The main cod stock off Newfoundland and Labrador is in the healthy zone, and allocations for all harvesters have increased by about 55 per cent.
DFO released the management plan for northern cod, northern Gulf cod, and capelin this morning.
The Total Allowable Catch in 2J-3KL – from southern Labrador to the southern Avalon – is just shy of 60,000 metric tonnes, well above last year’s limit of 38,000.
NAFO division areas (DFO)
Regional Manager, Resource Management with DFO, Robert Fagan says the inshore fleet will get 70 per cent of the TAC – 41,000 tonnes this year, up from 30,000 last year.
He says the offshore and mid-shore fleet gets 20 per cent or 12,000 tonnes, up from 4,000, while the Indigenous and special allocations account for 10 per cent or 6,000, up from 4,000.
MP Joanne Thompson (VOCM News)
MP calls Inshore sector ‘backbone of fishery’
St. John’s East MP and Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson says the inshore sector is still the backbone of the fishery. She notes that the amount of cod being exported out of Newfoundland and Labrador is on the rise, the price is up by about 30 per cent, and she would like to see a year-round commercial fishery.
It was only a few short years ago that the TAC was about a quarter of what it will be this year.
“With the increase in the TAC, which the inshore will see this summer, that’d going to result in increased economic activity on the floor of processing plants, so it will be a very busy time,” says the minister.
The moratorium remains on the northern Gulf stock, and the Total Allowable Catch for capelin is the same as last year.
FFAW President Dwan Street
FFAW pleased
FFAW President Dwan Street is pleased with the 55 per cent increase in the TAC.
“It’s going to mean a lot to our members both in the inshore and in processing plants,” says Street. “It also maintains a 12 per cent harvest rate so it is a very sustainable increase.”
