Curbing IUU fishing: the status in Norway

Helga Pedersen, Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs

In my presentation, I will particularly refer to our experiences on resource control through cooperation with Russia in fisheries management and control measures. There are two reasons why I have chosen to do this.

Firstly and most important, Russian-Norwegian cooperation represents the longest lasting experience Norway has on international cooperation in the fisheries sector. It goes back to the 1950s, and was institutionalized through the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission which was established in 1976 to manage i.a cod, haddock and capelin in the Barents Sea.

And the fishing of codfish in the north has always been our most valuable fishing activity. By and large, researchers have deemed this cooperation successful, even in midst of the cold war. Since 1993 fishery control has become an important dimension of the bilateral management cooperation.

Secondly, when we review this cooperation, fundamental challenges in fisheries management are revealed. It is our view that a lack of compliance and implementation of duties in Russia as a flag state is the core problem of fisheries management in the north today.

However, I also wish to emphasize what lessons we can draw from Norwegian efforts to stop illegal fishing and to stop illegal fish from entering our markets.

STATUS

Control authorities

If we take an overview of status on control in the Norwegian government, we should emphasise The Directorate of Fisheries, with jurisdiction based on The Norwegian Sea-Water Fisheries Act. This organisation controls Norwegian vessels in Norwegian and international waters and foreign vessels in Norwegian waters. The directorate also conducts inspections at land of fishing companies, anyone who, for business purposes, are in possession of fish intended for storage, transport or sale and of anyone in possession of documents concerning such fish.

The Coast Guard, is the second chief organisation for resource control of fisheries in waters under Norwegian jurisdiction. The Coast guard is constitutionally subordinated to the Ministry of Defence, and the Coast Guard has its jurisdiction based on The Coast Guard Act. The Coast Guard inspects Norwegian vessels in Norwegian and international waters, and foreign vessels in Norwegian waters in accordance with international law.

The third body of direct control with fisheries in Norway is the Sales Organisations, which jurisdiction is based on The Sea-Water Fisheries Act. They carry out registration and control of catches and landings (quantity and species). All catches to be sold must be sold through the sales organisations. All landings must be weighed and recorded on the sales notes, which provide the basis for the control of quotas.

Central control measures

In addition to the direct control carried out by the institutions mentioned, there are several mechanisms that are in place in order to secure compliance with law and regulations. While I do not have the time available to elaborate on all these here, I would nevertheless mention some of the more important ones;

For Satellite tracking the principal rule is tracking of all Norwegian vessels exceeding 24 meters, regardless of their location. Foreign vessels in Norwegian waters exceeding 24 meters are tracked, and EU vessels exceeding 18 meters. In the future, we will consider to reduce the length of vessels included in mandatory tracking
All Norwegian vessels exceeding 13 meters, and all foreign vessels fishing Economic Zone of Norway are obliged to keep catch log books.
According to Sea-Water Fisheries Act Vessels exceeding 24 meters shall keep approved gross drawings indicating the gross capacity of fish holds on board in cubic metres. This applies to Norwegian vessels everywhere, while for foreign vessels this applies in the Economic Zone of Norway and the Fisheries Zone around Jan Mayen.
Reporting/port notifications for Norwegian vessels:
Factory trawlers, beam trawlers and transhipment vessels shall report on start of fishing, send catch reports, transhipment reports, port notifications and end of fishing reports. This can be transmitted electronically or manually.
All foreign vessels shall send start of fishing reports, catch reports, transhipment reports, port notifications, end of fishing reports and reports on reporting for control, (control point reports and landing notifications).

Landing declaration/sales note: According to our Sea-Water Fisheries Act, landing/ sales notes must be issued at all landings in Norway. Must be signed by both fisherman/seller and buyer. When Norwegian vessels are landing abroad, the responsible person on the vessel shall issue a landing note. The information on the landing/sales note provides the basis for the settling of vessel quotas.

Licence to fish: All Norwegian vessels must be introduced in the register for fishing vessels in the Directorate of Fisheries, and in addition most vessels must have a special authorisation to fish. With respect to foreign vessels, all need a special access-licence to be admitted to engage in fishing operations or assist the fishing fleet.
The Catch log books/cargo log books are recorded in original with two copies of each side of the log book. All Norwegian cod trawlers and the larger shrimp trawlers, as well as all national vessels fishing outside Norwegian waters, must send one of the copies to the Directorate of Fisheries. Other Norwegian vessels have a duty to transmit data on request.
The landing and sales data are collected by the sales organisations and forwarded electronically to the Directorate of Fisheries.
The inspection data from the inspections by the Coast Guard are entered into a data base.
A Database with an overview over ownership, fishing licenses and quotas of each individual vessel is maintained by the directorate. The database also contains a review over each vessel’s landings. This database is public.
Norway has concluded control agreements with the following countries: Canada, Denmark, France, The Faroe Islands, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Russia, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and UK. Data on landings are exchanged electronically.

The main thrust of these control agreements are exchange of information with respect to landings in each other harbours of vessels from the two respective states. In addition practical cooperation and exchange of experience and personnel has been a part of the control agreements. The new generation of control agreements also includes the exchange of information with respect to landings of third country vessels. This expansion of the measures included in the control cooperation is the new and important one in order to meet the IUU-challenge.

Control at sea

The selection of objects to be inspected, both at sea and at land, is based on risk assessment. The Coast Guard carries out the inspections at sea. Inspections in defined areas of risk include: juveniles, intermixture of undersized fish, bycatch, discards, fishing gear, satellite tracking device, catch log book and similar. During inspections, relevant documents and catch at deck and in fish holds are inspected. Physical catches and documents are controlled against the data entered into the catch log book and reports, particularly concerning quantity and species. Ocean-going vessels are in average inspected 3-4 times a year.

Control at landings

Inspection of landings cover relevant documents compared to the physical catch, including inspection of whether the catch has been correctly weighed. Furthermore, it is controlled that the correct quantity and species are entered into the landing/sales note, which is signed by both the captain and buyer.

On the basis of control agreements with the country concerned, the Directorate of Fisheries can request that landings from Norwegian vessels abroad are specially controlled and that the information on the inspections is forwarded to the Directorate of Fisheries.

To sanction violations the Norwegian legal systems have provisions both for Administrative and Penal sanctions.

As administrative sanction catch value from fishing exceeding quota can be confiscated, illegal catches will be confiscated, permit to catch or buy fish can be withdrawn

Administrative sanctions can be applied on Norwegian vessels, independent of where the infringements have taken place.

Penal sanctions are fines and/or imprisonment. Unlimited size on fines. Imprisonment up to two years. According to international agreements, imprisonment can not be applied on foreign nationals. Also the confiscation of vessels, equipment, catch and fishing gear or the value thereof can also be applied.

Criminal law reactions can be applied on Norwegian vessels, independent of where the infringements have taken place.

WHAT WE LACK TO ACHIEVE BETTER RESOURCE CONTROL

When I have given you the overview above, noting that this is only a very brief outline of present regulations, you might wonder how IUU fishing still is such a big problem for Norway.

The answer is twofold: firstly and most important, IUU fishing on migrating stocks is carried out beyond Norwegian jurisdiction with vessels with a flag state where that state does not carry out it’s obligations as a flag state.

Secondly, there are also loopholes in Norwegian jurisdiction that have made us unable to act with the rigour that is required to stop IUU fishing. This applies especially to our competence to refuse harbour services to vessels that are or has been engaged in IUU-activities. To rectify this the Government in June this year has proposed new legislation in this respect.

I believe all delegations at this conference are familiar with the efforts to ensure flag-state compliance and port state control at the international level. The UN call for a flag state performance evaluation will be actively pursued by Norway in initiatives together with other states and the EU commission. There is a growing concern about IUU fishing in the UN, the EU, NEAFC and other regional organizations and many states in our part of the world.

Norway will continue its contribution towards a multilateral regime for better resource control. What we do lack today, is more and better data on fish catches and landings from other states. A common database in NEAFC would be a very important tool.

This could also be extended to cover more regional fisheries organizations. Norway therefore would like to introduce electronic logbook based on the North Atlantic format (NEAFC), valid for all countries.

There is a need to set up a regional (NEAFC/NAFO) system for port state control and transhipment inspections, as well as to set up a common database for information concerning inspections in countries which are members of regional fisheries organisations.

This requires full transparency concerning the exchange of data. The Parties must have databases which are able to communicate information automatically and contains information on all kinds of data which are important for control purposes. This could for instance be information on licences/ fishing authorisations/ participation rights, quotas, reporting/port notifications, satellite tracking, catch log book information, information on landings and sales notes and information on results of inspections.

Let me sum up further regulations that could be improved to achieve better resource control:

The existing arrangement for bills of landing is not satisfactory. Today the bills of landing are prepared in many different versions. Quite often the content is insufficient and makes it “impossible” to track transhipped fish;

therefore the obligation for the factories to keep a record of the production would facilitate a useful means of control:

to introduce electronic exchange of lists of licensed vessels;
NEAFC adoption of a mandatory scheme for port state control that includes all fish caught in the North-East Atlantic.

This will include prior notification at ports, that landings are not permitted before the flag state has confirmed that the catch is legal, the introduction of minimum standards of port control in all European countries concerning control of landings and reporting to flag state and coastal state, plus prohibition to land fish from fishing vessels and transport vessels reefers from non- contracting parties.

to set up an electronic system for communication between databases and for analysis of information

an extended cooperation between national authorities (tax, customs, police and prosecuting authorities) and bilateral cooperation at these levels of government

In addition to these proposals at the international level, Norway will strive even harder to ensure that Norwegian law is adjusted so that IUU fishing is combated even more intensely in areas where we exercise sovereignty.

One of the cornerstones here is an adjustment of national law so that foreign vessels not carrying illegal fish but which take part or has taken part in IUU activities, are denied access to Norwegian ports and any service or support in Norwegian waters.

WHAT NORWAY INTENDS TO DO TO CURB IUU FISHING EVEN MORE FORCEFULLY

I have now reached the point of summing up what Norway intends to do in order to curb IUU fishing even more forcefully than we have done in previous years.

At the international level

At the international level, we will strongly support proposals for a better regime for port state control in regional fisheries organizations, particularly in NEAFC. This, in our view, is a key to make IUU fishing more difficult and less profitable.

Norway will promote the adoption at the next NEAFC meeting in November 2006 of a NEAFC port state control scheme, as this will pave the way for coastal states to exercise their control functions more effectively through enhanced cooperation.

Norway will actively work with the FAO to promote the negotiations of a binding UN-Convention on Port State Control as called for by the Review Conference of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement.

We will fully cooperate with the EU and all relevant states to ensure that we establish comprehensive and transparent databases for fishing vessels, licenses, quotas, catches and landings.

Norway is dedicated to increased exchange of reports on fish catches and landings, and to cooperate on joint inspections as well as exchange of inspectors. Negotiations aimed at entering into new bilateral control agreements with more countries, also outside of Europe has started and will be expanded on.

During this summer, considerable media attention has been brought towards a fishing vessel (“Kabou”) flying a flag of convenience and fishing in international waters in the Barents Sea. Norway sees this as a grim example of how fishing companies can circumvent international law.

Norway has approached Guinea Conacry, as the present flag state, for permission to act against the vessel. Guinea has given such approval and we appreciate the way the Guinean authorities have cooperated.

We wish to use this opportunity also to increase our cooperation with Guinea and hopefully to get Guinea to stop accepting such vessels in their register.
We urge other nations to take comparable steps whenever and where ever a vessel flying a flag of convenience carries out IUU fishing in this manner. Norway will actively pursue a review of flag state performance with the ultimate aim of making it more difficult for IUU vessels to fly flags of convenience.

At the national level

We will improve and increase control of fisheries at sea and at port and other production facilities.

The Norwegian Government has proposed a change in national law for the Parliament, so that vessels engaged in or previously engaged in IUU activities are not allowed to enter Norwegian ports, and do not receive any service from Norwegian companies in Norwegian waters

If the FAO scheme for port state control is adopted by NEAFC in November this year, and the parliament votes in favour of the changes to national jurisdiction on IUU vessels, it will give Norway the legislative basis, amongst other measures, to demand prior notification before entering Norwegian harbours of all vessels, and deny all landings of fish and port calls of fishing vessels and reefers from countries registered in countries that are not parties to the regional fishery organizations.