Norway and the EU have decided to reduce the prawn quotas in an area off the southern Norwegian coast by 10 percent midway through the fishing season due new scientific information on the state of the stocks.
Norway’s Fisheries Minister, Per Sandberg, said he understood the problems that a mid-season change in quotas creates for fishermen, but that this was the only reasonable solution after receiving the new advice.
This adjustment, which applies to prawn quotas in the North Sea and Skagerrak administered by Norway together with the EU, would ensure continued profitable and sustainable fishing, he said.
The International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) recently adjusted its advice for catches of prawns this year.
In October last year, it recommended that catches for 2016 should not exceed 21,500 metric tons (MT). Later, Norway and the EU agreed on a total quota for 2016 at 17,440 MT. But in March, ICES amended its earlier quota advice and recommended that the total allowable catch (TAC) for this year should not exceed 13,721 MT, or 11,869 MT, if the fishing effort for prawns is not reduced significantly.
Norway said the new figures were the result of a methodology review of the prawn stock in January this year and are based on a new model that has been under development for some years.
Even with the reduction, this year’s quota is significantly higher than the previous year – between 2015 and 2016, the quota increased from 10,900 MT to 15,696 MT.
