Beta PF is doubtlessly a unique case in the history of North Atlantic fisheries. For almost thirty years the company has remained profitable as a fishing vessel operator with sole focus on bottom trawling in a delimited area of sea within the Faroe exclusive economic zone, using basically the same vessels while harvesting largely the same species throughout the period. The Beta story is therefore in itself an interesting management case.
Those three decades did not pass without dramatic fluctuations in the economic environment in which Beta operates. A far too large fishing fleet has at times been operating in the Faroe EEZ using the same fishing method, potentially putting at risk the stability of fish stocks. During the same period of time, the Faroese economy has suffered the consequences of excessive public investments and even experienced a financial breakdown.
Survival in such turbulent times would not have been possible without meticulous and continuous registration of all those factors that will affect harvesting prospects and vessel operations in a volatile environment. The good skipper investigates and registers sea temperature, seabed conditions, echo sounding, seasonal traits etc. before shooting the trawl. He registers all relevant indicators during towing and hauling including duration, catch quantity and species. Such registrations form part of his knowledge capital. Inasmuch as some skippers register more while others register less, Beta as operator has provided guidelines and coordinated this work, gathering, filing and organizing all this knowledge and more while making it accessible for all of its vessels to use.
In a similar way, Beta has coordinated the registration of all information concerning the operating costs of the vessels, whether relating to fuel consumption, fishing gear, provisions or other accounts. Whereas some of those files have been used in important management decisions such as switching to pair trawling, some have figured in operational cost management on a more daily basis.
No register will provide only one piece of information and so the catalogue of data built by Beta over a period of nearly three decades offers an ocean of information on the composition of equipment and materials used in the company’s trawler operations. The catalogue has been known among fisheries scientists but outside of that circle, which may tend to be rather singleminded, the catalogue has remained largely unnoticed. The fact that it is now being presented to a wider audience of researchers will hopefully raise the general awareness of its existence and inspire new research. Beta is surrounded by a large number of companies which, even if they wouldn’t possess the equivalent scope and scale of registered data, could potentially allow for research on an even broader basis.
The Faroe Islands Trade Council considers it absolutely feasible to establish an international research center on this subject. For instance, the files could constitute a gold mine for research in sustainable fisheries—that is, contextual research covering the environment (natural resources
and resource management), economics (management and profitability in the fishing industry) and social sciences (relating to crews, community, families etc.).
The Faroe Islands Trade Council has high hopes of the knowledge that can be gained, in cooperation between Faroese and foreign researchers, from this vast collection of files and other directly or indirectly related files.
Kjartan Kristiansen, managing director, Faroe Islands Trade Council.