Norway cannot admit this – VG

EGON HOLSTAD, commentator on the VG iTromsø collaboration newspaper

The show at Dagsrevyen on Monday, where you saw full crabs and snails full of half-dead fish and shellfish, was the truly sad kind. Only one shipping company had left more than 800 ticks in the sea since October last year, with the fatal consequences automatically following.

I am a strong advocate of research-based natural resource taxes that are sustainable. Fish, shellfish and marine mammals with numerous populations are a wonderful resource that we have been feeding along the vast coastline for centuries, and this is, in a way, what our nation is built on. And, of course, the catch must be done properly.

There can be a great silly feeling when the most extreme animal protectors are giving way to both agriculture and the fishing industry. Nature’s harvest is fair and good, and nature is not from the beginning that all animals die alone, full of days, with all their family around them.

Of course, this does not mean that animal welfare is something to deceive, much less throw the bar. Therefore, regulations have also been constantly improved and adjusted, formalized and enshrined in the Marine Resources Act of 2008.

One can certainly get dull by reading the extent of environmental crime, animal cruelty, and the sloppy practice of ruthless and dishonest players in industry and private tail fishing. In southern Helgeland, where the Dagsrevyen part was, there are believed to be around 1,000 unserved adolescents at the bottom of the sea; Royal traps where fish and shellfish torment and die until someone picks them up and cleans the community.

The executives, the lofoten company Arctic Sea Harvest, even had some fairly separate explanations of the facts. In an email to NRK, they stated the following explanation: “The shipping company is seriously affected by the corona crisis, due to the failure in the export market to Asia. We have not received notification of a decision by the authorities that the teeth should be removed before May 4. When it comes to animal welfare, that is precisely what we have worked hard to improve, in terms of preserving the resources of the sea. ”

The Corona crisis has obviously become the potato that can be used for everything, and the new Esperanto for explanations. Decline from last year and the final loss of the dying cup for TIL in 2012? The weak position for Norway in pop? Fox snow here in Tromsø now? The stock market crash in 1929? War crimes during World War II? Only the fault of the coronary crisis. Alternatively, you can put on a clown nose and pose in the square and juggle too many balls in the air.

But the situation here is not fun at all. In the Trondheim Fjord, there should be between 2,000 and 3,000 of those ghost stones. Troms police are investigating Norwegian fishermen for illegal fishing for snow crab in the Svalbard area. During the Fisheries Directorate’s northernmost cleanup cruise, in August last year, more than 1,200 snow crab traps were recovered from the seabed.

Then it is estimated that about 30,000 teeth are lost along our coast. Every year The dark numbers are probably significant, and with extensive snow crab fishing in the Barents Sea, as well as king crab fishing in eastern Finnmark and the Barents Sea, there are many reasons to trigger all alarms.

For the last 25-30 years plastic teeth have been made, and in the depths of the sea they are only found as perpetual traps, where fish and shellfish are caught and tormented. The fact that these plastic stones can be bought from Biltema and other cheap chains, at such a low price that nobody cares if they lose them, does not improve the case. Plus, since plastic doesn’t wear down deep, teeth are perpetual machines for brushing and animal cruelty.

Fish and shellfish get into the tails, get caught, starve, start to smell, attract new fish and shellfish that are caught again, etc. So this is a crazy problem, and it runs broadly between pure environmental crime, garbage, animal cruelty, and general, unscrupulous iniquities that are largely committed with full deliberation.

The use of provisions that endanger life at sea or that may hinder the traffic of other fishermen or boats is currently prohibited. This peculiar teenage winery that takes place comes into play at all three points. A true crime trick, and where the authorities are relatively powerless to deal with it.

It is one thing that the work of bringing the guilty who operate in grand style must be intensified. Another is that much more resources must be put in and that the Minister of Fisheries must be on the track and in the boat and show the power to act here. That he was on the trip to the Directorate of Fisheries in the Dagsrevyen element mentioned above, and that he promised fines and improvements, is at least a start. Now he has said it too, and then it must be followed.

Another thing is that today there is a bureaucratic and too rigid platform that stands in the way of action by the Directorate of Fisheries. Therefore, they must report each relationship to the police, who in turn will prioritize this and all other matters, as well as dealing with large amounts of heavy and retracted equipment. Matter problems on the seafloor are often, quite understandably, prioritized and abandoned.

Therefore, the Directorate must have an independent authority to confiscate, manipulate (and possibly destroy) the recovered equipment, as it is today in the case of illegal salmon threads, in which the State Inspectorate has its hand on the steering wheel.

This unworthy arrangement must be addressed soon. One can only imagine what the reactions between people would have been if they were terrestrial animals that we all saw with the naked eye. That it occurs underwater should not change its ethics and morals. After all, we are a proud coastal and port nation, and we cannot admit this.