Norway has ratified an agreement aiming to prevent unregulated fishing in the central Arctic Ocean and promote scientific research in the region.
The agreement is important for managing the seas around the North Pole and adds to the global effort to curb unregulated fishing in accordance with the Law of the Sea Convention and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement.
It will also facilitate collaborative international research to keep track of fish stocks and ecosystems in the coming years, important research which will help monitor and understand the effects of climate change in the region.
“The agreement is an important part in the global regulatory framework for the management of living marine resources,” said the Minister of Fisheries, Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen.
The agreement commits the five Arctic coastal states of Norway, Russia, the United States, Canada, and Denmark/Greenland/the Faroe Islands as well as the distant water fishing nations of China, Japan, South Korea, Iceland and the EU to abstain from any future unregulated fishing in the international part of the central Arctic Ocean.
It follows on from the declaration against unregulated high seas fishing in the central Arctic Ocean signed by the coastal states in Oslo in 2015. Negotiations ended in 2017 and the agreement was signed in Greenland on 3 October 2018. The Norwegian parliament approved the ratification on 31 March 2020 and the agreement will enter into force 30 days after all ten signatories have ratified.
