Wise Fishing Practices

From the beginning of 20th century Russian part of the Pacific has become globally important area for catching fish and marine invertebrates. Traditionally it had costal type of fishing economy with extensive cost-based industries that has been largely ruined as a result of expedition fishing fleet development. From 1960s onwards Far Eastern seas of Russia comprised significant part of total fish and invertebrates catch by the USSR, and at the same time the USSR was actively developing fishing far outside its shelf zone. In the beginning of 1990s Russian fishing fleet suffered from rapid and wild privatization, and the remaining fishing fleet which was not then sold concentrated within the Russian economic zone and currently targets at fishing for high-value (money-making, as it is said now) species. Rich resources of the Far Eastern seas attracted also fishermen from Japan, South Korea, China, Poland, Taiwan, Spain, who are partly using the quotas for fishing in the economic zone of Russia issued according to intergovernmental agreements. Regulatory mechanisms that existed in the USSR to control and manage exploitation of marine biological resources are not any more adequate, do not meet current needs, and are at the moment in the process of changing.

This process is influenced both by economic and political factors, different interests of all players, including conflicts of regional and federal authorities, by existing problems in relationships between the regions, competition for influence between different agencies etc. Just one visible example of how all counter-acting interests cause delay in decision-making process is the fate of Federal Law on Fisheries; it was approved as the first draft by State Duma in October 1996, but reached the Council of Federations only in April 2001 (see details in Legistation section). All fishing effort is targeted to resources that are most profitable to commercial companies, and total catch of marine resources decreased steadily since 1990s. It the same way, fishing for Crabs and Pollock, and to less extent for Cod and Halibut, coincides with most serious management faults and the largest violations: fishing over allowed quotas and direct poaching.