Delineation agreement drawback for fisheries – union leader
Russian fishermen in Arctic waters are worried that the Norwegian-Russian agreement on delineation of the Barents Sea and Polar Sea will not take their interests in consideration and only favor the oil and gas sector.
Leader of the largest interest organization for Russian fishermen in Northern waters Vyacheslav Zilanov recently had a meeting with head of the Russian delegation in the negotiations with Norway on the delineation agreement Roman Kolodkin, where he expressed the fishery sector’s concern for the future, Nord-News.ru reports.
The agreement will be signed by the Russian and Norwegian foreign ministers in Murmansk on Wednesday.
Zilanov requested that recommendations made by fishermen and specialists from the Russian Fishery Agency in Murmansk in April 2010 should be taken into consideration in the agreement with Norway. The fishermen recommend that the joint Norwegian-Russian fisheries commission should continue its work and that existing agreements on regulation of fisheries should be prolonged; that fishing in the so-called Grey Zone should be regulated in a transitional period; that Russian fishermen should still be allowed to fish in waters around Svalbard and that Norway and Russia should enhance joint scientific research and monitoring of other countries’ fishing vessels in Northern waters.
Zilanov plans to contact President Medvedev when he comes to Murmansk to give him the fisheries sector’s recommendations for the agreement. – If our reasonable demands are not taken into concideration, we will take all steps within the limits of the law to protect the fisheries’ interests, he says and adds that disregard of the fisheries’ interests will only favor the oil and gas sector.
