Fishing industry in Russia

Fishing vessels off a jetty, believed to be Kostroma (Russia) Oil on canvas, 1839, by Anton Ivanov

There is no legally adopted term in Russia for artisanal fisheries. Artisanal or subsistence fishing usually refers to fishing mainly with traditional gear, with production delivered to the market but also used for subsistence. In Russia, the term covers also several kinds of fisheries classified as industrial, such as salmon, chars, whitefish, navaga, flounders and greenling fisheries in the Baltic, the Arctic and the Far Eastern Seas. Subsistence fishing by indigenous groups is also an issue. Indigenous fishers mainly work estuaries, lagoons and rivers (for anadromous fish). Legally, they are bound to use their catch for local consumption only. They are not allowed to sell their catch, but in reality, this is not always the case.[3]

In Russia, poverty contributes to poaching and other threats to fishery resources. Poverty can leave people depending on natural resources to feed themselves. There may be little perceived incentive to protect fish and other aquatic life and to use them in a sustainable way. Lack of awareness and lack of public involvement in managing local resources can result in poaching, overfishing, and other kinds of illegal activities. Poaching by private individuals feeds the industrial IUU catch, and forms a vicious cycle.[3]

The social impacts of traditional fisheries has rarely been analysed. The yearly fishing cycle still dominates life in the traditional fishing villages of the Pomor, dotted around the coast of the White Sea.[8] Fishing has similarly influenced the life style of many indigenous groups, such as among settlers around the Pacific Coast, north of Siberia, and around the big lakes. In the late 1960s, administrative decisions were made to abandon many coastal villages and resettle people in larger settlements. This has disrupted the traditional ways and is associated with alcohol abuse and increased poverty. There is now a slow movement towards reviving cultural traditions. To succeed, there must also be a re-establishment of the sustainable fisheries that allowed such fishing communities to flourish.[3]

Recreational fishing occurs everywhere in Russia. The Fishing Rules do not distinguish recreational fishing from artisan fishing, so both are regulated under the same rules. In some areas, tourist fishing is growing.[3]

In 1999, recreational and subsistence fishers took 4,300 tonnes, mostly perches and cyprinids.[9] Later estimates are not available. The most significant recreational fishery by value is the Kola Peninsula Atlantic salmon fishery.[3]

Russia has three main commercial fisheries:[3]

• marine fisheries – including brackish water and anadromous species, and estuarine fisheries
• inland fisheries
• aquaculture

Relief map of Russia

Russia's marine fisheries are based on twelve seas from three oceans which surround Russia, the landlocked Caspian Sea, and the high seas beyond Russia's exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

The three oceans are:[3]

• the Atlantic: with the Sea of Azov, Black Sea, Baltic, Barents Sea and White Sea
• the Arctic Ocean: with the Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea and Chuckchi Sea
• the Pacific: with the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan.

Marine capture fisheries in Russia's territorial seas, internal marine waters and the EEZ provided up to 75 percent of the total reported catch for 1996–2005.

External images
Russian exclusive economic zone
Russian fishery production timeseries

The officially recorded annual value of fisheries is about US$5 billion, equivalent to 0.3 percent of GDP. The fishery sector has been stable in absolute terms in recent years, so its share of GDP has reduced as the general economy has expanded.[3]

Due to the decreasing catch and a growing export to East Asian markets, Russian fisheries cannot meet current domestic demand for seafood. East Asian markets are more attractive to fishing enterprises than the domestic market. As a consequence, there are increasing imports for the affluent in big cities, with increasing subsistence and recreational fishing with its associated IUU catch.[3]

Omul fish, endemic to Lake Baikal. Smoked and on sale at Listvyanka market.

The biggest inland water is the landlocked Caspian Sea. The biggest lakes are Baikal (31,700 km²), Ladoga (19,100 km²) and Onega (9,700 km²). Russia has more than 2 million rivers, the largest of which are, in order, Severnaya Dvina, Pechora, Dnieper, Volga, Ob’, Don, Yenisei, Lena, Kolyma, Indigirka and Amur.[3] The most important inland fishing area is the Ob’–Irtysh River Basin (about 27 percent). Sixty species are caught in the inland fisheries of Russia.[10] In volume terms, whitefish (Coregonidae), cyprinids, zanders and perch are most important. Set nets are the most common gear used in inland water commercial fisheries. Seines are also used on big rivers and lakes, and small trawls on the big lakes. In 2005, the official catch in the inland waters was 72,000 tonnes.[11]

In the past, sturgeon has been an important catch in the basin of the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea, and in Siberian Rivers and the Amur River. Currently, sturgeon stocks are heavily depleted and under constant pressure from poaching. Inland fisheries are regulated by the Law on Fisheries discussed above. However, few provisions refer specifically to inland fisheries, although there are specific regulations for same catchments and river systems. These regulations specify closed areas, seasonal closures, gear restrictions, minimum mesh sizes and minimum catch size.[11]

The Russian fishing trawler Sergey Makarevich in the North Atlantic.

The Russian midwater fishing trawler SRT-129 (Museum of the World Ocean in Kaliningrad)

According to the Russian State Marine Register, in 2002, the offshore fishing fleet contained about 2,500 fishing vessels, 366 transport vessels and 46 factory ships. Of the fishing vessels, 17 percent were longer than 64 metres (o/a), half were between 34 and 64 metres, and one-third were between 24 and 34 metres. Smaller boats are registered with the State Inspection of Small Size Fleet. In 2005, the marine small size fleet contained 2,491 boats, and the inland fleet contained 5,500 motor boats.[3]

Fishing gears used are:[3]

• Midwater trawls – used by processing trawlers and freezing for redfish and Alaska pollock.
• Bottom trawls – restricted use by medium and large sized trawlers, for demersal fishes such as halibut, cod, redfish, flounder.
• Shrimp trawls – used by specialised shrimp trawlers
• Bottom nets – used by small and midsize vessels for flounder, cod and halibut
• Bottom seines – deployed by small vessels for flounder, cod, halibut and other demersal fishes.
• Drift nets – used by midsize vessels, mainly for salmon.
• Bottom longlines – used for halibut, cod and redfish.
• Traps and pots – used by small and midsize vessels for shrimp, crabs and whelks,
• Seines and pound nets – for herring and whitefish
• Dredges – operated from small vessels for clams.
• Small boats – used with salmon kiddles (basketwork traps), and for skindivers harvesting scallops, sea urchins, kelp and sea cucumbers.

An important issue is the age of the Russian fishing fleet. About two-thirds of the fishing vessels do not conform to safety norms. Compared to 1990, by 2000 capital investment in the industry had decreased thirty percent and the number of specialists qualified in fishing, navigation and processing technologies had decreased 30 to 40 percent.[12][13] The Barents Sea cod fishery is an example of the dominance of elderly and ineffective vessels.[14] Between 2002 and 2005, forty percent of effort in the demersal fishery was by elderly freezing trawlers, which produced only twenty-five percent of the official catch. That is, they were 1.5 times less effective than the other vessels in the fleet. Equivalent modern trawlers are three to four times as effective. The low efficiencies of these elderly vessels also implicates them in involvements with IUU catch.[3]

According to the FAO, important stocks have declined as the result of:[3]

• natural fluctuations: Pacific pilchard
• a combination of natural fluctuations and overfishing: Atlantic and Pacific herring, Alaska pollock, capelin in the Barents Sea
• overfishing and continuing IUU: sturgeons, Atlantic salmon, red king crab, sea cucumber
• a combination of marine pollution and overfishing: whitefish and Atlantic salmon in the Pechora drainage basin, whitefish and sturgeon in the Ob drainage basin, most of the stocks in the Amur Basin
• ecosystem transformation due to the introduction of invasive species: sprat in the Black and the Caspian Seas.

Aggravating factors surround the demand for seafood from East Asian markets, which encourage commercial fishermen to exhaust stocks in Russia's EEZ. Russian illegal exporters have well oiled links to importers in Japan, China and South Korea. Criminal groups and corruption magnifies the effect, as the short distances needed to transport seafood from south Kurils and south Sakhalin to Japan. Huge fish processing developments in China built on cheap labour encourage the export of further unprocessed fish.[3]