Fishing industry in Russia

Fishing industry in Russia

Russia has a coastline of 37,653 km (23,396 mi).
General characteristics (2005 unless otherwise stated)
EEZ area	7,566,673 km2 (2,921,509 sq mi)
Shelf area	5 million square kilometres (1.9×10^6 sq mi)
Lake area	79,400 km2 (30,700 sq mi)
Land area	16,995,800 km2 (6,562,100 sq mi)
Employment	Primary: 100,000+ persons Secondary: 700,000+ persons
Landing sites	Most volume: Most value:
Consumption	17.3 kg (38 lb) fish per capita (2003)
Fisheries GDP	US$ 3.02 billion (2006)
Export value	US$ 2.12 billion (2006)
Import value	US$ 1.44 billion (2006)
Harvest (2005 unless otherwise stated)
Wild inland	72,000 tonnes (79,000 tons)
Wild total	3,190,946 tonnes (3,517,416 tons)
Aquaculture inland	ca 110,000 tonnes (120,000 tons)
Aquaculture marine	ca 5,000 tonnes (5,500 tons)
Aquaculture total	114,752 tonnes (126,492 tons)
Fish total	3,305,698 tonnes (3,643,908 tons)

External images

Russian exclusive economic zone

Russian fishery production timeseries

The coastline of the Russian Federation is the fourth longest in the world after the coastlines of Canada, Greenland, and Indonesia. The Russian fishing industry has an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 7.6 million km² including access to twelve seas in three oceans, together with the landlocked Caspian Sea and more than two million rivers.

According to the FAO, in 2005 the Russian fishing industry harvested 3,190,946 tonnes of fish from wild fisheries and another 114,752 tonnes from aquaculture. This made Russia the ninth leading producer of fish, with 2.3 percent of the world total.

Fisheries management is regulated by Russian federal laws. The federal law "On Fisheries and Protection of Aquatic Biological Resources" of December 2004 (referred to below as the Law on Fisheries) divides fisheries into three main categories" industrial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries of indigenous groups. Industrial fisheries includes coastal fisheries. This definition has been challenged and is under review.

The Law on Fisheries requires that total allowable catch (TAC) levels are set for fishery stocks. It defines these levels as the “scientifically justified annual catch of aquatic biological resources of particular species in a fishing area”. However, the Law on Fisheries then goes on to state that industrial fisheries are not necessarily required to base their catch on TAC. The Law does not explain this further, but calls for the federal government to issue a special TAC setting statute. Pacific salmon is the main stock that will probably not have TAC, but will have regulated fishing effort instead.

The Law on Fisheries also gives a definition of a fishing unit area and sets general principles for their use. The compiling of lists of fishing unit areas is delegated to the regional authorities. The Law on Fisheries has gaps and its application is criticized by parliamentarians and stakeholders. It may be expected that in the coming years at least two new federal laws, "On Coastal Fisheries" and "On Aquaculture", will be considered by Russian legislators.