For the past dozen years or so my wife Kathy and I have spent a part of each summer in Squid Tickle, a small fishing village on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. It’s a long story of how we got there, but one thing that immediately fascinated me about Newfoundland was the many correspondences – some similar and some contrasting – between the two places.
To begin with, both Newfoundland and Cape Cod have long and rich maritime histories, and both have had an intimate connection with the codfish. Cape Cod, of course, was named for the fish and its importance in Massachusetts’ history is symbolized by the fact that State House is surmounted, not by a statue of liberty, but by a cod. North Atlantic cod fishing began in Newfoundland over 500 years ago and until recently it was the mainstay of its economy and culture. So closely tied with cod is Newfoundland’s identity that when a Newfoundlander uses the word “fish,” it’s understood he means cod.
All that changed for Newfoundland in 1991, when a series of factors – persistent over-fishing, government rejection of scientific research, and misguided economic policies – culminated in a disastrous crash in cod stocks. The crash forced the Canadian federal government to impose a total moratorium on commercial cod and other groundfish catches. It was a step which has essentially destroyed the small-boat, traditional, family-based fishing industry and with it the rural culture that it supported. The moratorium is now in its 22nd year, but commercial cod stocks have not recovered, which suggests that some environmental losses may not be reversible.
Every summer, when I return to Newfoundland, I can’t help but be struck at the parallels between what happened to their fishing industry over two decades ago and what appears to be happening to ours. For decades now we have seen NOAA – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – implement increasingly stringent quotas on diminishing cod and other groundfish species. Just as in Newfoundland, these quotas and other restrictions have been met with outcries from local fisherman and state agencies. The latest was Attorney-General Martha Coakley’s recent announcement that she is suing NOAA over its latest proposals to cut cod quotas 78 percent over last year’s. She accuses NOAA of “shoddy science,” “Draconian” measures, and “indifference to the plight of Massachusetts fishing families.” U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch also castigated NOAA, describing their approach as “one-sided, arrogant, and self-righteous. Fishermen, on the other hand, “feel betrayed by federal assurances that past restrictions would lead to healthy fish populations by now.”
All of these charges and sentiments ring strangely familiar, for the same ones were uttered by Newfoundland politicians and fishermen in the years before the crash of the codfish stocks there. I would like to think that we could learn from their experience. I would like to think that we could admit that fish management is not an exact science, but that only by crafting a long-term management policy based on the most solid scientific evidence available and supported by all parties – fishermen, politicians and scientists - do we have any chance of avoiding Newfoundland’s fate. I would like to think that the cod that sits atop our State House will not one day be merely a reminder of a once rich but now-vanished part of our heritage.
