Arctic Fish and Fisheries

(by Arnfinn Jørgensen-Dahl

When it comes to global fisheries, the Arctic areas are moderately important. The fisheries of the states to which they belong (including Greenland and Iceland) figure overall more prominently than their constituent Arctic parts. To better appreciate their role in the fisheries sector, we need to place them in the global fisheries context. But first we shall look at some general trends in world fisheries. Table 3.20 has two columns for each year. The first column describes the world or global state of affairs, and the second the world situation minus the contributions of China.

Some features of this table stand out. Per capita food fish supply remained much the same in the period 2001 to 2006 despite an increase of about 10.7% in fish available for human consumption. An increase in world population of some 500 million during the period explains why this state of affairs came to be.

Another noticeable feature is the changing relationship between capture and aquaculture fisheries. In 2001 capture fisheries made up about 71% of total fisheries, in 2006 about 64 %. Aquaculture increased its share from 29% to 36% in a span of just five years.

The third and perhaps most important feature of Table 3.20 is the position of China in the overall picture. China is by far the largest fish and fish products producer in the world with a production in 2006 of some 51.5 million tonnes which accounted for almost 36% of total world production, as against a share in 2001 of about 32%. One should note, however, that “…capture fisheries and aquaculture production statistics for China may be too high…and that this problem has existed since the early 1990s”. As mentioned in the beginning, the case of China is therefore often discussed separately from the rest of the world in the reports of the FAO¹ .

Table 3.20:  World Fisheries and Aquaculture Production and Utilization

Source: The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2006, FAO Rome 2007. This is an adapted version of Tables 1 and 2, pp. 3-4.

In 2006 two of our Arctic states were among the top ten producers of marine and inland capture fisheries. The United States placed third after China and Peru with a total production of 4.9 million tonnes. Russia came eighth with a production of 3.3 million tonnes whilst Norway dropped from tenth to eleventh in 2006 when she produced about 2.4 million tonnes.

In terms of Arctic and northern fishing and aquaculture, four large marine northern ecosystems dominate the scene. These are the Northeast Atlantic which comprises the Barents and Norwegian Seas, the Central North Atlantic which includes the waters around Iceland, the Faroe Islands and East Greenland, the waters off north-eastern Canada which takes in Newfoundland and the Labrador area, and the Bering Sea. Of these, north-eastern Canada contributed in 2002 a minor share (some 80.000 tonnes) of the total of about 7.3 million tonnes for all these areas combined, whereas the Bering Sea (2.36 million tonnes), the Central North Atlantic (2.61 million tonnes) and the Northeast Atlantic (2.21 million tonnes) contributed about a third each of the total volume² .

In 2004-2005 the northeast Atlantic, including the Barents Sea, provided 40% of the total Russian catch and the northwest Pacific 56%. Most of the catch consisted of Alaska pollock (44%), herring (13%) cod (10%) and Pacific salmon (9%). In 2005 Alaska exported fish and fish products for about $1.7 billion. The most important fish species were pollock, salmon, halibut and cod.   

Since, however, the volume of world capture fisheries has stagnated or even declined after 2002, today’s volumes will not differ much from what they were in 2002. Future numbers may be a different matter. Early in 2009 the US North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted unanimously to prohibit industrial fishing in the nearly 200 000 square miles of US waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The US Commerce Department is said to be expected to approve the recommendation. This is done for preservation, environmental and management reasons. If so, Alaska pollock, the largest US fishery by volume, will be taken off the statistics³ . The US initiative was quickly picked up in Canada where calls were made for a similar Canadian management plan⁴ .

Under the influence of climate change some fish stocks, such as cod and herring, may be more plentiful in Arctic waters in the future. Moderate warming may improve conditions for these fish stocks as higher temperatures and reduced ice cover may lead to higher productivity. But the effects will not necessarily be uniformly positive. Some other species may be negatively affected such as northern shrimp. Species whose principal habitat was in sub-Arctic waters may also move north further complicating the situation. What the consequences of climate change will be for marine fish stocks in the Arctic is highly uncertain⁵ .

The total catch of capture fish in the Arctic may amount to somewhere around 7 million tonnes, now as it did in 2002. Most of this fish is landed in harbours of the countries from which the fishing vessels hail. Norway has a number of them. In Northwest Russia most of the catch is landed in Murmansk, Belomorsk and Arkhangelsk. In the Russian north-western Pacific, Vladivostok and Nakhodka receive up to hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fish.

There are also a number of secondary ports. In Alaska Dutch Harbor-Unalska and Kodiak are by far the most important with the former receiving 412 thousand tonnes and the latter 119 thousand tonnes in the year 2003. Iceland has two landing sites of importance for fish – Neskaupstadur with about 240 thousand tonnes and Vestmannaeyjar with about 201 thousand tonnes. In Canada most fish catches are landed in harbours in Newfoundland. To these should be added fishing vessels from EU countries that operate in the north Atlantic and Barents Sea waters and carry their catch back to harbours in their country of origin.

The Arctic countries have populations that from time to time consume fish and fish products, some countries are net importers and others are net exporters and consume more than they catch and vice versa. In 2003 the US exported 3.07 million tonnes of fish and fish products and imported 4.7 million tonnes. In the same year, on the other hand, Russia exported 1.4 million tonnes and imported 815 thousand tonnes, Norway exported about 2.4 million tonnes and imported 420 thousand tonnes, and Iceland exported 678 thousand and imported 67 thousand tonnes.

Arnfinn Jørgensen-Dahl, 2010, Arctic Fish and Fisheries, CHNL.©