No more salmon war in Tana?
Summer of 2007 was the year of quarrels, stone throwing and anger along Norwegian salmon river Tana. Finnish boat fishermen had several conflicts with international fly fishers at the Norwegian side of popular fishing spot Storfossen. Less salmon and heavy waters forced to two groups into what news medias referred to as “salmon war”.
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Finnish boat fishermen provoking Norwegian flyfisher in Storfossen, June, 2007. Photo: Jan Gunnar Furuly.
The salmon fishing rights owners on the Norwegian side of Tana (Laksebreveierforeningen) now wants to put an end to the conflict, by reducing the number of fishing permits for boats for the next five years on the border river between Norway and Finland.
They also want to limit the number of maximum rods in each boat down to three. Last year boats with up to eight rods were seen on the river. If there is no agreement with the Finnish side on limitation of rods, the salmon right owners suggests limitations on the number of boats.
According to a proposal from the salmon rights owners they also ask for a sharp increase in the cost of fishing permits for boats, to 40 euro’s per rod.
While salmon stocks in Tana is dropping drastically, the number of fishing permits issued for boats has gone sky-rocketing the last 6-7 years. The rise of sold permits is significant on the Finnish side. According to statistics from tanalaks.no an annual average of 15.666 boat days were sold on the Finnish side during the years of 2001-2004, compared to 9144 in the years of 1996-2000.
Last year close to 40.000 day permits were sold to fishermen at the Finnish side of Tana. On the Norwegian side the number was near 5000 only.
Read the proposals below (in Norwegian only).
Proposal to limit boat fishing in Tana – part 1
Proposal to limit boat fishing in Tana – part 2
News coverage of this topic:
http://www.start.no/sok/?t=nyhet&q=tanaelva&u=norske
