After years of concern about sealife in the Oslo Fjord, government officials announced extensive bans on fishing in three key areas from January 1. Critics were quick to object, especially commercial fishing firms, claiming the sources of pollution that have been killing off fish should be banned first.
“This is a sad day,” said the leader of the Norwegian fishing organization Norges Fiskarlag, Kåre Heggebø. He doesn’t think the bans on fishing in specific areas will revive fishing stocks, and fears that commercial fishing boats will disappear from the fjord, especially those that go after shrimp.
The mayor of Hvaler, an archipelago known for its shrimp boats and summer cottages, told local newspaper Frederiksstad Blad, that the new government measures were “a catastrophe” for the local industry. Mayor Mona Vauger of the Labour Party criticized her own Labour government’s plans, calling it “a compromise we can’t live with.”
The compromise seems to have come from officials trying to appease both fishing, shrimping, farming and real estate development along and near the coast. Many professional fish and shellfish firms blame the steep decline in fish stocks on higher temperatures in the water that are a result of climate change, pollution from sewage and the nitrogen from farmers’ fertilizer waste that seeps into the waterways that lead to the fjord, and development along the coast.
Shrimp boat owner Ivar Kanten showed up at Tuesday’s press briefing on the new measures and challenged Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre directly. “Those of us who know what’s going on in the fjord know that fish don’t thrive in the (high) temperature of the water now,” Kanten said. “It’s disappointing that you (the government) don’t provide funding for nitrogen clean-up immediately.”
He thinks the fishing industry around the Oslo Fjord is being “sacrificed” because it’s much smaller than the farmers’ or real estate lobbies. “Many of my colleagues who will now lose their jobs haven’t done anything else but fish all their lives,” Kanten told newspaper Aftenposten. “You can’t just put a 60-year-old who’s been trawling for shrimp on land and say, ‘go find a new job.’ It’s not that simple.”
Støre promised him “a good dialogue” on that as TV cameras rolled. He stated that the Oslo Fjord “is more than just a fjord, it’s summer nights and a morning swim, and now the fjord is crying out for help. Much too much sealife has vanished.” In order to save the fjord, he said, “all sectors must contribute. We must clean up plastics in the water, restore nature, preserve coastal zones, sharpen efforts against pollution and drainage from agriculture and protect fishing stocks … we must have a fjord full of life that we can pass on to our children.”
Fisheries Minister Marianne Sivertsen Næss also cited “a need for widespread and coordinated measures across all sectors to turn around the negative trend we have seen in the fjord. We are creating zero-fishing zones in the fjord to give its ecosystems the best possible chance to recover.”
There’s already been a lengthy hearing process on the measures aimed at saving the Oslo Fjord. Earlier efforts to protect the fjord, not least to stem farming waste and improve cod stocks, have “not had the desired effect” and the government is thus trying to “strengthen stocks and the ecosystem.” The measures, according to Næss, build upon professional advice from both Norway’s state fisheries- and environmental directorates.
There’s also already been a ban on cod fishing in the Oslo Fjord since 2019. It will soon extend to salmon, sea trout and other fish Only crabbing for children will still be allowed, as will removal of the so-called stillehavsøsters (oysters) that have been spread all along the coast. There will also be a process for applying for dispensation from some activities tied to coastal culture carried out by local governments or organizations.
While the Socialist Left and Reds party support the Labour government’s measures, they were criticized by both the Greens and the conservative Progress Party. The Greens called them “too little, too late,” while Progress was most concerned about the threatened shutdown of the commercial fishing business along the Oslo Fjord. “We should rather put our energy into improving environmental conditions than shutting down an important business for many local communities along the Oslo Fjord,” Erlend Wiborg of Progress told Aftenpoosten.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund