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ECONOMY, ECOLOGY, HISTORY, CULTURE

# 1, 1997

QUOTA FOR FAILURE

M.V. Dementiev
Head of Fishing Department of Kamchatka Regional Administration

Dementiev M.
In 1996, Kamchatka fishermen did a good job. The catches reached 754 thousand tons. But the year 1997, judging by significance of fishing products, does not look promising at all. This year is not for salmon anyway. We will not meet last year's landings of 61.5 thousand tons of various salmon species.
The pollock quota diminished by 50 thousand tons for the entire region, although the Sea of Okhotsk's share remained unchanged. The most dramatic decrease fell onto Petropavlovsk-Komandorskiy zone, Northern Kuril Islands, and the Bering Sea--reserves of ollock here are in a much worse state.
The volumes of cod and sole stay on the level of 1996: 40 thousand and 26 thousand tons respectively. We have a good margin here, and God please help us to make better of the last year's level.
Not in a bad shape at all have been rockfish landings of the last two years. They were registered at 7 thousand tons with a quota of 5 thousand. In 1997 the quota based on landing facts is 7.2 thousand tons. According to scientists, the rockfish population is on the rise. Therefore in the best interests of regional economy, we would like to ask fishermen not to be limited by allocated quotas as we have sufficient reserves (same as last year) on the account of the total Far Eastern quota. That is realistically we can land up to 10 thousand tons of rockfish.
The long-liners owned by Akros Fishing Co. Ltd. operating in the Bering Sea cod expedition found new habitats of halibut, which makes this year's perspective much brighter for the species: about 6 thousand, while the last year’s factual landings accounted for 4.5 thousand tons.
As far as ocean perch is concerned, its population is rather limited, therefore landed as by-catch of cod long-lining. We agree with scientists, that augmenting quotas we would do harm to this vulnerable fish population, while regeneration is much too slow.
Now we turn to Problem Number One--Kamchatka crab fishing quotas. The total decrease, as compared with the year 1996, is 6 thousand tons with the overall decrease forecast of 13 thousand.
The root of today's problem by far does not lie in the last year or the one before. Then number of the resource users was at a minimum: practically, only Dalmoreproduct with its numerous catchers. The specialists monitoring the crab population did not rise alarm about the abnormalities, existing in Kamchatka crab population, either in full awareness of the fact, or there were other reasons not to introduce landing limitations.
Kamchatka crab has always been counted by piece. Landings were under strict supervision. Piece by piece collection yielded the most impartial information on the resource conditions. Beginning from 1987, fishing forecasts switched to tonnage count. Why? During the summer molting, crab loses much of its weight, while Dalmoreproduct producing canned crab meat needed to specify weight in tons. Piece count did not provide exact weight in tons. So we can assume they switched to tonnage in fishing forecasts so that they would take more by piece. Naturally, the results manifested themselves after a passage of time. And now we reap what deviations from forecasts we had allowed to happen. It’s a reality of today that Kamchatka crab population is in a disastrous state. As per 1996 results, in Khairyuzovo district a great number of barren crab females were found, the healthy spawners are three times as little, abnormalities are more frequent among mature crabs.
According to the Russian Federation Continental Shelf Act, the priority of crab fishing should belong to Kamchatka residents, although these arguments have remained unheeded in the Russian Federation Fisheries Committee. But we are not going to give up. We have a legitimate priority in crab fishing quota distribution. We live here. This is our economy.
Other crab species--Tanner, Opillio, Verdi--are traditional fishing items in the south of Kamchatka. The 1997 quota has been established at the last year's level. The fisheries report that the crab is fine. It should be taken, although we are poorly informed on reserves of Tanner crab near Eastern Kamchatka.
But based on what we have been given by Moscow, lump summing all figures, we can expect to land about 700 thousand tons of fish and crab in 1997.

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