A short, call-to-action film has been launched by the North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA) as part of the supply chain coalition’s mission to reduce the overfishing of mackerel in the Northeast Atlantic.
Explaining the new campaign’s background, NAPA said that between the countries that fish for mackerel – most of which is caught by the coastal states of Norway, the EU, the UK, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland – the total annual catch has been on average 40% more than scientific recommendations for the last 15 years. Meanwhile, the stock has continuously declined since 2015, and ongoing excessive catches could threaten it further.
At the heart of the issue lies a political impasse and a grave absence of sharing and compromise, it said.
To find out how difficult this really is to overcome, NAPA challenged schoolchildren to manage their own “catches” in a mock mackerel fishery, while ensuring there was enough to share without causing further declines. The result was discussion, consensus, and even acceptance of losses for some of the “fishing nations”.
There is, NAPA said, a serious point at the heart of this campaign film: even schoolchildren can see that there’s no way to keep taking more than the total available, and collaboration is the only way forward.
NAPA partners from across the region, including processors, supermarkets, foodservice companies and suppliers, are therefore urging the coastal states to come together and “do the mackerel maths” – namely, to finally agree on a comprehensive sharing agreement that ensures total catches stay within recommended limits, securing a healthy future for the stock.
The film, shot on location at a school in London, will be showcased by NAPA at the upcoming Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona. With a series of educational sessions for attendees, it’s a chance for the seafood supply chain to hear new schools of thought on the big issues. NAPA hopes that its lesson will not continue to be ignored.
Chris Shearlock, Ambient Sustainability Director at Thai Union and NAPA’s Mackerel Subgroup Chair commented: “This film points to a serious, collective failure of governments. We need the coastal states to rethink their attitudes to agreement and collectively bring catches down in line with the scientific advice. Mackerel is the perfect example of a failure of leadership from our Coastal States’ governments – short-term thinking and disagreements blinding negotiators to a chance to secure generational sustainability for the stock.”
NAPA’s market collective has spearheaded ‘policy FIPs’, designed to support and cultivate opportunities for meaningful collaboration and science-based sharing agreements between coastal states. Through these FIPs, NAPA members have independently made an array of sourcing commitments, many of which indicate they will stop sourcing from Northeast Atlantic pelagics – mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring – unless full sharing agreements are reached by the FIP deadline.
With this looming in just 12 months’ time, NAPA has made it clear that action is imperative.
“There is no time to lose,” NAPA Project Lead Rob Blyth Skyrme said. “Coastal States only have until April 2026 to come together to end the overfishing of mackerel. In 15 years, they have failed to do so, and the need for progress is now urgent. Long-term comprehensive sharing agreements are essential - but there are also short-term actions that everyone can take to protect the stock, such as limiting fishing in international waters. We are looking to all nations to be part of the solution and deliver meaningful improvements: there is no excuse for inaction. Collaborative, sensible, human – that’s all we’re asking the coastal states to be.”
