ICES has issued a recommendation for next year’s North Sea herring quota to be set at 311,572 tonnes, roughly half of this year’s 600,588 tonne quota.
Audun Maråk, director of Norwegian vessel operators’ organisation Fiskebåt, described the recommendation as a heavy blow.
‘However, a reduction was expected as fishermen from Norway and other countries had questioned the quota level for this stock as abundance has been poor,’ he said.
He believes that these major changes in quota recommendations from one year to the next are detrimental to ICES’s reputation as these large variations hardly reflect the real state of the stock.
‘Big changes from year to year are also not good for the market,’ he said. ‘Any solutions will have to be worked out with our North Sea agreement partners,’ he commented.
