The conversation and management measures for 2017 were adopted at the recent 35th Annual Meeting of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC).
These were adopted for a number of fish stocks including blue whiting, herring, mackerel, redfish in the Irminger Sea and Rockhall haddock.
NEAFC also focused on improvements to the conservation and management of deep-sea species, it adopted a new approach to this to replace the previous interim guidelines and categorisation, following review by NEAFC’s scientific adviser, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).
This will form the basis of NEAFC’s conservation and management measures for deep-sea species in the future.
The protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs), such as corals, continues to be an important issue for NEAFC.
It is now focusing on measures to ensure that bottom fishing only takes place in areas where it is authorised. No changes were made to the NEAFC’s Monitoring, Control and Enforcement System (MCS), measures at this Annual Meeting,
The NEAFC also continued to place great emphasis on action against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fisheries.
With a number of different measures have been implemented, including NEAFC’s online system of Port State Control, which exchanges information on port entries in real time.
Finally, the NEAFC’s cooperation with other international organisations was highlighted at the Annual Meeting.
This includes the collective arrangement with the OSPAR Commission for the protection of the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic, which has now been operational for two years.
Its good cooperation with several other organisations, including the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) was also welcomed.
The cooperating non-Contracting Party status of the Bahamas, Canada, Liberia, New Zealand and St Kitts and Nevis was renewed for the year 2017.
