"This should be good news for Norwegian fishers," said Marianne Sivertsen Næss, Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
Photo: Jostein Saltskår / Norwegian Institute of Marine Research.
Following negotiations in November with the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and securing approval for its bluefin tuna fishing plan for 2026, Norway has announced that regulations for the 2026 fishery have been established, confirming that Norwegian vessels will be able to fish around 39% more, a total of 535 tons of bluefin tuna this year.
The Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans stated that this year's quota increase is due both to the fact that the total bluefin tuna quota has increased for the next three-year management period (2026-2028) and to Norway having secured a higher share in the quota negotiations.
The total quota for bluefin tuna in the Northeast Atlantic for the period 2026-2028 is 48,403 tons. This quota is shared by 20 contracting parties that have agreed on its distribution during the management period.
In the specific case of Norway, its share of the total quota is 0.95%, equivalent to 461.38 tons. However, both Norway and the other parties are allowed to transfer up to 20% of their quota from one year to the next. Thus, Norway's total quota for 2026 has been set at 535 tons.
Of that total of 535 tons, 10 tons are reserved for bycatch, 10 tons are set aside for tag-and-release and recreational fishing, and 35 tons for research, including the bluefin tuna live storage project, leaving 480 tons available for commercial fishermen.
The Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans reported that, as in previous years, recreational fishing will be facilitated with the aim of tagging bluefin tuna before releasing them back into the sea.
"The Norwegian quota for bluefin tuna has increased by about 39% from 2025 to 2026. This should be good news for Norwegian fishers, who will now have the opportunity to catch more bluefin tuna," said the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Marianne Sivertsen Næss.
Specifically, in 2026, a total of seven purse seiners and six longliners will be eligible to register for bluefin tuna fishing. The total quota for the group has been set at 440 tons. Both purse seiners and longliners participating will be allocated 100 tons of bluefin tuna, of which 30 tons are guaranteed.
Concerning the small-scale coastal fishing group, up to 40 vessels will be eligible to participate and fish within a group quota set at 40 tons. The conditions for participating in this group are that the vessel must be less than 15 meters in length and fish close to the coast using selective gear.
Norway is not the only country that has secured an increase in its quota following the 29th Annual Meeting of ICCAT—the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas is an intergovernmental fishery organization responsible for the conservation of tuna and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas.
As reported by WeAreAquaculture, Iceland, for example, achieved a 13% increase, while Spain, which, due to the recovery of the species, was already considering increasing the bluefin tuna quota in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean before the meeting, finally did so, setting it at a total of 6,783.67 tons.
