Regin Winther Poulsen

On 29 August, the citizens of Iceland took to the polls and voted against their government restarting negotiations on attaining E.U. membership, with 52.8 percent of voters opposed to the measure. If approved, the Icelandic government would have publicly revisited the issue of joining the E.U. for the first time since 2013 and Icelanders would have voted again on whether to join the bloc at a later date. However, the issue of E.U. membership… Read More

Faroe Islands Fisheries Minister Bárður á Steig Nielsen has increased the number of fishing days allocated to part-time small-scale fishers, running counter to the advice of scientists and the wishes of wide swaths of the Faroese fishing industry. In the Faroes, quotas regulate the number of “fishing days” each vessel can go out to sea; essentially, each vessel with a fishing license has a certain number of allocated fishing days and can… Read More

Over 1,000 Namibian workers have filed claims to Icelandic authorities, asking to be classified as victims and include them in any future criminal proceedings against Icelandic fishing firm Samherji for its alleged role in the “Fishrot” scandal. The Fishrot scandal dates back to November 2019 when WikiLeaks published 30,000 documents obtained from Samherji that it claimed exposed schemes the company engaged in in Namibia to gain access to… Read More

After two years with no sanctioned whale hunts in Iceland, whaling firm Hvalur announced intentions earlier this year to hunt again for fin whales, marking the first time since 2023 any firm from Iceland has conducted whale hunts. According to official data from the Icelandic Directorate of Fisheries, 17 fin whales have been hunted by the firm as of 19 July, while the Captain Paul Watson Foundation has estimated the total is closer to 30. While… Read More

Shortly after opening its expanded hatchery facility in Scotland, Faroe Islands-based salmon-farming firm Bakkafrost has announced it is also making progress on similar projects closer to the firm’s headquarters. In May, Bakkafrost opened its modernized Applecross land-based hatchery and smolt facility in the Scottish Highlands, aiming to allow salmon to remain in controlled freshwater conditions for longer before transfer to sea as larger… Read More

Icelandic whaling firm Hvalur has announced intentions to hunt for fin whales again this summer, marking the first time since 2023 any firm from Iceland has conducted whale hunts. Hvalur, which is the only active whaling company in Iceland, faced heavy public backlash during its last whaling season in 2023. According to The Reykjavík Grapevine, an Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST) report surfaced that year that cited serious animal… Read More

In late August, Icelanders will vote on whether their government should restart negotiations on attaining E.U. membership. If the nation’s citizens vote for resuming the talks, it would mark the first time Iceland publicly revisited the issue of joining the E.U. since 2013, when talks ceased mainly due to disagreements over fisheries management. Fisheries representatives in Iceland have recently warned that many of those disagreements remain… Read More

As pelagic quotas are decreasing in the Northeast Atlantic, Bárður á Steig Nielsen, who was appointed as the new minister of fisheries in the Faroe Islands in April, wants to encourage the Faroese fishing industry to innovate, possibly by turning toward underutilized or completely new species to fill the gap. "Perhaps now, when pelagic quotas are decreasing, the industry will have time to try some new fisheries," he told SeafoodSource. ​On… Read More

In 2021, Faroe Islands-based salmon-farming firm Bakkafrost received a DKK 67 million (USD 10.5 million, EUR 9 million) fine after the Faroese Food and Veterinary Authority reported the firm to the police for several alleged animal welfare violations. Now, five years later, the company has been officially charged with only one of the less serious allegations the authority levied against it.  According to Faroese police, Bakkafrost has been… Read More

The Icelandic government is proposing a new bill that, if passed, would place the nation’s entire aquaculture sector under a unified regulatory framework. The draft of the bill working its way through Icelandic Parliament aims to lessen the environmental impacts of fish farming and support sustainable growth through such actions as encouraging closed-containment systems, stricter governmental responses to sea lice infestations and fish… Read More