Muscat – The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources (MAFWR) has banned harvesting, collecting and dealing in abalone during the 2022 and 2023 fishing seasons. The ministry issued a decision (No 241/2022) to this effect on Sunday, MAFWR said.

‘With the exclusion of fishing companies and individual fishermen who possess registered quantities of abalone from the previous seasons, the decision bans the possession, sale, purchase, distribution, transport, storage and export of abalone during the two seasons in 2022-23, which means dealing in abalone will be restricted solely to registered quantities,’ the ministry said in a statement.

With their numbers dwindling, the ministry has been imposing bans on fishing abalone from time to time. It had banned harvesting, collecting and dealing in abalone even during 2020 and 2021 fishing seasons.

The ministry had lifted a two-year ban on abalone fishing in 2019 in order to replenish the stock, which had been falling during the previous years.

Abalone catch has dwindled over the years in Omani waters, with yearly catch hovering between 50-55 tonnes. It went up to a high of 149 tonnes in 2011, when fishing of abalone reopened after a moratorium of three years.

The ministry stated that Oman’s abalone stocks continue to deplete as a result of divers’ malpractices during the fishing season, as well as for fishing outside the season.

The ministry surveyed abalone stocks (Abalone Survey 2020) for a month from March 15, 2020 in Dhofar governorate. The survey, conducted in Mirbat, Sadah, Hadbien and Hasik, was aimed at defining biological indicators – including density, accumulation and size – of abalone and comparing the data with those of the previous surveys.