The Joint Norwegian–Russian Fisheries Commission is a bilateral

fisheries management The goal of fisheries management is to produce sustainable biological, environmental and socioeconomic benefits from renewable aquatic resources. Wild fisheries are classified as renewable when the organisms of interest (e.g., fish, shellfish, am ...

body run by

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

to control

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

, established in 1976."The History of the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission"
/ref>Hønneland, Geir, 'Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea: Cooperation and Conflict in Fisheries Management'
Russian Analytical Digest, No 20, 2007
pp. 9-11. During the Soviet Era, the main issues were quotas (for the three major fish stocks defined as joint stocks:

cod Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...

(50%-50%),

haddock The haddock (''Melanogrammus aeglefinus'') is a saltwater ray-finned fish from the family Gadidae, the true cods. It is the only species in the monotypic genus ''Melanogrammus''. It is found in the North Atlantic Ocean and associated seas where ...

(50%-50%), and capelin (60%-40% in favour of Norway), fish size and mesh size. In 1993 the scope of the Commission included the compliance control, including exchange of catch data and inspections and coordination of various activities. This happened after it was revealed that after the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

Russian fishing vessels started delivering their catch to Norway rather than to Russia. However the catch data exchange failed to serve its purpose since late 1990s when Russian ships started to hand the frozen fish to transport ships heading to third countries. With end of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

the work of the Commission included long-term strategies for the fish stock in the Barents Sea.

References

Further reading