Northeastern Canadian fisheries – cod, haddock and other species – are in serious crisis since the 1990s. It is “the classic case of the failure of conventional science-based fisheries management: the collapse of the northern cod of Newfoundland and Labrador” (Finlayson and McCay 1998:311). For centuries the extraordinary abundance of cod has been exploited by European settlers. It was done in summer months – storms and ice in winter made it impossible – with relatively simple and inexpensive techniques. Cod fishery was the focal point of the small coastal communities, which tended to have egalitarian social relations.

In the 1960s the situation changed with the arrival of foreign trawlers, which itself was driven by hungry post-war European and Russian populations and new, cheap techniques such as the devastatingly effective factory freezer-trawler. Fishing now also happened during winter months by fleets which stayed all year round at sea and were directed by their corporate or state owners wherever catch rates were highest: “by the mid-1960s their numbers were so great that the Newfoundland fishing banks at night were described as a ‘city of light’” (Finlayson and McCay 1998:316). The total catch went up from 300 kton/yr in 1956 to 783 kton/yr in 1968. Distant water fishing increased most rapidly. During these years there was minor and ineffective regulation, due to a ‘lowest common denominator’ policy and restrained enforcement power. It led to massive overfishing – a pragmatic sustainable yield has been estimated at 200 kton/yr. Total catch precipitously declined 288 kton/yr in 1975.

Local communities declined rapidly affecting some 35.000 people and inducing large recompensation sums, and massive government funds went into restructuring the industry after the collapse. This tragedy of an international, open-access commons unfolded until the Canadian government closed the northern cod fisheries in 1995 for probably several decades. In retrospect, the scientific assessments of the resource turned out to be wrong. Knowledge of the local fishermen was neglected. Political and ideological factors played a role: “scientists knew the truth but were not heard or not allowed to speak because those charged with making fisheries policy had reasons to favour more generous assessments.” (Finlayson and McCay 1998:326). Also, bureaucratic inflexibility, public relations, a managerial industry perspective and awkward relations between scientists and policy-makers all played a role. Did anyone learn lessons? Possibly not, because most attention has gone to the crises, not to the underlying causes.