ESTONIA
Reyktal AS fleet represents more than half the Estonian distant water fleet
Sustainability certification around the corner Estonia may be a small country (population. 1.3m in 2013), but it has had a distant water fleet inherited from the time it was part of the Soviet Union. Estonian distant water vessels have fishing rights in three fishing grounds, the Northwest Atlantic, the Northeast Atlantic and Svalbard and the main species targeted is the northern prawn, Pandalus borealis. Since 2006 the number of vessels in the fleet has fallen each year before stabilising in 2009 at six vessels with a gross tonnage of 12,923 tonnes. Six vessels in the Estonian long distance fleet Today the Estonian Long Distance Fishing Association comprises three companies that are active in the fishery. These are Reyktal which owns three vessels, Reval Seafood, a Reyktal affiliate, with one vessel, and MFV Lootus with two vessels, says Mati Sarevet, managing director of Reyktal. Fishing in the Northwest Atlantic is governed by NAFO, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation, which manages 19 stocks covering 11 species. One of these is northern prawn (Pandalus borealis), the most important species for Reyktal. The NAFO convention area covers the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean between Greenland and the eastern seaboards of Canada and the United States, an area of some 6.5 m sq. km. The area is further split up into Subareas, and Divisions. NAFO manages shrimp stocks in Divisions 3L, 3M, 3N, and 3O allocating shrimp quotas in tonnes in 3L, 3N, and 3O and as fishing days in 3M. From at least 2005 a ban on shrimp fishing has been in force in 3N and 3O, while in 3L Estonian shrimp quotas have fallen from 334 tonnes in 2010 to 96 tonnes in 2013. In 3M the fishing position is equally serious as the number of 30
Eurofish Magazine 5 / 2013
fishing days declined from one year to the next by 50, from 1,667 in 2009 to 834 in 2010 and then fell to nil in 2011, as a moratorium was introduced following a recommendation from the Scientific Council as the stock size was below the permissible limit. The moratorium has remained in force to the present. The closure of Division 3M has had an impact as traditionally this is where Estonia fishes for most of its shrimp. In addition to the NAFO Divisions the fleet is active in Svalbard, where the number of days for shrimp fishing has remained unchanged at 377 since 2005. The Estonian fleet also fishes for northern prawn in the Barents Sea and the Estonian Long Distance Fishing Association has applied for the fishery to be certified to the Marine Stewardship Council standard, the first Estonian fishery to seek this certification. If successful this fishery will be one of a small group of prawn fisheries globally that has earned MSC certification. The fishery takes place in ICES Subareas I and II in the Barents Sea and runs from March to December. ICES advice for 2013 states that catches of 60,000 tonnes in 2013 will maintain the stock at the current high biomass. Total catches in 2010-2012 averaged less than 25,000 tonnes.
Northern prawn cooked and packaged on board the Taurus, one of Reyktal’s trawlers. Products are sold to markets in Europe.
Certification to serve customers in essential markets Small-mesh trawls with a minimum mesh size of +42mm are typically used to catch northern prawns bycatch rates are very low due to the use of mandatory sorting grids and the temporary closure of areas where bycatch rates are high from time to time. The fishery takes place at a depth of 250 to 500 m. The decision to go in for certification was taken because the MSC label is well known in our target markets of Scandinavia and the UK, as well as
other important markets for us in Western Europe, says Mati Sarevet. Our fishing is already sustainable, he adds, we are in a close cooperation with the administration in Estonia, which was one of the first in Europe to introduce electronic monitoring and logging systems (ERS) on board. We are confident that we will achieve this certification by October 2013. Our goal is to give our valued customers the possibility of MCS certified product as they are competing in highly competitive markets. Reyktal focuses mainly on shrimp. It regularly therefore www.eurofishmagazine.com