Fisheries management

As a coastal state and steward of living marine resources, Norway has national and international commitments under international law. The follow-ing are among the most important international agreements to which Norway is a party:

– The 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 and the 1995 Agreement on implementa-tion of the provisions of the Convenimplementa-tion on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) relating to the Con-servation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (Fish Stocks Agreement);

– The 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diver-sity;

– The 1995 Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO).

It is a guiding principle that marine resources should be based on the precautionary approach in accordance with international agreements and guidelines, and using an ecosystem approach that takes into account both habitats and biodiversity.

These commitments have been emphasised in Norway’s Marine Resources Act.

The Marine Resources Act regulates all har-vesting and other utilisation of wild living marine

resources and genetic material derived from them. Under the Act, the management authorities must evaluate which types of management meas-ures are necessary to ensure sustainable manage-ment of these resources. This managemanage-ment princi-ple does not impose requirements for how, when or how often the authorities should evaluate meas-ures, but makes them responsible for evaluating at regular intervals whether there is a need for some form of regulation. According to this princi-ple, surplus living marine resources may be har-vested, but this must be done in a way that ensures that future generations can do the same.

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) promotes and coordinates marine research in the North Atlantic area and dissemi-nates the results. On the basis of scientific assess-ments, the ICES Advisory Committee (ACOM) provides advice on proposed management strate-gies, and recommends total allowable catches (TACs) for the various fish stocks every year. The Norwegian Institute of Marine Research partici-pates actively in ICES and provides data from sci-entific cruises and mapping data, and performs a significant amount of the research on which ICES advice is based.

ICES’ recommendations on TACs are not polit-ically binding, but there is a growing tendency in international fisheries management to set quotas in line with these recommendations. Another trend in the last 10 years is to adopt long-term management strategies and rules for harvesting important commercial stocks.

Norway and the EU – cooperation on management in the North Sea and Skagerrak

Norway shares most of its fish resources with other countries, so that international cooperation on their management is essential. The EU is Nor-way’s main partner in the North Sea and Skager-rak. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Norway and the EU have an obli-gation to cooperate on the management of shared fish stocks in this sea area.

In 1980 Norway and the EU concluded a bilat-eral agreement on fishing, which is implemented in the form of annual fisheries arrangements. The annual arrangements set out the agreed joint man-agement measures, including long-term meas-ures, and exchanges of quotas. They also include a wide range of provisions on technical measures and cooperation on control and enforcement.

TACs for joint stocks are shared on the basis of agreed allocation keys. Norway’s share is at

present well under 50 % for most of the stocks apart from saithe, where we have 52 %. Thus Nor-way can only address management challenges through close, constructive cooperation with the EU.Differences between the management models chosen by Norway and the EU can make coopera-tion challenging. The clearest example is the dif-ference between Norwegian and EU discard pol-icy. Norway has a ban on discards in Norwegian waters, and to back this up a number of measures have been implemented to avoid catches of fish that are likely to be discarded. The EU, on the other hand, has a discard requirement when a quota is exceeded or when the catch composition (size or species) is illegal. In addition there are dif-ferences between the technical measures required by Norway and the EU. Although in the last few years the parties have agreed on a num-ber of measures to reduce discards, the wide-spread practice of discarding fish continues to be the most significant problem in the EU in the efforts to achieve sustainable management.

In 2011 the European Commission put for-ward a proposal for reform of its Common Fisher-ies Policy that included a ban on discards. The proposal has to be considered by the European Council and the European Parliament before being adopted, and Norway has expressed its will-ingness to support it. In November 2011 the fish-eries ministers of Norway, Denmark and Sweden signed a joint statement on the introduction of a ban on discards of fish in the Skagerrak from 2013.

In spite of the considerable differences between the fisheries management regimes in Norway and the EU, the parties cooperate closely on other management issues, such as long-term management measures for joint fish stocks. The stock most urgently in need of rebuilding is North Sea cod.

Regulation of fisheries at national level

Once negotiations with other countries have been completed, it is clear how much of each stock Nor-way can harvest in the subsequent year, and the rules for the Norwegian fisheries can be adopted.

The Directorate of Fisheries draws up proposals for quota regulations, which are discussed at an open consultative meeting at which a broad range of business associations and interest organisa-tions are represented. On the basis of these pro-cesses, the Directorate sends draft regulations to the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs,

Box 4.1 The Norwegian sandeel management model Sandeels are widely distributed in large areas of

the North Sea, and were previously treated as a single stock shared between Norway and the EU.

In response to overfishing of sandeel in cer-tain areas in the Norwegian part of the North Sea, Norway has introduced a new management model for the species. The aim is to build up via-ble spawning stocks throughout the distribution area of sandeel in Norway’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Following this model an area-based man-agement plan with a limited open season has been developed. Closure of parts of the areas of sandeel habitat reduces the possibility of local overfishing.

The management plan for sandeel contains the following elements:

– Background. Sandeels are highly stationary and an important source of food for larger fish, marine mammals and seabirds. For the eco-system as a whole, it is therefore vital that sandeel are found throughout their natural area of distribution. There are strong indica-tions that recruitment is generally stronger and more even in areas where there is a viable spawning stock.

– Management objective. The objective of the new management model is to maintain viable local spawning stocks of sandeel throughout their range in the Norwegian zone. This will maintain the key role of sandeel in the ecosys-tem, and provide a basis for a high sustained yield by ensuring that sandeels can spread throughout their natural range.

– Closure of areas. Under the new model, sandeel habitat in the Norwegian zone has been divided into six areas, each of which has two subdivisions (marked a and b, see Figure 4.4). If the population in one area is estimated to exceed a predetermined level, one subdivi-sion (either a or b) of the area is opened for fishing but not both. Subdivisions are opened and closed alternately from year to year.

– Close season. In order to take advantage of the rapid increase in sandeel biomass in spring (from the beginning of April), the fishery opens on 23 April and closes on 23 June, when older sandeels normally cease to emerge from the sand to feed. Closure prevents harvesting of juveniles, which often dominate the catches after this date.

– Minimum size. The measures to prevent har-vesting of juveniles also include temporary clo-sure of sandeel areas during the fishing

sea-son if the intermixture of undersized fish (length under 10 cm) exceeds 10 % by number.

The closed area is reopened after seven days, but if the proportion of fish below the mini-mum size is still too large, it will be closed for another seven days.

– Implementation of the management plan. The Institute of Marine Research conducts acous-tic surveys of sandeel abundance in April–

May each year. On the basis of the surveys, the Institute advises on which of the six main areas should be opened to fisheries in the sub-sequent year and sets an overall quota for these areas. The figures may be adjusted in the light of data from the following year’s sur-veys. Although a limited catch from the opened areas is permitted, closure of one sub-division in each area should ensure viable local spawning stocks.

Figure 4.4 Area-based management of sandeel.

Source: Institute of Marine Research

It will be important to make use of experience gained from the implementation of the manage-ment plan. The plan will be evaluated and if nec-essary adjusted at the end of every season.

which adopts the quota regulations unless the Directorate itself is authorised to adopt them.

The regulations contain provisions on the allo-cation of quotas to vessel groups and individual vessels, the allocation of quotas for specific peri-ods, bycatches, rules on replacing vessels, exemp-tions, and so on.

In addition to the annual quota regulations, Norway has a number of permanent national and local regulations. These include provisions on the use of gear, types of gear, mesh sizes, minimum sizes, the ban on discards, and requirements to use sorting grids.

Restrictions on bycatches

Bycatches are catches of all species other than the target species. Bycatches may consist of target species in other fisheries or of unintentional catches of species or sizes of fish that should not be harvested at all.

While some fisheries are relatively clean, oth-ers will always include a certain bycatch of other fish species. In addition, there may be bycatches of seabirds or marine mammals.

To ensure that bycatches are included in fig-ures for the total harvest from a particular stock so that harvesting remains sustainable, a certain

proportion is set aside to allow for bycatches when the TAC is shared between different vessel groups. For example, trawlers engaged in indus-trial fishing often take bycatches of North Sea her-ring. A certain proportion of the TAC is therefore set aside in the quota regulations to allow for these bycatches.

The Norwegian authorities seek to reduce unwanted bycatches by imposing requirements to use selective gear or sorting grids or by opening and closing fishing grounds as appropriate. Such measures are specifically designed to avoid bycatches of larvae, undersized fish and species with unfavourable stock status. Efforts are also being made to develop gear and fishing methods that will reduce bycatches of seabirds and marine mammals. However, fishing gear will always take a certain proportion of bycatch together with the target species. For fishing to be at all possible, and to ensure compliance with the Norwegian requirement to land all catches, it is necessary to permit a certain intermixture of other species.