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NorskNorway is continuing efforts to deter illegal fishing
These efforts are comprehensive and must be made in many areas simultaneously. The issues at stake are illegal fishing, transshipment at sea, forgery of origin, covert landings etc. The counterforces are formidable: organised economic crime worth billions and branching out into a great many countries, including Norway.
At international level, efforts are being made bilaterally vis-à-vis Russia, all relevant port states in Europe and North Africa and the European Commission. Norway will continue to maintain high political focus on the issues.
Another key area is to sign new and update old inspection agreements between Norway and the inspectorate bodies of other nations. Norwegian inspectorate authorities are strengthening their cooperation with Russian inspectors.
On Norway’s initiative, the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) is now working to ratify a binding regional agreement on port state control for all fish supplied from catches in the North East Atlantic.
In May, Norway obtained global backing at the UN Conference on Fishing on the High Seas to draw up a binding UN convention on port state control of foreign fishing vessels. Norway will ensure that this commitment is expedited.
National initiatives
At national level this year in June, the Government presented a bill that will authorise the implementation of both the forthcoming NEAFC agreement and the UN agreement and provide Norwegian authorities with opportunities for other measures.
These include refusing landings in Norway from vessels that have previously engaged in IUU fishing; refusing dockside transshipments and denying such vessels bunkers and support vessels and requiring that a vessel’s flag state confirms that the fish were caught pursuant to regulations and quotas.
Norway will continue to regulate its own fisheries sustainably and ensure efficient control of resources both on landing and at sea through the Coast Guard. Moreover, a number of measures will be implemented to deter Norwegian vessels from participating in IUU fishing and to prevent illegally caught fish from entering the Norwegian market.
The Norwegian Government’s Plan of Action on Economic Crime will be used in order to enforce measures against Norwegian actors in IUU activities.
Important to stop the landings of IUU-fish
The main problem in Norwegian fishing zones is that Russian vessels are failing to cease fishing on reaching their quotas. This is why it is so important to seek to remove the markets and to stop the landing of catches in the ports.
Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries analyses indicate that Russian fishing and shipment activity is declining. This would suggest that efforts are paying off.