Fishery Cooperation of the Arctic States

Abstract

Cooperation between fisheries occupies a special place in the system of international economic cooperation of the Arctic countries (Denmark, Canada, Norway, Russia, the USA). The extraction of fish and other biological resources of the Arctic Ocean has been the basis of the economic activity of the peoples of the North for centuries. The products of marine fisheries form the basis of the local food ratio. The extraction of biological marine resources in the region acquired an industrial character in the twentieth century; this is why the competition for these resources arose between the Arctic countries, leading to the current need for international regulation of fishing rules.There is a system of measures to regulate the withdrawal of biological resources of the ocean, but the spatial and geographical specifics of the Arctic region dictate the need for a special approach to this area.The current stage of development of fisheries cooperation in the Arctic can be represented as a multilevel branched process of multidirectional impulses with different degrees of formalization. The general idea of such cooperation can be described as searching for ways to revise the principles of stakeholders’ interaction under the influence of changing conditions and factors.The main reasons that transform the fisheries cooperation in the Arctic include freeing part of the Arctic Ocean from ice under the influence of climate change, unresolved problems of delineating the shelf and 200-mile economic zones, the active participation of non-Arctic states, the formation of new Arctic development strategies, and the introduction of the principles of sustainability of the economic activity. Innovative technologies of the new stage of the industrial revolution are also contributing to fisheries cooperation, being introduced into the extraction, processing, and cultivation of water resources.With a complex combination of causes and phenomena that form multidirectional trends in fisheries cooperation, optimism is inspired by the traceable desire of the Arctic states, their closest neighbors, and third countries to agree on the development of scientific research, the exchange of production and fishing technologies, the provision of quotas, and other issues.KeywordsArcticInternational cooperationFisheriesAquacultureResearchInnovation