Fisheries Committee on Oct. 17th, 2016

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Good morning, colleagues and international guests.

Welcome to our guests from Norway and Iceland, who will be speaking about the northern cod fishery and northern cod management in their respective jurisdictions.

From the Government of Norway, we have Vidar Landmark, director general, Department for Fisheries and Aquaculture; and Elisabeth Norgard Gabrielsen, director of the section for fisheries management. From Iceland, we have Gudmundur Thordarson, head of the Demersal research station in Iceland.

I should say, Dr. Thordarson, that I am from Manitoba and I know the community of Gimli very well. There are many Thordarsons and Fredericksons and Tomlinsons there. Just the week before last, I was at the Atlantic Salmon Federation dinner and I sat at the table with the ambassador from Iceland and his wife. There's a very strong Manitoba-Iceland connection, and I'm just delighted that you're able to join us today.

Normally every speaker gets 10 minutes. Given the fact that our time constraints are not nearly as they usually are, if you go over a little bit, I think the committee would welcome that, given your kindness in terms of participating in these hearings for us. There will be 10 minutes or so of speaking by our witnesses, and then there will be questions and answers after both speakers.

Who will be going first?

[Vidar Landmark, Director General, Department for Fisheries and Aquaculture, Government of Norway]

Iceland can start, if you want.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Well, the letter I comes before the letter N, so let's start with Iceland.

Dr. Thordarson.

[Gudmundur Thordarson, Marine and Freshwater Research Institute]

Thank you. I was hoping that Norway would start, but it's okay.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gudmundur Thordarson]

The Icelandic cod fishery has gone through some rocky periods in the last 40 years or so. To start at the beginning, during the cod wars in the seventies, there was a high pressure on fishing. With the extension of the exclusive economic zone in 1976, we finally got control of our fishing shelf. That led to a decrease in fishing pressure soon afterwards, but Icelanders were quick to pick up, and in the early eighties, the situation was quite bleak in Iceland. At that time, there were various management proposals done or management measures taken in terms of trying to control fishing efforts, but it was politically very difficult. The advice from the scientists was often not heeded or was partly heeded. That led to fishing far beyond the recommended catch levels.

In the early nineties, it was apparent that things were not working out very well. In 1984, there had been a mixture of a TAC and an effort control system put in place. That was instituted for vessels larger than 10 metric tons. That really did not work well, because vessels could leave the system and then come back into it, and they somehow got new shares and so on. It really was not working. The effort option was taken out of the system in the 1990s with the Fisheries Management Act of 1990, which came into full force in the 1991-92 fishing season. Vessels that were smaller than 10 metric tons were exempt from the ITQ system, but gradually they were also taken into the system, with boats larger than six tonnes in 2001. In 2003, most of them were under the ITQ system.

As for how the quota was set up until the 1991-92 fishing year, the TAC was set at a certain level based on scientific advice, but as I said earlier, it was not always heeded. Then they made some allocations for various socio-economic factors in the system. It became apparent that this was also not really working. In the early 1990s, there was this governmental committee that was given the task of coming up with a harvest control rule, which took into account various parts.... It was based on making a sustainable profitable fishery. That was the objective. They came up with a certain type of harvest control rule for fishing roughly 22% of the “reference biomass” each year. That is a technical term that basically means cod older than four years.

However, in consultations with the stakeholders and politicians, this percentage was increased to 25%, and there was also some sort of a buffer in the rule. The rule seemed to be working in the beginning, but in the year 2000 it became apparent that the Marine Research Institute had overestimated stock size. Also, because of some technical issues in the fisheries management system, there was often quite a lot of overshot in the fishing.

The latest amendment to the harvest control rule was for the 2007-08 fishing season, when they decreased the percentage to 20%. Since then, we have seen a rapid increase both in the spawning stock biomass and in the reference biomass, the biomass age four years and older. Of course, subsequently we have seen a lot of reduction in fishing pressure. On top of that, there has been various other effects. For example, the hours trawled inside our exclusive economic zone have decreased a lot after we managed to decrease the fishing pressure. The trawl footprint has decreased a lot.

The situation is now such that the stock will probably not get any larger. Given the current recruitment level, the stock is, at that stage, kind of in balance. We do not really expect to see more catches landed, somewhere between 200,000 to 250,000 tonnes a year, unless recruitment starts picking up again. The average recruitment in the last 30 years is considerably lower than it was in the past.

The good news is that on the horizon there are probably one or two year classes that will enter the fisheries in the next two or three years. It looks like they are going to be quite large, so hopefully we may break away from this 200,000 to 250,000 tonnes of codfish we currently have.

I think that has summarized the management history and how things have been going. In short, for the last 10 years or so, the stock has increased a lot. That has mostly been because the cod is getting older and living longer, not because of a huge recruitment.

That's the short story from Iceland.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Thank you very much.

Now we have our friends from Norway.

I don't know who is going to start first, but the floor is yours.

[Vidar Landmark]

Mr. Chair, I will start first.

Good morning, everyone.

I will pick up where our Icelandic colleague ended and say that is more or less the same situation as in Norway. The biological status of our northeast Arctic cod is at present very good. The quota sizes have increased in the last 10 years from 424,000 tonnes in 2007, to 894,000 tonnes for 2016, and with the highest size in 2013 with one million tonnes as the total quota. It's worth noting that the quota has more than doubled in these 10 years, even though this stock has been classified as fully utilized in all kinds of global statistics on stock assessments. It just goes to show that there is a possibility to increase the out-take also from stocks that are classified as fully utilized through good management in accordance with the nature of the conditions.

Unlike Iceland, this cod stock is managed jointly by Norway and Russia through the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission. In our commission meetings—this year's meetings are starting today—we drew up coordinated programs for surveys and research that need to be done. The information from both the Norwegian and the Russian surveys goes through the system of producing management advice through ICES, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. The Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission does not have its own scientific body as some regional fisheries management organizations have. We receive advice directly from the international system in ICES, but the advisory committee has the last word on which advice to give managers.

Having said that, I must stress that there is a very strong history of scientific co-operation between Norway and Russia on this cod stock. The scientific co-operation was formalized in the late 1950s, so we have a history of almost 60 years of formalized scientific co-operation on surveys and other kinds of oceanographic and management science-based activities together with Russia.

This stock, as was explained from Iceland, has had its ups and downs in the 40 years since the economic zones were established. The lowest point in our history of the cod fishery was in 1989-90, and that was more or less a collapse of the cod stock, which brought forward very strong management—

[Elisabeth Norgard Gabrielsen, Director, Section for Fisheries Management, Government of Norway]

—regulations.

[Vidar Landmark]

—regulations in the Norwegian fishery.

The co-operation between Norway and Russia on the cod stock and the other shared stocks in the northern areas is based on a joint setting of total allowable catch quotas, but then both parties go back to our respective countries and regulate our fisheries.

I'm not sure if it is of interest to the committee to hear a bit about our national regulations and our fleet management policies in the cod fisheries. I could say a few words on that, if that is of interest to the committee.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

I can see nods around the table. Our committee would be very interested in that. Thank you.

[Vidar Landmark]

Okay.

We have our national quota from the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission, which has established a fixed sharing of this quota between various vessel groups. Altogether, we have six vessel groups in our cod fishery.

The first sharing of quota is between trawlers and vessels fishing with conventional gear. In the Norwegian fishery, conventional gear is hook, longline, nets, and Danish seine. The quota for the conventional gear group is then divided into six different group quotas: one for ocean-going vessels, four closed-access groups for coastal vessels, and one open group. This system was established back in 1990, when we had the collapse of the cod stocks, to make sure that we had at least some vessels that had enough income from this fishery to sustain us in the crisis. After the cod stock recovered, it was decided that this system should go forward with closed access to most of the quota and fixed sharing between different vessel groups.

It should also be mentioned here that the regulation of quota between the vessel groups and between the vessels inside the group is based on secondary legislation fixed by the ministry for one year only. In principle, the division of quota between groups is up for consideration each year. There is, however, a very strong political commitment to having a stable division of quota, a stable sharing of quota, between groups and between vessels, so we have actually developed a fixed system for this over the years. Very much of this work was done in the national fishermen's organization to make sure that the fishermen were committed to a compromise whereby quota for different species were divided between vessel groups.

The compromises they reached have actually been in place in the cod fishery since the beginning of the 1990s, making the situation for each and every vessel very predictable. Of course, the total quota goes up and down, but their share, the individual vessel's share of the quota, is fixed in this compromise, not legally, but by a political commitment to having this kind of system. Our system is a little different from the Icelandic system, where they have more clearly an ITQ system, making it even more predictable for the vessel owners, but making it more difficult for the minister and the ministry to make changes in the distribution if that is deemed necessary.

This system, with a very tight connection between science and the fixing of quotas and a very strict division of quota between vessel groups, has produced a situation whereby the industry really expects the authorities to be predictable. This has made it possible for the industry to invest in the modernization of the vessels, not only for the bigger ocean-going vessels, but also for the coastal vessels, where we now have a rather modern and effective fishing fleet, and also the coastal fleet.

We place very great emphasis also on control and enforcement of the quota regulations. Our coast guard is present out at sea and our control authorities are present with regard to landings of fish. We do not control all landings of fish, obviously, but we try to control a certain percentage each year to be sure that there are no irregularities in the system.

Should we add something, Elisabeth?

[Elisabeth Norgard Gabrielsen]

No. I think that's fine for now.

[Vidar Landmark]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Thank you very much.

Those were very comprehensive testimonies.

Our first questioner is Ms. Jordan.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It is very interesting whenever you hear what other countries are doing with regard to their fisheries. I have a few different questions.

First of all, to the gentleman from Norway, what did you say your quota was at this point?

[Vidar Landmark]

For cod this year it's 894,000 tonnes.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Yes. That's what I wrote down.

[Vidar Landmark]

That is between Norway and Russia.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay. That's the joint quota; I wasn't clear on that.

Is that evenly divided between the two countries or is it broken up?

[Vidar Landmark]

We break it up into three parts. First, a part for third countries. After that it's divided between Norway and Russia. I think I remember that the Norwegian quota is something like 427,000 tonnes. I can check it.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay.

When it collapsed in 1989, what did your TAC go to? If you're fishing 894,000 tonnes, that's substantial.

[Vidar Landmark]

It was 130,000 tonnes or something like that. That was the advice for 1990.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay. The division of quotas is received every year. Do you determine what the quota is going to be every year based on science?

[Vidar Landmark]

Yes, that is based on the advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, and then the actual quota is fixed in negotiations between Russia and Norway.