“This is an important milestone for the Norwegian Government’s international efforts to prevent illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing,” says State Secretary in the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Vidar Ulriksen. In the negotiations in London this evening, full agreement was reached among all of the countries in the NEAFC regarding the measures that will enter into force starting in May of next year.

Today the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) has adopted binding rules concerning port State control that shall enter into force on 1 May 2007. These rules will apply to all of the member states in the NEAFC, i.e. Russia, all EU countries, Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, Greenland and Norway. The port State control covers landings from both fishing vessels and transport vessels in the ports of member states.

Before they may land, the vessels must send a notice to the port State, which, among other things, shall provide information about the fish they have on board: the type and quantity of each product. The port State forwards this notice to the fishing vessel’s flag State, which must verify that the catch has been legally caught and subtracted from the vessel’s quotas before the port State may permit landing and further transport and/or sale of the fish. This will effectively prohibit landings of illegally caught fish. Among other things, the Secretariat of the NEAFC will be informed by the port State about the quantity of fish that will be landed, and this information will be made available so that transparency is ensured.

A significant percentage of the landings shall be inspected. This kind of inspection shall include complete monitoring of the whole landing and ensure that all information that is furnished is correct. The aim is to prevent false information from being furnished in the notices. Such a violation of the rules will be punished with sanctions in the same way as a violation of other obligations to keep records.

The grounds for blacklisting vessels have been greatly improved by also including IUU activity in the member States’ economic zones. Up to now, only IUU activity in international waters (the “Loophole”, the Atlantic Doughnut Hole and the marine areas west of Ireland) has been included. This makes it impossible to operate with flag-of-convenience transport vessels in the Barents Sea without being blacklisted. Blacklisted vessels shall not be permitted to call at ports, receive services and supplies, change crew members, etc. in the ports of the member States.

“Norwegian authorities are very satisfied with the resolution in the NEAFC,” says State Secretary Vidar Ulriksen, who emphasises that this is a big step toward improving the control of IUU fishing.