Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) is an intergovernmental fisheries science and management body. NAFO's overall objective is to ensure long term conservation and sustainable use of the fishery resources in the Convention Area and, in so doing, to safeguard the marine ecosystems in which these resources are found.
The NAFO Convention on Cooperation in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries applies to most fishery resources of the Northwest Atlantic except salmon, tunas/marlins, whales, and sedentary species (e.g. shellfish). NAFO currently has 13 Members from North America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. Among them are four coastal members bordering the Convention Area: USA, Canada, France (in respect of St. Pierre et Miquelon), and Denmark (in respect of Faroe Islands and Greenland).
Organisational Structure:
Commission
The Commission is responsible for the fisheries management, control and enforcement, and financial decisions of NAFO. Each of the 13 contracting parties is a member of the Commisison.
The Commission is made up of a finance and administration standing committee - advising on things like the budget, the secretariat, publications, and meeting logistics, and an international control standing committee - advising on things like NAFO conservation measures, enforcement, surveillance, and compliance. The finance and admin branch includes representatives from at least 5 contracting parties, plus experts and advisors. The international control branch consists of one representative from each commission member, plus experts and advisors.
The Commission is responsible for the management and conservation of the fishery resources of the Regulatory Area. The Commission adopts proposals for joint action by the Contracting Parties designed to achieve optimum utilization of the fishery resources of the Regulatory Area. In considering such proposals, the Commission takes into account any relevant information or advice provided to it by the Scientific Council. The Commission collaborates with Scientific Council in the conservation and management measures to minimize the impact of fishing activities on living resources and their ecosystems, total allowable catches and/or levels of fishing effort and determine the nature and extent of participation in fishing.
Scientific Council
The Scientific Council compiles and maintains statistics and records, and publishes information pertaining to the fisheries including environmental and ecological factors. Upon request, Scientific Council also provides advice for the Commission and Coastal States on stocks and the conservation and management of fishery resources.
The Scientific Council is made up of scientists from the NAFO contracting parties.
Secretariat
The Secretariat provides administrative services to the Organization. Its chief administrative officer is the Executive Secretary who is appointed by the Commission.
Status
2021
As of September 24th, 2021, the NAFO Commission agreed to continue the existing protection of seamounts in the NAFO Regulatory Area (NRA) from bottom fishing for the next 5 years - meaning protections will be in place until 2026. This builds upon the 2016 decision by NAFO to close all seamounts in the NAFO area to bottom trawling through 2020, which was a direct result of the work of the Sargasso Sea Commission at NAFO meetings. The extended protections will now include all seamounts in the NRA at a fishable depth (less than 4000 metres deep).
At this meeting, the NAFO Commission also supported the development of an MOU between the Sargasso Sea Commission Secretariat and the NAFO Secretariat.
Please visit this link for the full press release for the 43rd NAFO meeting.
2016
At the NAFO 37th Annual Meeting in Halifax in 2016, NAFO agreed to:
"(1) prohibit the use of attachments of mid-water trawling gear that could damage or touch the seabed, and required all Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem indicator species caught during mid-water trawling be reported;
(2) close completely all seamounts in the NAFO area to bottom trawling activities until the end of 2020 by prohibiting bottom trawling exemptions for exploratory fishing.to the closure of seamounts [including those in the Sargasso Sea EBSA] to deep sea bottom fishing through 2020 and included restrictions on the use of certain types of midwater trawling gear in the areas near those seamounts (Diz, 2016).
This decision by NAFO represents the first legally binding measure that the Sargasso Sea initiative has achieved to date.
2015
The Sargasso Sea Secretariat attended the NAFO 37th Annual Meeting September 2015 as an official observer.
2014
The FC/SC Working Group met in July 2014, but could not reach a conclusion on the potential impacts of mid-water trawl on the seamount chains of the Sargasso Sea area. During NAFO's Annual Meeting in September 2014, the Fisheries Commission requested the Scientific Council to review information and to analyze the impact of mid-water trawls on vulnerable marine ecosystems (VME) indicator species in those instances when the gear makes contact with the bottom. The Scientific Council Working Group on Ecosystem Science and Assessment addressed this question in a meeting held in November 2014.
2013
The Scientific Council of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization met from 7-20 June 2013 in Halifax. Discussions on the pending Fisheries Commission request to the Scientific Council to: comment and advise on whether the Sargasso Sea provides forage area or habitat for living marine resources that could be impacted by different types of fishing; and on whether there is a need for any management measure including a closure to protect this ecosystem were deferred until its September 2013 meeting, as noted in the meeting report (See Section xiv- Sargasso Sea management measures (Item 15), page 48). At the September 2013 meeting, the proposals were sent for consideration by the new joint FC/SC Working Group on Ecosystem Approach Framework to Fisheries management. (See FC Working Paper 13/20, FC Request #15.)
2012
At the September 2012 Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) 34th Annual meeting, the NAFO Scientific Council was formally asked (note #15, page 38-39), to comment and advise on whether the Sargasso Sea provides forage area or habitat for living marine resources that could be impacted by different types of fishing; and on whether there is a need for any closure to protect this ecosystem. Geographical coordinates were provided by the Sargasso Sea Alliance to illustrate the overlap between the Sargasso Sea Study Area and NAFO jurisdiction.
Source: NAFO website.
