Saving Seafood

Coastal states agree to stick to ICES advice on blue whiting, herring but have yet to reach quota distribution agreement

October 15, 2026 — Northeast Atlantic coastal nations have once again agreed to abide by International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) scientific advice on the blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring quotas but have yet to reach a quota-sharing agreement.

ICES released its advice on multiple Northeast Atlantic pelagic species in early October, bumping up the blue whiting advice for 2027 to 1,064,191 metric tons (MT), up from the 851,344 MT it advised in 2026; herring was increased to 588,004 MT, up 10 percent over its advice for the prior year. Coastal states including Norway, the E.U., the U.K., the Faroe Islands, and Iceland then met in London and agreed that those numbers should be the unilateral quota for 2027.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Seafood industry wants Northeast Atlantic coastal states to compromise on pelagic fishery catches

September 27, 2021 — Setting catch levels for Northeast Atlantic pelagic stocks above the established scientific advice year-on-year is an unacceptable threat to shared-stock fisheries, the North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA) has warned fisheries ministers ahead of next month’s North Atlantic Coastal States Meeting 2021.

In an open letter to coastal states ministers and their delegations, NAPA states that its collective – as a major purchaser of Northeast Atlantic pelagics – wants to see coastal states taking a leadership position and commit to science-based management of Northeast Atlantic mackerel, Atlanto-Scandian herring, and Northeast Atlantic blue whiting.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

PETTER JOHANNESSEN: The blue whiting and herring fisheries didn’t have to lose their MSC certification. Here’s what should happen next.

December 15, 2020 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced in early December that it would suspend its certification of Atlanto-Scandic herring and blue whiting fisheries as of Dec. 30, affecting eight certificates across European fisheries. This follows the suspension of the MSC certificate on mackerel fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic in 2019.

This had been expected for quite some time and the action taken by all involved stakeholders, starting with the MSC certificate holders (i.e. the fishing industry), including other industry representatives, during the last years, was sadly not enough.

What does it mean, really?

Let us be clear: the MSC suspension does not reflect an issue related to illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing at an individual fishery level. No one has overfished their allocated quota.

Read the full opinion piece at IntraFish