June 29, 2018 — New regulatory measures for salmon fisheries around the Faroe Islands and off west Greenland have been adopted by the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO).
While the measure applying to the Faroes is a rollover of the previous zero-catches measures, the European Commission (EC) said that the agreement on a new regulatory measure for western Greenland was “particularly significant.” This is because the latter addresses several shortcomings in terms of control and monitoring of the catches and sets an annual total allowable catch (TAC) of 30 metric tons (MT) for the period 2018-2020.
Under the previous regulatory measure in place since 2015, no agreement could be reached on the TAC, and Denmark (in respect of the Faroe Islands and Greenland) had autonomously declared an annual quota of 45 MT.
The EC said that the new agreement illustrated a renewed willingness of all parties to improve cooperation toward the conservation of these salmon stocks and represented an important step to protect the especially endangered southern populations.
These new protection measures were agreed at NASCO’s 35th annual meeting, held in Portland, Maine, U.S.A.