4.4. Tailoring of national quota regulations
Different ways of regulating fisheries by means of quotas may provide different incentives with regard to discarding. As a consequence of the introduction of a discard ban, the government was forced to re-think its practices, not only in terms of technical regulations, but also with regard to national quota regulations. It was important to ensure that the regulations were formulated to minimise possible incentives to discarding, such as quotas per trip or week. Weekly quotas face the fisher with a weekly temptation to discard excess catches in the last haul, whereas annual quotas limit that temptation to once a year.
Another important measure was to allocate quotas to cover expected unavoidable bycatches in non-direct fisheries, before allocating remaining national quotas to vessels licensed to target the species in question. In addition the bycatch allocation must be reconciled with the permissible bycatch limits, and the government must refrain from “solving” distributional issues by implicitly accepting that fishers discard excess catches. Bycatch allocations are now common in many Norwegian fisheries; examples include allocation of North Sea cod to cover unavoidable bycatches in saithe and in Northern shrimp fisheries, saithe in Norway pout (Trisopterus esmarkii) trawling, and blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou) in herring (Clupea harengus) fisheries.
Small coastal vessels fishing with passive gear have limitations in terms of mobility and ability to change fishing ground. In some of the fisheries carried out by these vessels, actual bycatches may vary considerably from setting to setting or from day to day. In such cases, bycatch limits may be set for a longer period, for example a week, to reduce incentives to discard.