While fishing has been busy with providing food, the oil and energy lobbies have been hard at work in the corridors of power, says Mariann Frantsen, CEO of Pelagic Forening, which represents Norway’s pelagic operators.
‘To be self-critical, we can say that we have been asleep in class. We have been busy discussing distribution between northern and southern areas, management of fish stocks, structural quotas and who gets to fish where. The result is that we have built a seafood industry that is Norway’s second largest export industry,’ she said.
‘Around 2.5 million tonnes of fish are landed each year, with a record-breakingly low climate footprint. Almost a million meals are caught every hour. But we haven’t been so good at telling that story.’
She commented that even a quick look at the map shows that with the oil sector’s activities, shipping traffic and planned offshore wind facilities, things are starting to look cramped.
‘Everyone wants access to the same areas, the same banks and fishing grounds. For the fishermen’s point of view, fish stocks move through the year, as well as from one year to the next – and fish don’t see lines on a map. Fishing is reliant on being able to adapt to the migration and ditribution patterns of fish stocks, and to fisheries agreements with neighbouring nations,’ she said, and commented that offshore wind energy has been a hot topic, not least at the recent Arendal Week.
‘In meetings with politicians and the offshore operators, the need to take fisheries, spawning grounds and migrations into account came up repeatedly – and that was always followed by the words ’we have no time to lose’ and that fishermen in particular need to be concerned about the marime environment. That’s precisely the point. Fishermen are deeply concerned about the climate, just as we are concerned about the offshore wind sector.’
She added that when it comes to offshore wind development, the usual rationale of assessment ahead of development has been turned on its head.
‘In this case, it’s build first and then see how it turns out,’ she said, and added that the wind energy sector has stated that everything is ready to go and the problems of co-existence have been solved.
‘This is something that fishermen don’t recognise. The problem of co-existence has not been solved!’ she said, pointing out that the knowledge base behind all this is tenuous, as the Institute of Marine Research stated recently.
‘We lack knowledge. There are very few studies dealing with the effect of offshore wind on fisheries. We have knowledge gaps. We lack knowledge that covers extended periods. We do not have the understanding to answer the questions the fishermen have about how fisheries are affected.’
Mariann Frantsen stated that current knowledge does not match the ambitions of both the government and the offshore wind sector – and the fact that the offshore sector clamins to be ready to go is not justification to push ahead with development.
‘We cannot get started until we have better control over the consequences of the offshore wind industry for life in the sea and future provision of food. At the same time, there are not enough resources available to respond to the government’s ambitions,’ she said, describing the offshore wind industry is the biggest competitor for the ocean areas in the coming decades.
‘It’s a paradox that the government’s ambitions outstrip the resources at the disposal of the administration and the research environments, which are supposed to take care of life in the sea and contribute to co-existence between fisheries, sea wind and nature,’ she said.
‘It’s also difficult to understand how the government will be able to achieve its stated goal that important fishing areas should not be damaged with this development.’
