waters of the Indian Ocean. As a consequence, the IOTC adopted a Resolution[2] that year, reinforced by another in 2017[3], setting the prohibition to use large-scale driftnets in the whole IOTC Area.  

In other words, long time ago the UN and the IOTC (a.k.a. the authorities) adopted a rule, setting a red light on the use of large pelagic drift nets. Regrettably, according to Europêche, in the Indian Ocean many of the countries that were supposed to stop by the red light, as our driver, never did, and even increased the use of drift nets or its size to over 30 km in length and more than 20 m in depth[4]. This happened because these countries were never penalized, as IOTC Member countries, and international authorities, preferred to use the tap on the shoulder approach rather than sanctioning such behavior. Furthermore, the IOTC rewarded some drift net fisheries with catch limits of yellowfin tuna since 2017 (discount on the car insurance fee), despite the existing gear ban and the fact those fisheries are poorly monitored, not even complying with the minimal IOTC requirements for observer programs or sampling in port.

Javier Garat, President of Europêche, declared: “One would expect things to go differently in 2021. Well, this is not the case. The IOTC will hold a Special Session between 7 and 12 March, with the focus put on the rebuilding of the stock of yellowfin tuna. The EU and Maldives have formally tabled proposals to the meeting. Despite the European Commission’s zero-tolerance approach towards IUU fishing, those proposals are still rewarding large pelagic drift net fisheries with catches of yellowfin tuna and solely tapping them on the shoulder through recommendations to improve gear configuration. Hence, after almost thirty years of non-compliance with international regulations, our reckless driver will continue business as usual, whereas all other fisheries are penalized with higher cuts, crashing their cars to compensate for that.” Mr Garat concluded: “We are talking about a gear banned by the EU since 2002 for migratory fisheries such as albacore, Bluefin tuna or swordfish. The EU must ensure coherence between the internal and external dimension of the CFP”.

Tuna-RFMOs have been criticized for not being able to enforce what they adopt. Unfortunately, in this case, Europêche must agree with that statement. The European fishing sector strongly believes it is high time for IOTC and other tuna-RFMOs to make drift net fisheries accountable for their actions, rather than rewarding them after thirty years of trespassing red lights. The next IOTC Special Session might represent a good opportunity for this body to start using the stick rather than the carrot. The EU should also consider to take market measures against IOTC countries not compliant with international rules. Otherwise, it may be too late for the yellowfin tuna stock to recover and for the protection of sensitive species, despite the efforts and cuts imposed on the European tuna fishing fleet.

[1] Resolution A/RES/46/215, Large-scale pelagic drift-net fishing and its impact on the living marine resources of the world’s oceans and seas

[2] Resolution 12/12

[3] Resolution 17/07

[4] Cetacean bycatch in Indian Ocean tuna gillnet fisheries (page 41)

Press contacts:

Daniel Voces, Managing Director of Europêche: +32.2.230.48.48 europeche@europeche.org

EP Press Release – IOTC Driftnets