“In the 1990s, a single moratorium announcement wiped out an entire industry, leaving 37,000 people unemployed overnight. The ecological collapse of the Canadian Grand Banks Cod Fisheries is the most famous historical example of a collapse in fish stocks due to overfishing. Not only were cod stocks severely depleted, it was the largest layoff of workers in one day, and the biggest ever industrial layoff in Canada’s history: fishing fleets, processing plants, associated support businesses were all impacted when the moratorium was declared. It devastated coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador and led to significant migration, changing some of those communities forever…”
Read the full commentary by our Research Director – Dr Graeme Chesters at Mongabay.com