The Crisis of Our Lifetime
I grew up in the schooner days when cod was king, after being absent for a while.
I returned to the fishery in 1976 and cod was still king. In reference to cod, it was called fish and is still today by the people in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.
The year 1990 was a disastrous time — we lost our cod and turbot after long years of fishing on the spawning grounds by Canadian and foreign draggers. In the winter of 1991, the Canadian draggers went to the Grand Banks looking for cod and ...
Crisis in Our Ocean 25 Years After the Moratorium
In 1992, there was a moratorium called on what was one of the greatest cod stocks of the world, the Northern cod of Newfoundland and Labrador — it was supposed to be for a couple of years.
Fast forward to 2017, 25 years later, we are facing the same things again. What has happened?
After the cod moratorium, many people called for an inquiry as to what happened but alas no government would take it on. For a few years after the moratorium, our coastal communities were kept alive with ...
25 Years After the Moratorium
July 2017 marks the 25th anniversary of the announcement of the moratorium on fishing Northern cod off the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, in NAFO Divisions 2J3KL.
It is worth noting that 1992 was just 15 years after Canada obtained a 200-mile exclusive economic zone, with widespread expectations that we could increase our fish catches substantially but resources would still increase in abundance over time, due to good Canadian management.
However, the 1992 moratorium was ...
Learning from 40 Years with the 200-Mile Limit – Part II
Last month’s column dealt mainly with how Canada obtained the 200-mile limit in 1977, leading to great optimism about the future of the fishery in Atlantic Canada, but things did not turn out as expected.
Starting in 1992, just 15 years later, we imposed a series of moratoriums on fishing groundfish stocks to try to conserve what was left of those resources.
However, things were not going well even before the moratoriums. In 1981, there was a Royal Commission to investigate problems in ...
Adapting to Change
The capture fishery in Atlantic Canada is currently in the early stages of radical change, mostly caused by forces outside our control.
Those forces include resources, markets, competition, currency exchange rates, labour force demographics, technology, and energy costs. In addition, non-governmental environmental groups (NGOs) continue to increase demands related to sustainability of fish catches and traceability of products, to ensure sustainability requirements are not circumvented.
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