The decision to establish the Commission was made in 1974, and the Commission held its very first session in 1976. The decision resulted from the acknowledgement of the requirement for bilateral management in order to obtain a rational exploitation of the live marine resources in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea.
Since its establishment, the Fisheries Commission has dealt with issues such as the stipulation of quotas and minimum sizes for jointly managed live marine resources, regulation of mesh width in nets, use of fish sorting grids in trawlers and the introduction of satellite monitoring of fishing and transport vessels in addition to a number of other issues related to strengthening control of catches of live marine resources.
Today, the Fisheries Commission provides efficient joint management of the most important fish stocks of both countries, in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea.
In line with the international trend for a more comprehensive, eco-based strategy, and since the turn of the century, the Fisheries Commission has been working towards a more long-term, precautionary approach to harvesting strategies for the live marine resources in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea.
The Fisheries Commission holds sessions once a year, alternating between Russia and Norway. You can find the protocols from the sessions in Norwegian or Russian here:
Protocols - Norwegian
Protocols - Russian
