Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs
NORWAY
The Norwegian government has established a nationwide health project under the name “Fiskesprell” aimed at increasing consumption of fish and seafood among children and young people through activities in kindergartens, primary schools and lower secondary schools.
EUROFISH: Pelagic fish is an im portant Norwegian export. Gener ally, product development in this sector is slow. Is the g overnment taking steps to encourage the de velopment of more value-added products? LBH: The government is encour aging the seafood industry in general to focus more on market and product development. This is important not only for individual companies, but also for Norway as a seafood nation. More valueadded products will strengthen the market position of the com panies and also create more jobs in Norway’s coastal communi ties. Innovation Norway, a stateowned company which promotes nationwide industrial develop ment, is taking several initiatives to encourage the development of more value-added products. EUROFISH: Sustainability and en vironmental compatibility are stat ed objectives of the government in relation to the fisheries sector. In this context is the production 24 Eurofish Magazine 1 / 2011
of organic farmed fish seen as an activity to be encouraged by the government? LBH: Organic farmed fish is an interesting niche product which is in demand in high-end seg ments of various markets. My ministry has encouraged organic aquaculture by allocating five licences for organic farming of salmon in 2009. EUROFISH: According to the 2010 booklet Facts about Fisheries and Aquaculture, last year Norwe gians ate about 23 kg per capita of fish and seafood. What efforts are being made to increase this figure and to get segments that typically eat less fish (such as young peo ple) to consume more? LBH: Norway has traditionally al ways been a fish and seafood eating nation. However, today consumption of fish and seafood in Norway is much lower than it was in the 1960s, although it has increased somewhat over the last 10 years. The goal of the
Norwegian government is to in crease consumption of seafood in Norway, especially amongst children and young people. It is also important for the Nor wegian government to reduce social inequalities in health. For this reason, the govern ment established a nationwide health project under the name “Fiskesprell” aimed at increas ing consumption of fish and sea food among children and young people through activities in kin dergartens, primary schools and lower secondary schools. It is very important to acquire good eating habits at an early age. The project was started in 2007 by the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Care Services in cooperation with the Norwegian Seafood Ex port Council. EUROFISH: Fish and oil are two of Norway’s major exports and both have claims on the sea. How do the two sectors co-exist and what are the major challenges in this respect?
LBH: Fishery resources are to be kept as a renewable and everlast ing resource also for the coming generations. Even though the petroleum sector is of significant importance to the Norwegian economy, there has always been a clear understanding of the impor tance of marine living resources and the marine environment. This is clearly reflected in several white papers presented to the Norwe gian Parliament, in particular at the beginning of Norway’s pe troleum era. For instance, con siderable importance is given to spawning areas and spawning pe riods for vital fish stocks, so that petroleum activities do not nega tively impact them at vulnerable periods. In Norwegian waters, pipelines and underwater instal lations must be constructed in a way that allows fishing vessels to trawl over them. This is contrary to the rest of the North Sea, where fishing vessels are held economi cally responsible for any damage their activities cause to pipelines. While we believe that we have achieved a well-functioning co existence between these two im portant sectors, some challenges remain. There is always the poten tial risk of accidents involving oil spills, but by taking precautions we have so far avoided oil spills with major consequences. There has only been one real blowout: the Bravo blowout in the North Sea in 1977 where 30,000 tonnes of oil was spilled. Fortunately, that incident had very little impact on marine life. One potential area of conflict concerns seismic activi ties. Fishing often takes place in areas where oil companies want to collect seismic data. Although the regulations governing seismic activities have been tightened, there are still occasional episodic conflicts when seismic activi ties are conducted in particularly valuable fishing areas. www.eurofishmagazine.com