Bjarkey Olsen Gunnarsdóttir delivered the opening speech at the Icelandic Fisheries Exhibition this week.
Photo: Sigurjón Ragnar / Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries of Iceland.
The 14th Icelandic Fisheries, Seafood & Aqua Exhibition (IceFish) was the platform chosen by the Icelandic Minister of Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries to announce its intention to increase fishing fees on some pelagic. A few days ago, the Ministry already announced she would introduce proposals for changes to fisheries laws at the upcoming parliamentary session, so Bjarkey Olsen Gunnarsdóttir took advantage of her opening speech at the exhibition to further specify her intentions.
"This winter, I will introduce a bill to increase fishing fees," she announced. "Revising these fees is a key step to ensuring that society gets a fair share of the resource rent from the fisheries sector. By raising fishing fees on specific pelagic species, we are moving toward greater fairness and responsibility," the Minister continued.
During her speech, Olsen Gunnarsdóttir said fishing fees benefit the economy in Iceland by promoting equity, sustainability, and responsible resource use. "They ensure that the profits from our shared resources flow to the nation, strengthen public services, and encourage better and more sustainable utilization," she claimed.
The Minister added that this issue, like others she plans to introduce this winter, builds trust and responsibility in the fisheries sector.
In addition to changes to the fishing fees laws -which will be aligned with the financial plan for 2025-2029 -, the amendments Iceland's Government intends to introduce concern provisions related to transparency and affiliated parties, coastal fishing, marine protected areas, or the Fisheries Project Fund.
Likewise, Iceland's Fisheries Minister also used her speech at Icefish to emphasize the importance of responsible resource management. Bjarkey Olsen Gunnarsdóttir stressed the need for long-term planning for sustainable fisheries, focusing on environmental protection and efficient utilization of those resources.
"We have managed to establish a good balance between the utilization and protection of fish stocks," the Minister said. "Historically, this is significant because unsustainable fishing was a major problem here in the past. With the introduction of the quota system, we curbed overfishing of fish stocks around Iceland. However, it is safe to say that we have, to some extent, lost public trust with the introduction of quota transferability."
Finally, Olsen Gunnarsdóttir said that a parliamentary proposal on ocean conservation and a bill on protected areas will play a key role in this effort to find a balance between the use of the sea's resources and its conservation.
According to the Icelandic Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries information, the objective of the proposal is to protect 30% of the marine areas within Iceland's economic zone by 2030, in line with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.