Faroese minister of fisheries, Jacob Vestergaard, has decided to permit vessels other than purse seiners to catch mackerel.
Only purse seiners have been allowed to fish for mackerel in the past, so the change to extend the quota to other vessel classes will lead to “a more inclusive, and more dispersed, quota”, says the ministry.
The interest in mackerel among shipowners has been very high this year. The ministry says that shrinking resources have led to some hard years for the Faroese fishing fleet, and shipowners see their newfound ability to share in the mackerel quota as a welcome opportunity to win back losses from fishing for other traditional resources that have been declining, such as cod, haddock and coalfish.
Though most of the quota will be divided among Faroese ships, some of it will be given to Russia in exchange for permission for Faroese trawlers to fish for cod in the Barents Sea, as has been done for several years.
Also, a few thousand tonnes of the quota have been assigned to trials of a new method for catching mackerel, whereby the fish is pumped directly from the trawl while at sea. The investigators running these experiments hope that this new method will result in a higher quality mackerel catch.
The Faroese government expects that this year's mackerel quota will net an increase of €17m in revenues for the Treasury.
