About the Work of NEAFC

The North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) is the Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (RFMO) for the North East Atlantic, one of the most abundant fishing areas in the world. Our key stocks are the big three pelagic fisheries of mackerel, blue whiting and herring. We also manage other smaller fisheries, with a very small component of fishing for deep sea stocks in limited areas (around 2%) of the areas beyond national jurisdiction.

The area covered by the NEAFC Convention (i.e., Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in North-East Atlantic Fisheries) stretches from the southern tip of Greenland, east to the Barents Sea, and south to Portugal (see this on a map). The Convention was adopted on 18 November 1980 and entered into force in 1982. It replaced the earlier 1959 North-East Atlantic Fisheries Convention. The scope of the convention covers all living marine resources except those regulated by the International Commission on the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT). In practice, NEAFC focuses most of its measures in the Regulatory Area (beyond national jurisdiction), although some measures, such as port state control apply within waters under national jurisdiction.

NEAFC’s objective is to ensure the long-term conservation and optimum utilisation of the fishery resources in the Convention Area, providing sustainable economic, environmental and social benefits. In order to achieve this, NEAFC adopts management measures for various fish stocks and control measures to ensure that they are properly implemented. NEAFC also adopts measures to protect other parts of the marine ecosystem from potential negative impacts of fisheries. fisheries. The vast majority of NEAFC’s fish are small pelagic fish that are caught in shallow or midwater trawls and seine nets. These fishery activities are understood to have a low bycatch of other species such as seabirds or cetaceans. Nevertheless, NEAFC is actively looking at this issue with its scientific advisor. NEAFC bottom fisheries are highly restricted, occurring in only in about 2% of the total Regulatory Area of NEAFC and catching less than 1% of total deep sea catches in the North-East Atlantic. In the limited areas where the bottom fishing is occurring, this is where there has been long term activity over more than 25 years and does not include any areas where vulnerable marine ecosystems are identified.

NEAFC’s measures include setting limits to fishing by quantity and area, monitoring control and surveillance of fishing activity, joint fisheries inspections at sea, inspections at port and bans on bottom fishing in most of the Regulatory Area. The latter measure is in place to protect deep sea sponges and corals, but other conservation measures are also in place such as bans on targeting deep sea sharks, rays and chimaera.

In order to make properly evidenced decisions, NEAFC relies on independent and authoritative science provided by the International Council for Exploration of the Sea, an intergovernmental organisation with which NEAFC has a memorandum of understanding. Each year NEAFC agrees a round of advice requests, both recurring annual advice and one-off special advice requests.

With the above outline of NEAFC’s objectives in mind, most of the information on this website is aimed at experts (Scientists, Control Experts, Statisticians and Managers) both from within NEAFC’s Contracting Parties and from within other international organisations. We hope however that the website also provides some information for other interested readers on how, why, and by whom these conservation and management decisions and enforcement activities are carried out.