Norwegian Coast Guard to increase air surveillance in Barents Sea
The Norwegian Coast Guard is planning a drastic increase in air surveillance over fishery areas in the Barents Sea, after a Norwegian-Russian agreement on satellite tracking of fishery vessels was suspended on December 1.
- Until a new agreement is in place, the Norwegian side is going to focus more on surveillance, including air surveillance, Head of Coast Guard Squadron North, Commander Steve Olsen, told Norwegian newspaper FiskeribladetFiskaren.
Commander Olsen believes the suspension of the agreement is a serious backlash for Norwegian fisheries control. The Coast Guard has no longer tracking data on Russian fishing vessels in the Greyzone, Russian Economic Zone or in the Fishery Protection zone around Svalbard.
The loss of tracking data for Norwegian monitoring of the vast sea area in north takes place at the same time as Russia inducts obligatory customs clearing in Russia of all fish caught in Russian territorial waters. It is still unknown whether the Greyzone, where Russia has a rather large fishing activity, will be affected by the new law.
- We do not know what kind of delivery duties will be imposed on Russian trawlers working in both the Greyzone and the Norwegian Economic Zone. The information from Russian side has been very conflicting, Olsen said.
