NEAFC has organized a meeting on setting the mackerel fishing quota and for the first time the national government has been invited. Icelandic Minister for Fisheries Jon Bjarnason received the invite from the European Union (EU), the Faroe Islands and Norway. Ministry of Fisheries informed that all four administrations have agreed to harvest mackerel stocks sustainably and expressed their appreciation of a united policy to manage stocks.
It is said that in a similar act last month the Holland-based Pelagic Regional Advisory Council (PRAC) called on the European Commission (EC) to stop Iceland and Norway from setting unilateral quotas and overfishing mackerel and horse mackerel. Iceland’s unilateral 130,000-tonne quota is 23 per cent higher than scientists advise to avoid these stocks’ depletion. Norway set a quota for horse mackerel of 100,000 tonnes for this year – 55 percent higher than scientists recommended.
In March, Iceland announced a unilateral allocation of a 112,000-tonne domestic mackerel quota this year that upset the members of NEAFC. Norway’s Fisheries Minister Helga Pedersen issued harsh comments over the development, as some in Norway considered Iceland’s move illegal. NEAFC had set a 640,000-tonne quota for Norway and EU member nations, but excluded Iceland from the deal because it was not part of a multi-national agreement on the division of the mackerel quota.
