Management of Pelagic Fisheries in the North East Atlantic: Norwegian Spring Spawning Herring, Mackerel and Blue Whiting

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview over the fisheries for Norwegian spring spawning herring, mackerel and blue whiting and analyse how they are managed. The stocks under consideration are harvested by coastal states and distant water fishing states (DWFS).  For herring, however, Norway, Russia, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and the EU are all coastal states with the stock not being exploited by any DWFS.  There have been difficulties in reaching agreement of the management for all three stocks. The reason for these problems is that the distribution of the stocks and the different countries’ fishing opportunities have changed from time to time, putting the existing management arrangement under pressure. Here we review the management and current sustainability of the fisheries.