The Rise Of The Cod Fishing Industry In Newfoundland

Introduction:

Atlantic Canada’s cod fishing industry was located in Newfoundland (Figure 1) and it dominated Newfoundland’s economy for many years till the 1990’s when it started to collapse.The cod fishing industry provided jobs and brought many global trade and marketing opportunities to the region. However, as industrialized multinational companies got involved in the cod fishing business it caused lots of harm to the ecological system, which led to the banning of cod fishing by the Government of Canada in 1992. The ban on cod fishing was imposed to stop overfishing and to restrict inexperienced people from managing fisheries (“Collapse of the Canadian Newfoundland,” n.d.) (“Cod Collapse,” 2013).

Prior to the 1990’s cod fishing accounted

Ever since then, the fishing industry has helped shape the region. The Europeans came to Newfoundland attracted to fish. They started fishing at Grand Banks; a group of underwater plateaus which contained the highest abundance of cod fish (Figure 2). Their attraction to the fish determined their settlement pattern. The catching of fish and then salting, drying and marketing of that dried fish is what helped form the basis of the society that the Europeans created in the region. Newfoundland became the largest exporter of salted codfish. Soon after, multinational companies and their industrial fishing methods were introduced. Industrial fishing methods included the frozen fish industry which used trawlers to scoop large quantities of fish including cod fish from the water bodies. To control the overfishing and growing industrial fishing market, in 1977 the Canadian Government introduced a 200 mile management zone but by that time most of the ecological damage had started. However, during this time other industries like resource-extraction failed, which put pressure on the fishing industry and even the government had to encourage more catching of fish for exports. However, as stocks of cod fish continued to drastically decline the government finally decided to ban cod fishing in 1992. Though the cod fishing industry boosted the Canadian economy and provided employment for local

The cod fishing industry employed most of the population and also influenced other industries in the region to grown alongside such as the shipbuilding industry and the export of timber to European and Caribbean countries. When the government banned cod fishing in 1992, many people lost their jobs. Hence, Newfoundland’s fishing industry diversified and shellfish; the previously ignored group of fish now became the most valuable. After the cod collapse, Newfoundland’s major source of income were queen crabs and shrimp. However, many people were still left unemployed. As more jobs in the region were lost there was a need to diversify the economy beyond fishing which then introduced the energy and mineral development sectors to the region (Bone, 2014). The ban and collapse of the cod fishing industry is said to be slowly improving but economy has kept moving along through diversification (Higgins, 2008). However, the loss of employment negatively impacted cod fish dependent