The Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation has introduced new rules for the commercial production of Pacific salmon, imposing severe restrictions on the use of large-scale fishing gear in key fishing areas of the Far East. The new regulations, approved by Order No. 321, began to take effect on June 16 and will be relevant until the end of 2025, affecting the economic interests of fishing companies in Kamchatka and the Khabarovsk Territory.
The purpose of the innovations is to limit the use of the most effective and often barrier fishing methods, which can block a significant part of the migration routes of fish to spawning grounds. In particular, off the coast of the Kamchatka Territory in the Sea of Okhotsk, it is now prohibited to install shutter seines, which are giant stationary traps made of nets, if they are equipped with more than two traps, and their central cable, stretched from the shore into the sea, exceeds 1,500 meters. Similar measures have been taken for the North Okhotsk subzone off the coast of the Khabarovsk Territory, where the maximum cable length for such seines is limited to 1,000 meters.
Special attention is paid to the lower reaches of the Amur River, which is the most important spawning artery for many salmon species. Shut-off nets with a central guide wall longer than 1,000 meters are prohibited here, provided that piles or other rigid elements fixed to the bottom are used in their construction. Such structures create almost insurmountable obstacles for fish going upstream, which endangers the reproduction of the population.
It is noteworthy that the norm was excluded from the final version of the document, which caused widespread discussion at the draft stage. We are talking about a proposal to ban industrial fishing in the Amur basin using floating nets with a length of more than 100 meters for areas with the right to catch and more than 75 meters without it. Initially, this measure was aimed at protecting the interests of the indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, for whom traditional fishing is the basis of their livelihoods. The exclusion of this paragraph from the order means that commercial fishing using long floating nets in the Amur River will continue without additional restrictions, which may affect the balance between commercial fishing and traditional environmental management.