Coast guard inspections halved
The number of inspections conducted by Norwegian Coast Guard vessels is halved in course of the last ten years. Lack of vessels is the main reason.
In 2009 the Norwegian Coast Guard conducted 1050 inspections of vessels out in sea. This is nearly 900 less than in 1999, Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation reports.
- We are experiencing a period of lower activity while we are waiting for our new coast guard vessels to be delivered, says Steve Olsen, Head of the Coast Guard North. – Our old vessels are now phased out, so we have fewer ships than earlier. But at the same time, the Norwegian Coast Guard has become more modern, Olsen says.
The Coast Guard has in 2009 brought 17 charges for violations of the fishing laws and arrested 20 vessels. This is about the same number as in 2008.
According to Mr. Olsen, cases of fish fraud that the coast guard has been working on this year have been less severe than earlier. He says that the so-called pirate trawlers are gone from the northern waters and that violations now mostly concern dumping of fish, cheating with quotas and insufficient reporting of catch.
The Norwegian Coast Guard is currently being modernized. The first of three coastguard vessels of the Barents Sea class, the “KV Barentshav” was taken into operation this autumn and visited Murmansk in September, as BarentsObserver reported. Two similar vessels, “KV Bergen” and “KV Sortland” will be delivered to the coast guard later.
