It’s fascinating what you can find online – here’s a neat website out of Norway that looks at fishing history. It’s called . The most recent posting looks at the onetime Bluefin Tuna fishery off the coast of Norway. A posting that parallels some of the things I discuss on this website – and paralleling the BC experience – .
From A Fish Blog - Norwegian herring fishery
Magnus concludes the post:
Many fishermen lost their job in the 1970’s, and the government had to pay ship owners to scrap their vessels. The growth of the oil industry in the 1970’s gave work to a lot of the fishermen. There were few alternatives within fishing. Norway had to pay for the collapse of the herring stock – and it was an expensive and hard way of learning for the communities along the coast.
Knowing this history from Norway it is sad to observe other countries (and unions) not taking effort in protecting and rebuilding stocks. Doing nothing, or not taking the difficult decisions, is to wait for a collapse. It will come, and then it is too late; for the stocks, the fishermen, the ship owners, and others involved in the fisheries.