Brussels, 26/08/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 25 August, Faroese Fisheries Minister Jacob Vestergaard rejected complaints from the European Commission that mackerel stocks were being overfished in Faroese waters. He said the claims were “unfounded”, with the fish plentiful in the waters of the archipelago, an autonomous province of the Kingdom of Denmark in the Northern Atlantic.
“We are not overfishing. This species is in no way under threat. Our waters are teeming with mackerel,” he told AFP.
The Faroe Islands set a mackerel quota of 85,000 tonnes for their fishermen, “a reasonable quota in view of the vast number of mackerel in our waters,” the minister said, and he called on the EU to “clean up its own back yard”. “In 2008, the EU overfished and discarded some 100,000 tonnes of mackerel in its waters, according to ICES, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. So don't accuse us of overfishing!” he railed, defending his country's quotas which were decided after the breakdown of the fisheries agreement between the Faroe Isles, the EU, Norway and Iceland which ran from 1999 to 2009.
“Our quota of 33,000 until last year was too low, especially as scientific studies had revealed that there was plenty of mackerel in our waters,” Vestergaard went on. He pointed out that, until 2009, the Faroese quota “was equivalent to 4.63% of the total quotas of the agreement among the coastal states, signed by the EU”. Things have changed since 1999, when the agreement was signed, he said, and the Faroe Islands want the new state of affairs to be acknowledged. (L.C./transl.rt)