Safety issues regarding foreign recreational fisherman in Norway - Dissertation Example

Norway is a very popular destination for recreational fishing due to its preserved natural world, long coastline with wide seabed and fjords. Presently, fish is the third most important export product for Norway after oil/gas and metal, and accounts for 5.7 % of the aggregate of Norwegian export value. (“Fishing and fish farming,” 2009) Lofoten, located in northern Norway, is regarded as the birthplace of tourist fishing, and dates back to 1960’s(confirm!); the old, unused cabins were used to accommodate the guests, and as the amount of guests rose, new cabins were built to meet this demand.

(Williams et al., 2011) It is important to mention at this point that, until the 90’s, there was no organized fishing tourism. The growth in organized fishing tourism was partly the result of a special marketing campaign led by Innovation Norway from the mid 90’s. (“Borch et al., 2011”) Norway has a very liberal approach to tourist fishers and applies no quotas, taxes or specific regulations on recreational tourist fishers in the sea, except basic rules regarding the tools that they are allowed to use and also regarding selling fish, which is not allowed for tourist fishermen.

(“Williams et al., 2011”) The only rules applied to tourist fishers except these, are the general rules, such as safety at sea regulations etc. More on these rules and regulations regarding tourist fishermen and its contrast between commercial fishermen will be talked upon later on. Norway’s approach to fishing in general is that the fish in the sea belongs to the Norwegian society as a whole. This approach was legislated by The Marine Resource Act that was implemented in 2008(!), this purpose of this