K.V. Drevetnyak, Yu.A. Kovalev, Yu.M. Lepesevich, B.F. Prischepa, E.A. Shamray, M.S. Shevelev
Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (PINRO),
Murmansk, Russia

The role of management in marine fisheries became particularly important in the XX century when fleet capacity and catch rates increased greatly, while commercial fish stocks began to reduce rapidly.

A large number of commercially valuable populations were brought to depletion. In many cases, despite the introduced moratorium on their fishery, abundance of stocks did not reach its previous level or the recovery took a long time.

Against the background of depressed stocks in most areas of the World Ocean, the Barents Sea and adjacent waters appear to be a relatively healthy region. However, flaws in the management did not allow to avoid the worldwide downward trend. In the last century, the strategy used in the marine fishery was to increase catch by raising fishing effort, to improve fishing gear, to increase catch rates, to discover and exploit new fishing grounds and stocks under conditions of almost no limiting factors. In the result, by the mid-XX century commercial stocks in the Barents Sea and adjacent waters became to decrease.

During a long time, in the management of cod species Soviet Union and Norway applied only technical regulatory measures (minimum trawl mesh size, minimum landing size, permanent or temporal closure of areas with high bycatch of juveniles, etc.). However, a decrease in catches primarily catches of cod, indicated insufficient effectiveness of these management measures.

As was shown with time, the most effective way of fisheries regulation was to limit total catch, i.e. to establish total allowable catch (TAC). For the most important target species in the Barents Sea limitation of the total catch began in 1976 within the frames of the established Joint Soviet-Norwegian Fisheries Commission. Despite this measure was delayed, introduction of catch quota allowed to maintain the commercial importance of the most valuable for the regional economy fish species (cod and haddock), although their stocks continued to decrease even after the TAC had been set.

Reasons behind insufficient efficiency of catch quota in those years were as follows:

- TAC was established higher than scientific advice under the pressure of fishing industry;

- TAC was overestimated due to scanty knowledge of stocks and insufficient development of fisheries management theory;

- TAC was overfished as a consequence of unreported catch (illegal catch, discards, unregulated fishery by third countries, angler and recreational fishing as well as some types of commercial fishery in the beginning of introduction of the new regulatory measure, etc.).

Development of the fisheries management theory in 1990's led to the so-called precautionary approach intended to determine such levels of TAC, which can ensure maintenance of reproductive capacity of population under conditions of uncertain stock estimates and fisheries parameters. Within the frames of precautionary approach biological reference points were determined which are used by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) to elaborate recommendations on TAC for the most studied and economically valuable commercial species in the Barents Sea and Northeast Atlantic. Successful application of the precautionary approach strictly following scientific advice may be exemplified by fishery for saithe in the Barents and Norwegian Seas, which contributed to recovery of the saithe stock up to the safe limit. Less effective was management of cod and haddock using TAC, which was established by the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission at levels above those advised by ICES.

In 2002, the 31st session of the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission adopted the developed within the above Commission the management concept and "Basic document regarding the main principles and criteria for long term, sustainable management of living marine resources in the Barents and Norwegian Seas". Based on this document harvest control rules (TAC) for cod and haddock were formalized, which have been used for these species since 2003. Introduction of the agreed decision making process approved by ICES permitted the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission to weaken the influence of opportunistic approach to its decisions and led to the conformity with scientific advice in the management of cod stock in 2004-2004.

Analysis of the first results from such management showed that the use of the rule developed by the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission to determine TAC of cod allowed to get the value of mean annual catch close to the maximum sustainable yield. However, in practical implementation of this approach to the cod management the expected effect was not reached. Overfishing of TAC due to unreported catches entailed the situation when the expected positive stock dynamics allowing to increase the catch, in a year, at the next stock assessment turned out to be corrected towards a decrease.

Management of fisheries with the use of precautionary approach permits to lower the risk of stock depletion but is not optimal with relation to the maximum sustainable yield since it does not take into account ecosystem aspects of the stock management.

This was the reason for the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission at its 32nd session to request scientists of Russia and Norway to estimate maximum possible sustainable yield of the most important commercial species of the Barents Sea. The work along these lines is being conducted by PINRO and IMR within the joint project. The results from this work may become a conception of new fisheries strategy taking into account complicated interactions of fishing species in the marine ecosystem.

FISHERY IN NORTH ATLANTIC: REALITY AND PROSPECTS