_-_only_Crimea_disputed.svg) Russia has a coastline of 37,653 km (23,396 mi).[1] | |
| General characteristics (2005 unless otherwise stated) | |
|---|---|
| EEZ area | 7,566,673 km2 (2,921,509 sq mi)[2] |
| Shelf area | 5 million square kilometres (1.9×10 |
| Lake area | 79,400 km2 (30,700 sq mi)[1] |
| Land area | 16,995,800 km2 (6,562,100 sq mi)[1] |
| Employment | Primary: 100,000+ persons[3] Secondary: 700,000+ persons[3] |
| Landing sites | Most volume: Most value: |
| Consumption | 17.3 kg (38 lb) fish per capita (2003)[2] |
| Fisheries GDP | US$ 3.02 billion (2006)[3] |
| Export value | US$ 2.12 billion (2006)[3] |
| Import value | US$ 1.44 billion (2006)[3] |
| Harvest (2005 unless otherwise stated) | |
| Wild inland | 72,000tonnes (79,000tons) |
| Wild total | 3,190,946 tonnes (3,517,416 tons)[4] |
| Aquaculture inland | c. 110,000 tonnes (120,000 tons)[5] |
| Aquaculture marine | c. 5,000 tonnes (5,500 tons) |
| Aquaculture total | 114,752 tonnes (126,492 tons)[4] |
| Fish total | 3,305,698 tonnes (3,643,908 tons)[4] |
The coastline of theRussian Federation is the fourth longest in the world after the coastlines ofCanada,Greenland, andIndonesia. The Russianfishing industry has anexclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 7.6 million km2 including access to twelve seas in three oceans, together with the landlockedCaspian Sea and more than two million rivers.[3]
According to theFAO, in 2005 the Russianfishing industry harvested 3,190,946tonnes of fish fromwild fisheries and another 114,752 tonnes fromaquaculture. This made Russia the ninth leading producer of fish, with 2.3 percent of the world total.[4]
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 theLaw on Fisheries) divides fisheries into three main categories" industrial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries ofindigenous groups. Industrial fisheries includes coastal fisheries. This definition has been challenged and is under review.[3]
TheLaw on Fisheries requires thattotal 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, theLaw 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 regulatedfishing effort instead.
TheLaw 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. TheLaw 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.[3]
Apart from TAC settings, fisheries are also regulated by the so-calledFishing Rules (Pravila rybolovstva). These rules are set separately for different geographical regions.[3]
TheFishing Rules specify seasonal closures, closed areas, restrictions on specific gears such as restricting mesh sizes, minimum catch sizes, and restricted levels of allowablebycatch. Fisheries management has been changing since Soviet times, and further changes are likely.[3]
The government has mismanaged the fisheries, with frequent restructuring of the institutions responsible for fishery management and control. Starting in 1992, the fishery authority has been reorganized at least five times. The head of the fishery authority was replaced seven times, and not one of these heads was a fishery professional. The issues involved in regulating fishing capacity were never really recognized. However, consistent fishery policies are starting to be developed now.[3][6][7]
The extreme bureaucracy involved for a fishing vessel to make a port call and land fish results in coastal processing being bypassed. Instead, the seafood is just directly exported, unprocessed. Similarly, there are many bureaucratic difficulties in developing aquaculture. Getting a licence to use water and the necessary sanitary certificates is very time-consuming, although it does guarantee environmental and health safety.[3] Ships built, purchased, or serviced outside of theEurasian Economic Union face significant restrictions in landing catches caught in Russia's EEZ, and from 2022 will not be allocated any fishing quotas in Russian waters.[8]
There is no legally adopted term in Russia forartisanal 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 assalmon,chars,whitefish,navaga,flounders andgreenling fisheries in the Baltic, the Arctic and the Far Eastern Seas. Subsistence fishing byindigenous groups is also an issue. Indigenous fishers mainly work estuaries, lagoons and rivers (foranadromous 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 industrialIUU 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 thetraditional fishing villages of thePomor, dotted around the coast of theWhite Sea.[9] 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. TheFishing Rules do not distinguish recreational fishing fromartisan 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, mostlyperches andcyprinids.[10] Later estimates are not available. The most significant recreational fishery by value is theKola PeninsulaAtlantic salmon fishery.[3]
Russia has three main commercial fisheries:[3]
| Catch by fishery category, 2005[3] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Fishery zone | Catch tonne | Percent | Comment |
| Marine | Coastal EEZ | 69 | ||
| Marine | Foreign EEZ | 14.5 | The reported catch in EEZs of foreign states is stable. | |
| Marine | High seas | 10 | Catch on the high seas increased in the 2000s. | |
| Inland | 72,000 | 2.7 | Inland fisheries are found everywhere in river basins and freshwater bodies, but the catch has constituted only a very small fraction of the total catch. | |
| Aquaculture | 3.6 | Aquaculture (mainly freshwater) production is relatively small compared to capture fisheries, but is growing. | ||
Russia's marine fisheries are based on twelve seas from three oceans which surround Russia, the landlockedCaspian Sea, and thehigh seas beyond Russia'sexclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The three oceans are:[3]
Marine capture fisheries in Russia'sterritorial 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 |
| Russia's EEZ[2] | |
| Area km2 | |
|---|---|
| Asia | 6,382,530 km2 |
| Baltic | 24,549 |
| Barents Sea | 1,159,594 |
| Total EEZ | 7,566,673 |
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]
| Fisheries data intonnes[3] | |||||
| 2003 | Production | Imports | Exports | Food supply | Per capita |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fish for direct human consumption | 3,389,932 | 815,155 | 1,374,894 | 2,481,542 | 17.3 kg |
| Fish for animal feed and other purposes | 348,652 | — | — | — | |
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 associatedIUU catch.[3]
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The biggest inland water is the landlockedCaspian Sea. The biggest lakes areBaikal (31,700 km2),Ladoga (19,100 km2) andOnega (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 andAmur.[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.[11] In volume terms,whitefish (Coregonidae),cyprinids,zanders andperch 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 smalltrawls on the big lakes. In 2005, the official catch in the inland waters was 72,000 tonnes.[12]
| Water bodies or drainage areas | 2005 | Percent | Main species |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ob-Irtysh catchment (West Siberia) | 19,200 | 26.7 | |
| Enisei catchment | 1,150 | 1.6 | |
| Lakes | |||
| Ladoga | 2,900 | 4.0 | cyprinids,perch andwhitefish |
| Onega | 2,100 | 2.9 | cyprinids,perch andwhitefish |
| Chudsko-Pskovskoye (Peipsi) (shared with Estonia) | 4,000 | 5.6 | cyprinids,smelt and coregonids |
| Ilmen | 1,380 | 1.9 | |
| Baikal | 2,500 | 3.5 | whitefish |
| Water reservoirs | |||
| Rybinsk | 1,040 | 1.4 | |
| Kuibyshevskoye | 2,110 | 2.9 | |
| Saratovskoye | 600 | 0.8 | |
| Volgograd (on the Volga) | 1,720 | 2.4 | |
| Tsimlyansk (on the Don) | 6,900 | 9.6 | cyprinids,perch andsander |
| Other areas | 26,400 | 36.7 | |
| Total | 72,000 | 100 |
In the past,sturgeon has been an important catch in the basin of theSea of Azov and theCaspian Sea, and in Siberian Rivers and theAmur River. Currently, sturgeon stocks are heavily depleted and under constant pressure from poaching. Inland fisheries are regulated by theLaw 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.[12]
According to the Russian State Marine Register, in 2002, the offshorefishing fleet contained about 2,500fishing vessels, 366 transport vessels and 46factory 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]
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.[13][14] TheBarents Sea cod fishery is an example of the dominance of elderly and ineffective vessels.[15] Between 2002 and 2005, forty percent of effort in thedemersal 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 withIUU catch.[3]
According to theFAO, important stocks have declined as the result of:[3]
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 southKurils and southSakhalin to Japan. Huge fish processing developments in China built on cheap labour encourage the export of further unprocessed fish.[3]
Over sixty species of fish,invertebrates andseaweed are commercially cultivated byaquaculture orfish farming in Russia.[5] Aquaculture is based mainly onbuffalo,grass andsilver carp,rainbow trout,scallops,mussels andlaminaria. In 2007 there were 300 aquaculture enterprises.[16]
Aquaculture can be freshwater or marine (mariculture):
Potential development areas for freshwater aquaculture include 960,000 hectares of agricultural water bodies, 143,000 hectares of ponds, plus other areas in big lakes and water reservoirs suitable for cage farming. The National Project on Agricultural Sector development (Federal Agency of Fishery, 2006) has set a target for 2020 of 1.4 million tonnes from freshwater aquaculture and 400 thousand tonnes from mariculture. The federal government is considering a subsidy of two-thirds of the credit needed to construct and modernise aquaculture facilities.[3]
In Soviet Union, theMinistry of the Fishing Industry operated numerousresearch institutes with R&D focus onoceanography,marine biology,fishery management, assessment of fishing resources, the development of fishing gear andfish processing technologies. The ministry had its ownresearch ship which conducted research for the Soviet distant water fisheries.[3]
In the modern Russia, the research institutes, particularly responsible for the research infisheries science, were coordinated by VNIRO, the central fishery institute inMoscow. In 2007, independent institutes became subordinate branches of VNIRO with different scientific focus. For instance,Saint Petersburg-based GIPRORYBFLOT works in fishing vessels technologies and fish processing, while the VIERH in Moscow does economic research.[3]
By 2007, five technological universities and four professional schools in Russia trained specialists in fisheries. The educational programs included navigation and marine engineering, fishery biology, fish processing, processing machinery, the economics of fisheries, and aquaculture.[3]
The faculties of Geography ofSaint Petersburg State University andMoscow State University (MSU), the faculty of Biology of MSU, theFar Eastern National University,Kazan State University andPerm State University considered the most important educational facilities for the fishing industry. Around 120 aquaculture specialists and numerous specialists in fish biology and fishery oceanography graduate each year.[3]
The fishing industry suffered from thecollapse of Soviet Union: the harvest dropped dramatically and only started to recover in the mid-1990s. The reasons for the decline in annual harvest included the decrease in stock due to aggressive Soviet fishing practices, changes in the use of the open sea fishing areas, low effectiveness, and problems in the value chain on the local market, including lack of regulations and unaffordable lending. Due to weak national currency, fishing companies had little incentive to deal with barriers on the local market and prioritized exports with payments in the Western currency.[18]
To modernize the outdated Soviet fishing fleets, many private companies accepted bareboat charter contracts (BBC) with foreign investors, theleasing contracts that locked Russian fishing companies into the delivery of catches to foreign management companies. The number of BBC contracts increased from 1994 onwards.[19] The absence of trade protectionism measures additionally incentivized Russian fishing companies to deliver fish directly to foreign buyers both in the Northwest and the Far East, providing no benefit to the Russian government in terms of taxes or currency. The domestic supply decreased, pushing up prices making Russia a lucrative market for foreign fish companies. From the 1990s to the mid-2000s, the import of fish to Russia increased from 424 thousand tonnes to nearly 1 million tonnes, while domestic supply decreased from 3.3 million tonnes to a record low level of 2.5 million tonnes.[18]
In the 2000s, the Russian authorities addressed the issues of the decreasing volume and value of domestic seafood production and growing dependence on seafood exports. In 2003, the "Concept for Development of the Fishing Industry of the Russian Federation to 2020" was approved by the government. In 2009, the BBC contracts were effectively banned in the Russianexclusive economic zone. The 2010Food Security Doctrine set the food independence andfood security goals and defined the target proportion of seafood exports and imports. According to the document, the domestic fish catch in Russia should account for no less than 80% of the total seafood consumption. The program goals included renewing the fishing fleet and land-based processing industry by introducing the fishery quota. Basically, the government allocated 20% of the total allowable catch for the companies willing to invest in new vessels to be built on domestic shipyards.[18]
By 2019,Norebo (Russian:Норебо), owned by Vitaly Orlov, was the largest fishing holding in Russia. That year, its 16 companies totaled 58,2 billion rubles in revenue. It was the only fishing company on theForbes list of the largest privately owned companies in Russia.[20]
The other top ten of the largest fishing companies included Hydrostroy (Russian:Гидрострой) owned by theFederation Council memberAlexander Verkhovskiy and the associates ofRoman Abramovich; SZRK (Russian:СЗРК, Северо-Западный рыболовный консорциум) owned by Gennady Mirgorodsky and Dmitry Ozersky; the companies of Igor Evtushok and Valery Ponomarev; the Russian Fishery Company owned by Gleb Frank; Salmonica owned by Nikita Kozhemyako; the companies of Maksim Petrushin and Sergey Popov; FEST Group (Russian:Группа ФЭСТ) owned by Sergey Prutkov; FOR Group (Russian:Группа ФОР) owned byIlya Klebanov; and NBAMR (Russian:НБАМР) owned by the ex-governor ofPrimorsky KraiSergey Mikhailovich Darkin.[20]
Despite being one of the key global exporters of fish (specifically,pollock,cod, andherring), Russia has a notable import dependency onsalmon. The reasons include the underdevelopedaquaculture, light export regulations, and distorted production and consumption geography: 85% of salmon is harvested in theFar East but consumed elsewhere, and selling fish domestically means dealing with expensive and unpredictable logistics.[21]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
| onJSC Far East Development Corporation Official YouTube Channel(in Russian) | |
 Video about the Russian pollock fish processing plant. ASEZ Primorye. Nadezhdinskaya Venue.2020. onYouTube[1][2] |
