Icelandic fishing vessel operators’ federation SFS has slammed the deal announced by Norway, the Faroe Islands and the UK, awarding themselves 72% of the mackerel TAC for 2024 – criticising the tripartite deal as irresponsible and supporting overfishing.
SFS chief executive Heiðrún Lind Marteinsdóttir points out that the European Union, Iceland and Greenland are also coastal states with a strong interest in the fishery for mackerel, and are excluded from this agreement.
‘With this tripartite agreement, which remains valid to the end of 2026, those nations are taking 72% of the TAC for mackerel that all six coastal states agreed last autumn. That leaves 28% for the three coastal states that are excluded from the agreement,’ she stated commenting that taking the quotas for 2023 into account, the EU, Iceland and Greenland accounted for 45.64% of the fishery – in addition which Russia took catches equivalent to a further 15%.
‘It is obvious that this tripartite agreement does nothing more than support the unacceptable overfishing of mackerel. We can expect the combined quotas of all the coastal states, plus Russia’s unilateral quota, will result in fishing in excess of the advice of 133%,’ Heiðrún Lind Marteinsdóttir said.
‘There is a great deal of value in the shared mackerel stock – but alongside these values are also responsibilities. This is a responsibility for all of the coastal states to jointly ensure the growth and management of this stock for the future. When three coastal states snatch the greater bulk of the fishery, without consultation with other states that share this with them, then those states are failing to live up to their responsibilities in protecting resources.’
