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ICELAND'S trawler companies are coming to the end of their controversial mackerel season. They have been given a quota of around 146,000 tonnes this year which has caused anger in Norway and among some EU countries which claim that such high catches are damaging the stock.
However, Iceland thinks differently and in the final weeks has seen some strong fishing. The pelagic vessels of one company, HB Grandi’s, are already close to finishing their mackerel quotas. According to Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson at the company’s pelagic division, there remains only around 2, 000 tonnes of its individual quota to be caught.
He said that the fishing on mackerel fell away yesterday after some excellent fishing all during August and the last 24 hours have been hard going. A large fleet has been fishing on a small area off the east of Iceland over the last few days, both pelagic boats and factory vessels, with around 30 ships in that zone yesterday.
He went on: ‘We now have around 2,000 tonnes of our mackerel quota left and what happens after that still hasn’t been decided. We have flexibility to keep some quota back for next year, or we could also now take 10 per cent of next year’s quota, which would give us an additional 1, 500 tonnes on top of this year’s catch."
The company has 12,000 tonnes of its uncontroversial herring quota still uncaught and hopes that this will be enough to keep the pelagic factory at its Vopnafjördur base running into October. As there is generally a mackerel by-catch with the herring, the pelagic vessels need to keep some mackerel quota back to cover that and to make the most of the herring fishery.
Talks are due to take place in London in the next few weeks to try to find a solution to the long running mackerel dispute, which also involves the Faroe Islands who has given itself a 150,000 tonne quota.
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