Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.06.2010, Blaðsíða 8

8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 08 — 2010
It’s been a few years now since mackerel showed up
around Iceland in enough numbers to start appear-
ing on barbecues. It’s only been a very few years since
there was enough to see a commercial fishery develop,
but that’s what has happened—and an unholy row
with Iceland’s neighbours has been brewing since the
first big catches were landed by the Icelandic f leet.
Unlike the cod and haddock that are the firm favou-
rites of Icelandic consumers, mackerel are a pelagic
species that live high in the water and are caught with
nets or hooks, but are landed in bulk by specialised
vessels built to do just that.
Mackerel are also a predatory, highly migratory
species that range over large areas of the North Atlan-
tic, ignoring the arbitrary borders drawn by humans
to migrate happily over long distances.
The amounts of money involved aren’t small. The
mackerel fishery is worth an estimated €¤600 million
every year and has been the subject of an uneasy alli-
ance between Norway, the Faeroe Islands and the Eu-
ropean Union—representing mainly fishermen from
Britain, Ireland, Holland and Denmark. Last year a
640.000 tonne quota was set, marginally in excess of
the scientific advice, but which was not thought to
jeopardise the stock.
ICELANd IS THE jOKER
But Iceland is the joker in the pack. Warmer sea tem-
peratures and a healthy mackerel stock have prompt-
ed this unpredictable species to migrate into Icelan-
dic waters. This was greeted initially by Iceland’s
pelagic fishermen as a minor irritation that got in the
way of herring fishing—but as the volumes of mack-
erel grew, this has become a fishery all to itself, on
top of the rigidly enforced quotas that the established
players have.
Last year more than 100.000 tonnes of these little
fast-swimming diamonds were landed in Iceland,
much of which was processed into fishmeal. This
year the Icelandic government set itself a 130.000
tonne mackerel limit, prompting outrage from the
other coastal states.
THE ‘MACKEREL CLUB’ RESPONdS
This is where the politics take over. The established
‘mackerel club’ of Norway, the Faeroe Islands and the
EU protest that Iceland is acting irresponsibly by fish-
ing heavily on this stock and taking the total catch
way beyond scientific advice. Iceland responds that it
has a right to exploit a resource in national territory.
Cue stalemate.
Iceland had for years been knocking at the mack-
erel club’s door and asking to join. For all of those
years the response had been that with no mackerel re-
sources of its own, Iceland wasn’t going to get a slice
of the cake.
With mackerel now present inside Iceland’s EEZ,
things have changed dramatically. Negotiations have
been taking place at intervals but progress has been
zero. History shows that this stuff doesn’t happen
fast. When the Atlanto-Scandian herring reappeared
in the 1990s, it took several years to engineer an un-
easy truce that nobody has been entirely happy with.
Negotiations over the blue whiting fishery that ranges
from west of Ireland to north of the Faeroes lasted for
more than a decade before another uneasy peace was
reached.
There are rounds of recrimination and bitter ac-
cusations that swing back and forth. Iceland claims
to have been excluded illegally from the mackerel
club. Norway points to its own long track record of
fishing mackerel since this was a marginal species in
the 1970s, and there are justifiable, understandable
standpoints on all sides.
WILL THE FAEROESE FOLLOW ICELANd’S
LEAd?
Don’t imagine that all is peace and harmony inside
the mackerel club. A squabble between the EU and
Norway last year was resolved after several months,
much to Norway’s advantage, EU fishermen would
claim. Faeroese fishermen have seen a massive mack-
erel fishery taking place next door, while they are lim-
ited by agreements to a modest fishery.
The Faeroese fisheries minister has come under
increasing pressure to follow Iceland’s lead and set a
Faeroese quota of a similar size, thereby stepping out
of the longstanding agreement with the other coastal
states—a move that would be regarded as the clearest
treachery by Norway and the EU.
Pressure on the Faeroese government is coming
from those who don’t have access to mackerel, but see
it as a resource that could be exploited, as well as see-
ing strong and hungry mackerel as a threat to juvenile
groundfish. The idea of a large, autonomous Faero-
ese quota also opens the possibility of quota swaps
with other countries, notably with Russia for access to
more Barents Sea cod.
On the other hand, the established Faeroese oper-
ators are strongly against leaving the agreement and
this is where another factor comes into play. Mackerel
are present in Icelandic and Faeroese waters during
the summer. But summer mackerel are worth a lot
less than during the winter when the meat is firmer
and has a fat content that’s just what the lucrative
Japanese market wants.
Winter is where the serious money is, when these
valuable fish turn into swimming gold nuggets—and
that’s when mackerel are firmly back in EU and Nor-
wegian waters.
The established Faeroese operators foresee the
loss of the markets they have worked for years to build
up alongside their Norwegian, Scottish, Irish, Dan-
ish and Dutch counterparts, who have already been
through the pain as quotas have been cut, dubious
landings brought to an end and shares of the total
quota endlessly argued over. The sight of the Icelan-
dic f leet shovelling up mackerel for fishmeal or for
Eastern European markets is painful to fishermen
who see their own vessels tied up for more than half
of the year.
THEN WHAT HAPPENS?
So what’s the likely outcome? There won’t be an
agreement that includes Iceland this year, but nego-
tiations are scheduled to discuss 2011. The Faeroese
position is crucial. If they walk away from the exist-
ing agreements, then everything will blow wide open.
Such a step could bring the wrath of the EU down on
the islands, which could stand to lose much more in
other ways than it could gain from 100.000 tonnes of
mackerel.
Experience shows that negotiations take years, so
a conclusion next year is far from likely. All of those
involved have interests at stake and all of the govern-
ments concerned are lobbied hard by their fishing
sectors. There’s also the issue of national pride—no-
body is prepared to back down. It would be politically
unacceptable to give Iceland a larger share of the fish-
ery than the 5% that the Faeroes have as a longstand-
ing member of the mackerel club and even this would
entail the EU and Norway making painful sacrifices.
Yet Iceland’s demands are so high as to be simply not
taken seriously. The question needs to be asked: does
Iceland genuinely want an agreement? The Norwe-
gian response is that Iceland’s strategy is to build up
as large a track record as possible and is therefore in
no hurry to reach a settlement.
There is also the possibility that with heavy fish-
ing in the coming years, the stock could diminish and
would no longer migrate as far as Iceland, leaving Ice-
land with no mackerel and with no agreements, no
access to it in other waters.
If all the claims—all justifiable in one way or an-
other—are added together, the total is close to 180%
of the fishery, with nobody prepared to back down.
There are no easy answers, and if/when an agreement
is reached, the only thing that is certain is that no-
body will come away satisfied from the negotiating
table.
Quentin Bates was a journalist for Fishing News International for many years. So he knows his stuff.
He also lived and worked in Iceland for a decade, working in the fishing industry. So he knows his stuff.
His first novel, 'Frozen Assets', is set in Iceland and will be released next year. Yay Quentin!
Article | Fishy Fish
Mackerel Madness!
QUENTIN BATES
QUENTIN BATES
The municipal elections throughout
Iceland had a strong “throw out the
rascals” feel to them.
And it felt good.
Independence Party chair Bjarni Benediktsson,
clueless as ever, expressed satisfaction with
his party’s performance, as if this were some
sort of horse race, but Prime Minister Jóhanna
Sigurðardóttir hit the nail on the head when she told
us that the elections were an indictment against the
four big parties, and represented a new political age
for us.
It’s about time. Public opinion polls indicate that
we trust our politicians about as much as we trust
organised crime bosses, possibly because it has
become difficult to distinguish between the two.
Whatever the motives may have been for forming
the parties decades ago, they have been replaced
by their members’ self-aggrandisement, self-
perpetuation, and self-enrichment.
The Left-Green Party appears to still want a
clean environment (though its approval of renewed
whaling permits leaves one wondering), but, beyond
that, what do any of them stand for? Our so-called
leaders approved the legislation that gave the
country’s fishing rights to a few select individuals.
They approved the legislation that gave the nation’s
banks to a few select individuals. They approved
legislation that has allowed the proliferation of
limited liability entities behind which the scoundrels
are now hiding.
What they haven’t done speaks just as loudly.
Why has there been so little relief for low-income
wage earners? Why has there been no residential
housing relief? Why have they permitted HS Orka
to be sold to the highest bidder? Why have the
individuals who led us over the cliff been allowed to
remain at the top of their parties’ lists?
There has been talk of a constitutional
convention this fall. While it is undoubtedly true that
we need to revisit the underpinnings of our system
of government, there is an even more urgent need
to revisit the underpinnings of the political parties
that make up that government. The individuals who
have thrived and advanced within the parties do not
appear to be the type of individuals to whom one
would entrust a nation’s future. They seem to view
the parties as employment agencies for themselves
and their friends and families, rather than as
organisations created to advance the well-being of
our people as a whole.
We are presented with generic mission
statements and bland party platforms drafted to
please the greatest number of voters while offending
the fewest, and then base our decisions on inertia,
physical attractiveness, and personal charisma.
I hope Jóhanna was right, and that serious
rethinking of the goals of our society and the means
of reaching those goals is forthcoming. Jón Gnarr
may simply be a comedian who’s suddenly found
himself in an awkward situation, but I believe that
the discontent with the established parties that
he embodies can lead to a more open and honest
government, a truly new beginning.
Which—God knows—we could sure use.
It’s the End of the World
As We Know It
(...and I feel fine)
Opinion | Íris Erlingsdóttir
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