Growing tensions between Norway and Russia may affect the management of fish stocks in the Barents Sea, which are already rapidly declining.
In July, Norwegian authorities announced that two Russian fishing companies suspected of espionage activities would be banned from Norwegian harbors and would not have their licenses to fish in Norwegian waters renewed next year. In response, Russia announced it would completely ban Norwegian fishing vessels from its exclusive economic zone and withdraw from cooperative fisheries management.
“The actions of the Norwegian side will inevitably lead to the destruction of the effective system of management and regulation of fisheries, which has been built up over many decades and is designed to ensure the long-term rational exploitation of joint aquatic bioresources,” Ilya Shestakov, the head of Russia’s Federal Fisheries Agency (Rosrybolovstvo), said in August.
As part of that withdrawal from cooperation, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture has unilaterally announced that its fishing vessels can now reduce the minimum size of cod caught in the Barents Sea to 40 centimeters, down from the previously agreed-upon 44 centimeters. The ministry also announced that vessels could reduce the mesh size of nets from 130 millimeters to 120 millimeters for fishing in the Barents Sea, according to a press release in Russian media, which reported that the decision would be in effect until 1 September 2027.
Norwegian fishers and authorities have expressed concern that the decision could harm cod stocks.
"If they fish a lot of small fish and catch more, it will thus have a negative effect on the stock," Fiskebåt CEO Audun Maråk told SeafoodSource.
Bjarte Bogstad, a scientist at the Norwegian Marine Institute and a member of the joint Russian-Norwegian Arctic Fisheries Working Group, told Norwegian Public Broadcaster NRK.no that the unilateral decision would have grave consequences.
"It will lead to a less rational harvesting of the stock because the fish will be caught at way too young an age," he said. "It's just completely hopeless. We have to go back many years before we had such a small minimum target. We know that the increase we have had has been very positive. This is going backward into the future.”
The move by Russia follows a proposal from fishery scientists at the Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) to increase the Barents Sea 2026 cod quota to 315,033 metric tons (MT), even though the Russian-Norwegian Arctic Fisheries Working Group determined that the total allowable catch (TAC) should be no more than 269,550 MT. That amount would be a 14 percent cut from the quota advice made in 2025 and would be the lowest TAC since 2002.
“The spawning population of skrei is now below the precautionary level. Therefore, the quota advice is also decreasing again this year,” Bogstad said in a press release. “There has been poor recruitment for several years, but the weakest year classes are 2019 and 2020 – those that should have seriously entered the fishery last year and this year.”
Bogstad added that 2025 and 2026 will have the lowest spawning population, with an expected increase in quota advice for 2027 if the advice for 2026 is followed by governments.
The Barents Sea, which is divided into Norwegian, Russian, and international waters, is managed by both countries, but up to 80 percent of Russian quotas are fished in Norwegian waters.
