Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Page 46

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TRANSNATIONAL COOPERATION
IN NORDIC ATLANTIC REGIONS
(Denmark, Iceland et al) will. In fact, land-
ings of Russian cod are already a signifi-
cant addition to the processing industries in
several fishing communities in the Faroe Is-
lands, Iceland and Greenland as well as
Denmark, Portugal etc.
For Norway, this new division of labour
brings problems: firstly, the Norwegian
fishermen are sometimes crowded out of
local landings and secondly, the processing
industries lose motivation to develop new
products, and instead simply carry on with
traditional semi-processing (frozen fillets
in blocks) (Bærenholdt, 1994a). For Rus-
sia, the problem could lie in the too close-
ly-bound relations with the Norwegian
fishing sector, thereby reducing the poten-
tial to become involved in other coopera-
tions, especially with the innovative Ice-
landic físhing sector. Managers in the Mur-
mansk Region fisheries sector are clearly
disappointed that (BEAR) cooperation
with Norway has not resulted in invest-
ments in the Murmansk Region (Bæren-
holdt, 1995), particularly when several fac-
tory ships for direct exports to distant mar-
kets have been ordered from Danish and
German shipyards. Existing relations with
Norway allow the outdated Murmansk pro-
cessing industry very few opportunities of
development of processing in Murmansk, a
development which would also be against
the interests of the Norwegian fishing sec-
tor (Bærenholdt, I994a).
Networks related to innovation in the
fisheries sector already exist in the North
Atlantic. The main centres of innovation
seem to be in Iceland but also at the Fish-
eries College of the University of Tromsø
in Northern Norway (Eliasen, 1994). To
North Norwegian fisheries, outside owner-
ship by Southern as well as Tromsø-related
firms is a barrier to innovation in local mi-
lieux, as innovation is not a question of ad-
vancing the development of existing tech-
nology in the narrowest sense of the word.
In stead is a question of social innovation in
the organisation of communication and
work. Until now, cooperation on innovation
with Russia has mostly been in the field of
technology transfer. Of course, technology
transfer ought always to imply certain in-
novations, i.e. adapting technologies to new
circumstances, and also for the producer to
learn from the experience of having contact
with new users. The Russian fisheries sec-
tor of Murmansk is well equipped in terms
of science, but the competences are often
purely theoretical compared with the pre-
dominance of practical approaches in Nor-
wegian fisheries science and technology.
Cooperation in marine biological re-
search has been advancing for years
(Davidsen et al., 1994), and can only be-
come more important. Cooperation in re-
source management has also developed tra-
ditions since the Soviet/Russian-Norwe-
gian Fisheries Committee began work in
the 1970s. In recent years, cooperation in
fisheries control has been developed, a
process directly linked to the BEAR initia-
tive.
On a macro-regional level, the possibili-
ties of regionalising fisheries are quite ob-
vious - but also most problematic - within
resource management. Until now resource
management has been a strictly national is-
sue, and that is why the existing (also dur-