Iceland’s whitefish catching sector will be allowed to land more cod and haddock in the new fishing season that gets underway on 1 September 2017, with the Minister of Fisheries deciding to raise the quota for cod by around 11,000 metric tons (MT) to 255,172 MT. At the same time, the country’s haddock total available catch (TAC) is increased for the first time in recent years to a level of 39,890 MT, up more than 5,000 MT compared to the current 2016-17 season.
Both of these new limits are within the recommendations of the country’s Marine Research Institute (MRI) and will provide welcome news for the European processing industry, which is expecting to see another reduction in the cod supply from the Barents Sea.
Scientists within the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) recently recommended that the Barents Sea cod TAC for 2018 should be set at 712,000 MT, which is 20 percent less than this year’s limit. This is the fifth year in a row that ICES has recommended a reduction in this fishery’s TAC following the peak quota of 1 million MT in 2013.
The Russian–Norwegian Fisheries Commission will meet in October to decide upon the final cod TAC for 2018. While the Commission does not have to accept the ICES recommendations, it tends to take the advice into consideration when settling upon the catch limits within these waters.
