Norway North East Arctic cod

MSC status

Certified as sustainable in April 2010.
Certification transfer of inshore/offshore fisheries - 24 November 2011
Photo: © Jean Gaumy

The Certification body, Det Norske Veritas (DNV), been appointed to undertake ongoing annual surveillance audits for the Norway North east Arctic Cod fishery. DNV will combine the offshore and the inshore fishery and issue certificates with Units of Certification specified for each gear type.

Please refer to the assessment downloads section for further information.

Please refer to the Assessment downloads (Inshore component) sections for further information on the original inshore assessment.

Summary

Species:  Cod (Gadus morhua)
Location:  The North East Arctic Ocean, within ICES Sub-Areas I and II
Fishing methods:  Trawl, longline, gill-net, Danish seine and hook and line gears.
Number of fisheries: 2

More about cod

The cod Gadus morhua is found throughout the boreal–temperate North Atlantic Ocean from Cape Hatteras on the east coast of North America to the northern Bay of Biscay. Although it is the same species throughout this geographic range it forms a number of regional and local populations that are sufficiently isolated from other populations of the same species that they can be managed as separate stocks.

More about the fishing methods

Danish seine
There are several hundred Norwegian registered Danish seiners 10–40 m in length. The principle season for the majority of these vessels is January to May when they target either cod or haddock, but rarely take mixed catches. As a rule, cod fishing is best undertaken in daylight with saithe becoming the principal target species at night. From May to December, the seiners change to any one of the other methods of fishing available, but necessarily targeting cod.

Gill nets
These come in a variety of shapes and sizes, depending on the target species. Those used in the Norwegian cod fishery comprise plain panel netting, with 180mm stretched bmesh (90 mm bar length) net panels. Each panel is 50 meshes high (footrope–headline) and c. 30 m in length but 20–50 panels (depending on vessel size and location) are joined to form one net or fleet. Whilst an anchor is used to hold the net at the initial shoot (upstream) end of the net, a simple 20 kg weight is often used at the other end. The main gill-net season is January–April; it is not a practicable method of fishing in areas of strong tides or (normally) over periods of spring tides

Hook and line
Hook and line gears are mostly used by small vessels below 10m in length. They target species by area and depth working mainly on the open coast rather than in Fjords from February until May. It is a clean fishery targeting cod aggregations and saithe (it is not considered to be profitable for Haddock due to bait requirements). Auto machine lines are used with 2 machines per man/vessel. There are between 7-12 hooks per line with number 4 Mustad J hooks being used. Artificial lures which look like sand eels are used.

Longlines:
Long lines are among the oldest of the traditional static-gear fishing methods. It is a method used throughout the world from small, open inshore boats (i.e. <10 m) to large offshore vessels. This is no less true for the Norwegian fishing fleet than elsewhere; the largest Norwegian registered longliners are more than 50 m in length. In terms of fishing operations, the key difference is that the large, offshore vessels bait and shoot thousands of hooks automatically, whereas the small vessels manually bait and shoot a few hundred hooks each day.

Trawling:
All Norwegian registered trawlers are engaged in single-vessel fishing; i.e., there are no pair trawlers towing a single net between them, each vessel tows its own trawl. There are 52 trawlers fishing in the offshore flee five of which are targeting saithe throughout the year but have a quota allocation of cod to cover their cod bycatch.

Commercial market

Product from the Norwegian North East Arctic cod fishery is sold predominantly in the European market.

Fishery tonnage

190,000 MT

Actual eligibility date

19 July 2009.