NEAFC is the intergovernmental organisation responsible for fisheries management in
international waters in the North-East Atlantic. Its Contracting Parties are Denmark (in
respect of the Faroe Islands and Greenland), the European Union, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom.
In opening the meeting, the President, Janet Skarðsá, welcomed participants to London. She noted that the current political situation with the war in Ukraine was creating barriers to NEAFC’s work, with cancellation of committee and WG meetings which were the backbone of the organisation. This had affected the quality of decisions and implementation of measures. Despite this, NEAFC and its Parties were trying to find ways of keeping NEAFC functioning to support to the Parties’ international fisheries commitments.
The President underlined that the organisation was aiming to play its role in the
challenges facing the global environment, while at the same time delivering on food
security, NEAFC’s small pelagic fish being potentially one of the most highly nutritious,
low impact food protein there is. In doing so, NEAFC needed to find a way to do better
on setting a science based maximum sustainable yield in its fisheries which was central to its mission.
At the Annual Meeting, NEAFC adopted conservation and management measures for 2025 for a number of fish stocks on the basis of the latest independent scientific advice provided by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). The stocks include Redfish, herring, mackerel, blue whiting and Rockall haddock. The agreements for the pelagic stocks were not comprehensive, given allocations of the Total Allowable Catch to each Contracting Party had not been set out for 2025. On other stocks, a complete ban on fishing of porbeagle was renewed, while a very limited fishery was allowed on spurdog, given its recovery over the last years. Additionally, a complete ban on fishing Orange roughy was agreed by consensus to cover the years 2025-2028.
Canada renewed its General Cooperating non-Contracting Party status for the year 2025. Active Cooperating non-Contracting Party status (which would allow them to deploy vessels for transhipment operations in the NEAFC Convention Area) was not decided for the Bahamas and for Panama. Further considerations are ongoing towards a decision on this in early 2025.
At the meeting, Contracting Parties underlined the importance of continuing cross sectoral cooperation in the context of biodiversity protection and ecosystem-based management of fisheries.
The meeting concluded with the election of Stefán Ásmundsson (Iceland) as President of NEAFC for a 2 year term.
La entrada The 43rd Annual Meeting of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) was held in London from 12 to 15 November 2024 se publicó primero en Actualidad Marítima y Portuaria.