ESTONIA
Peipsi Grupp Holding has one third of the Lake Peipsi quotas
Freshwater fish fillets for markets in Western Europe The freshwater fishery in Estonia is primarily based on catches from the lakes Peipsi, Lämmijärv, and Võrtsjärv. Peipsi and Lämmijärv are linked and are shared by Estonia and Russia. The border between the two countries runs through the lakes.
C
atches in Peipsi and Lämmijärv are governed by quotas for the different species. The quotas are set based on advice from research institutes that study the lake and make recommendations. The lakes host a number of commercially valuable populations that are classified into cold water and warm/moderate water species. The latter include pike-perch, pike, perch, bream, roach and stocks of these have generally been stable over the four years up to 2012. The cold water species include whitefish, vendace, smelt, and burbot and stocks of these species remain in poor shape.
A daring investment pays off The lakes are fished by a number of companies as well as individual fishers either working on their own or under contract to a company. The number of fishers has been generally stable since 2009 at about 350, while the number of companies has remained more or less constant at 68. One of the largest companies fishing in Lake Peipsi and Lämmijärv is the Peipsi Grupp Holding. Paul Kärberg, the owner and managing director of the company, took over some of the licenses to fish www.eurofishmagazine.com
in Lake Peipsi at a time when the old collectives were dissolving at the end of the 80s and the early 90s. While the licenses were given away the land and building had to be bought. At the time he was mocked for investing in processing fish for which people were sure there would be no market, but his intuition proved right and today the Peipsi Grupp Holding is exporting all its production and holds one third of the total Peipsi lake quotas. The main species targeted are pike-perch, and perch, as well as smaller quantities of pike, bream or roach. The fish is landed at four harbours that the company owns around the lake, one in Lohusuu, one to the south, and two in Alajõe on the northern edge of the lake.
about to be filled. This is a problem for us of course, but it is an even greater problem for individual fishers who are forced to stay at home and cannot earn a living even though there is fish in the lake. In general the fishing is good in spring, autumn,
and winter, with lower catches in summer. For the Peipsi Group the biggest issue is ensuring a yearround supply of raw material so that it can keep its filleting units operational and the employees active, otherwise they start to drift to other companies.
Perch and pike-perch are the two species with the biggest quotas in Peipsi. In 2012 the total quota for perch was 1,400 tonnes of which the company had about 400 tonnes while the quota for pike-perch was 714 tonnes and the company had about 200 tonnes of this. Usually the company manages to catch all its quota, but occasionally in autumn a situation arises where although there is plenty of time left to catch the full quota the fishery is stopped because the quota for another species is Eurofish Magazine 5 / 2013
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