Iceland has increased its cod and haddock quotas for the 2018/19 catching season, which should get underway on 1 September.
Following advice from the Marine and Freshwater Reasearch Institute, the country’s Ministry of Fisheries has raised the cod quota from 257,200 metric tons (MT) to 262,000 MT, while the haddock quota jumps from 34,600 MT to 56,700 MT.
It has also increased its saithe quota from 60,237 MT to more than 79,000 MT.
The increased cod and haddock catch from Iceland will partially offset the lower catch limits expected to be set for the Barents Sea. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has recommended that when the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission (JNRFC) management plan is applied, cod catches in 2019 should be no more than 674,678 MT, down from this year’s agreed total allowable catch (TAC) of 775,000 MT.
At the same time, ICES has advised that next year’s haddock catch should not exceed 152,000 MT, which would be more than 50,000 MT lower than this year’s TAC.
