The cod fishing quota for the current coastal fishing season in Iceland has been increased by 2,000 tons.
Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries of Iceland.
Iceland's Minister of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries, Bjarkey Olsen Gunnarsdóttir, has signed an amendment to the regulation allowing an increased fishing quota of 2,000 tons of cod for the ongoing coastal fishing season. Following this decision by the Icelandic Fisheries Minister, the total cod allocation for the coastal fishery will be 12,000 tons instead of 10,000 tons.
The Icelandic Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries has said the increase comes from the exchange market, including 1,300 tons of cod obtained in exchange for mackerel quotas. The measure is intended as compensation for those fishing communities less favored by previously established quotas.
"This decision is made to correct the imbalance caused by the arrangement that has been in place for coastal fishing, where some communities have been at a disadvantage," said Minister Olsen Gunnarsdóttir.
With this increase, the share of cod for coastal fishing rises to over 55% of the cod within the social part of the fisheries management system. This is the first time Iceland has allocated such a large share of quotas to the coastal fishery.
It should be recalled that in October, when a deal was reached on the Northeast Atlantic mackerel quota for 2024, the Northeast Atlantic coastal countries set a total quota of 739,386 tons, but there was still no agreement on how it would be distributed.
Recently, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the Faroe Islands have signed a three-year deal to manage, distribute and access mackerel fished in each other's waters in which Iceland does not yet participate.
At the time of the signing of that agreement and referring to the EU, Iceland, and Greenland, the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Marianne Sivertsen Næss said she hoped that it could inspire the other parties to join a global coastal states agreement at a later stage.