NAPA urges Coastal States to do the ‘Mackerel Maths’ with unique campaign

The North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA) has today launched a short film as a new call-to-action as part of its increasingly urgent mission to reduce the overfishing of mackerel in the North East Atlantic. In a departure from the kind of meeting you might usually expect from a supply chain coalition, this film features six schoolchildren with an important lesson to share.

Between the countries who fish for mackerel – most of which is caught by the Coastal States (Norway, EU, UK, Iceland, Faroe Islands, and Greenland) – the total annual catch has been on average 40% more than scientific recommendations for the last 15 years. Meanwhile, the stock has continuously declined since 2015, and ongoing excessive catches could threaten it further. As recent coverage has shown, these figures simply don’t add up to a sustainable future – for the stock, or for the businesses that depend on it.

At the heart of the issue lies a political impasse and a grave absence of sharing and compromise. To find out how difficult this really is to overcome, NAPA challenged schoolchildren to manage their own ‘catches’ in a mock mackerel fishery, while ensuring there was enough to share without causing further declines. The eye-opening result was discussion, consensus, and even acceptance of losses for some of the ‘fishing nations’. There is a serious point at the heart of this campaign film: even schoolchildren can see that there’s no way to keep taking more than the total available, and collaboration is the only way forward. Perhaps Coastal States need to go back to school

NAPA Partners from across the region, including processors, supermarkets, food service companies and suppliers, are urging the Coastal States to come together and ‘do the Mackerel Maths’ – namely, to finally agree on a comprehensive sharing agreement that ensures total catches stay within recommended limits, securing a healthy future for the stock.

The film, shot on location at a school in London, will be showcased by NAPA at the upcoming Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona – the world’s largest seafood trade event. With a series of educational sessions for attendees, it’s a chance for the seafood supply chain to hear new schools of thought on the big issues. NAPA hopes that its lesson will not continue to be ignored.

Chris Shearlock, Ambient Sustainability Director at Thai Union and NAPA’s Mackerel Subgroup Chair, added: “This film points to a serious, collective failure of governments. We need the Coastal States to rethink their attitudes to agreement and collectively bring catches down in line with the scientific advice. Mackerel is the perfect example of a failure of leadership from our Coastal States’ governments – short-term thinking and disagreements blinding negotiators to a chance to secure generational sustainability for the stock.”

NAPA’s market collective has spearheaded pioneering ‘policy FIPs’, designed to support and cultivate opportunities for meaningful collaboration and science-based sharing agreements between Coastal States. Through these FIPs, NAPA members have independently made an array of sourcing commitments, many of which indicate they will stop sourcing from North East Atlantic pelagics – mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring – unless full sharing agreements are reached by the FIP deadline. With this looming in just 12 months’ time, NAPA has made it clear that action is imperative.

“There is no time to lose,” commented Rob Blyth Skyrme, NAPA Project Lead. “Coastal States only have until April 2026 to come together to end the overfishing of mackerel. In 15 years, they have failed to do so, and the need for progress is now urgent. Long-term comprehensive sharing agreements are essential – but there are also short-term actions that everyone can take to protect the stock, such as limiting fishing in international waters. We are looking to all nations to be part of the solution and deliver meaningful improvements: there is no excuse for inaction. Collaborative, sensible, human – that’s all we’re asking the Coastal States to be.”

View the official press release here.

• Author: North Atlantic Pelagic Advisory Group
• Date: April 29, 2025