There is no precautionary management plan in place for this fishery, but the stock has been buoyant and harvested sustainably since the fishery began.No Total Allowable Catch (TAC) has been established for the stock overall, however Russia set an annual TAC for the Russian portion of northern prawn fishery in the Barents Sea. In 2019, 28,000 tonnes (TAC), ~30% above the 11,700 tonnes caught the year previous and >3 times the catch of the year prior. Of Russia’s 2019 TAC, 11,500 tonnes were allocated to Norway, the Faroe Islands (4,000t, 2021) and Greenland (500t, 2021) under intergovernmental agreements. ICES recommends that an overall TAC is implemented to improve management of the fishery. ICES advised catch is rarely exceeded (one occurrence: ~11% in 2019) and catches remain well below advice.The fishery is also managed through a series of regulations including effort limitations and technical conservation measures (minimum landing size, mesh size and sorting grid regulations, closed areas, move-on rules). Vessel fishing activity is monitored rigorously through recording of fishing position by VMS and log book data (some electronic (ERS)) and they are subject to inspections at sea.Norwegian and Russian vessels exploit the northern prawn stock across the entire region; Barents Sea and Svalbard Fishery Protection Zone (FPZ). Other non-Norwegian and non-Russian vessels from Estonian, Danish, Lithuanian, and UK are not permitted to fish in Norwegian and Russian EEZs and so are restricted to fishing within the Svalbard FPZ and in an area of international waters managed by NEAFC to the south east of Svalbard known as the ‘Loop Hole’. Management regulations differ across various fishing zones and vessels require licences from relevant Ministries to fish in each of the two areas. Activity of third country fleets operating in the Svalbard zone are also restricted by the number of effective fishing days and the number of vessels by country, set by the Norwegian authorities. Although there is no overall limit on fishing effort in the international zone, individual countries may limit the number of licences for vessels to fish in the zone.Discarding is considered to be negligible. Shrimp minimum landing size is 6 cm, the average size of Northern prawn caught by Faroese vessels is 7-8 cm.In the EU, compliance with regulations has been variable, and there are ongoing challenges with implementing some of them.In the UK, it is too early to tell how effective management is, as the Fisheries Act only came into force in January 2021. The Act requires the development of Fisheries Management Plans (FMPs). FMPs are currently in development, but the scope of them remains unclear. They have the potential to be very important tools for managing UK fisheries, although data limitations may delay them for some stocks. MCS is keen to see publicly available FMPs for all commercially exploited stocks, especially where stocks are depleted, that include:Targets for fishing pressure and biomass, and additional management when those targets are not being met, based on the best available scientific evidenceTimeframes for stock recoveryImproved data collection, transparency and accountability, supported by technologies such as Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM)Consideration of wider environmental impacts of the fishery
