Faroe Islands

Notes du chercheur

The Faroe Islands is a self-governing nation within the Kingdom of Denmark with its own fisheries legislation, distinct from Denmark and the EU (it is outside the EU). 2026-06-22 deepening: the governing statute was confirmed and read in verbatim Faroese from the official law portal (logir.fo). The current Act on Marine Resources is Løgtingslóg nr. 152 frá 23. desember 2019 um sjófeingi ('Sjófeingislógin'), last amended by løgtingslóg nr. 49 frá 29. mai 2026 — the previously cited '161/2017' was the bill (løgtingsmál) number, so the legal_status now references the enacted nr. 152/2019. Key verbatim provisions captured: § 3 (resources are the property of the Faroese people); § 35 (household/recreational fishing 'veiða til húsbrúks' — barred from foreign-flagged vessels, no sale of household catch; § 35 stk. 2 reserves to the Minister of Fisheries the power to set rules on gear, methods, protected areas, catch quantity, species bans and special permits; § 35 stk. 3 requires a special ministerial permit for tourism-related fishing and bars sale of its catch). Because spearfishing is legal but conditioned by these ministerial gear/area powers, the 30 cm / consume-locally rules, the tourism-permit requirement for guided trips, and marine/Ramsar protected zones, spearfishing_allowed was raised from a flat 'yes' to 'restricted', and data_confidence from 'low' to 'medium'. Protected-area framework confirmed: the Nature Conservation Act (Løgtingslóg nr. 70 frá 22. mai 2023 um náttúruvernd) § 24 allows designation of marine protected areas ('sjóverndarøkir') in which (stk. 5) nothing reducing the protection values is permitted — verbatim Faroese captured. Umhvørvisstovan (Faroese Environment Agency, us.fo) administers nature conservation and the navigation restriction around the three Ramsar seabird islands (Kunngerð nr. 144 frá 7. november 2017 um sigling kring Ramsar-oyggjarnar Nólsoy, Skúvoy og Mykines): from 15 April to 31 August, boats may not exceed 8 knots within 500 m of land and jet-skis/unnecessary noise are banned. The three Ramsar zones already in this record (Nólsoy, Mykines, Skúvoy) carry WDPA polygons and coordinates. Firmly established from official/secondary sources: (1) recreational coastal sea fishing for personal use is generally allowed without a permit; (2) spearfishing is practised and not prohibited (active commercial operator + tourism-board promotion), but guided/commercial spearfishing needs a § 35 stk. 3 tourism permit; (3) no fish under 30 cm may be kept (catch-and-release); (4) any catch must be consumed within the Faroe Islands and may not be exported; (5) all equipment must be disinfected before arrival; (6) freshwater angling requires a local permit (named association lakes: Leynavatn, Mjóuvøtn, Saksunarvatn). Could NOT verify (omitted, not guessed): any standalone spearfishing/speargun-specific kunngerð (executive order) under § 35; spearfishing seasons; per-species catch/bag limits for underwater hunting; whether scuba-assisted spearfishing is permitted; cost/validity of any tourism permit; coordinates for any spearfishing-specific protected zone beyond the three already-mapped Ramsar islands. The Ramsar navigation-rule news page on us.fo and the Mykines Ramsar information sheet (rsis.ramsar.org/ris/2051) were intermittently unreachable (404/502/403) on 2026-06-22, so their figures rest on the existing cited Ramsar/Visit-Sandoy entries and the us.fo legislation index rather than a fresh fetch. Inland/freshwater spearfishing: No source permits spearfishing in Faroese inland/freshwater bodies; all freshwater fishing guidance refers exclusively to rod-based angling (fly fishing, lure), and permits for named association-managed lakes (Leynavatn, Mjóuvøtn, Saksunarvatn) are issued only for angling — making spearfishing in freshwater effectively unpermitted, though no explicit statutory prohibition specific to freshwater spearfishing was located in publicly available sources.