IN THIS ISSUE COD MORATORIUM: 25 Years On Duration: 15:24 When the Canadian government shut down Newfoundland's northern cod fishing industry in 1992 there was an angry outcry. Up until then, fishermen scooped up to 600,000 tonnes of the fish out of the sea every year. But the seas were about to be fished dry – and cod as a species would disappear. CBC's Reg Sherren returns to Newfoundland 25 years later to find out if the cod have recovered and what it means for those who earn a living on the sea. Related News in Review Stories CREDITS • Cod Moratorium 20 Years Later (Sep 2012) News in Review is produced by CBC NEWS • Newfoundland: A New Economy (Feb 2001) • The Fish War: Pirates or Patriots? (May 1995) Resource Guide Writer: Jill Morris • Beleaguered Newfoundland (April 1992) Resource Guide Editor: Sean Dolan Host: Michael Serapio Packaging Producer: Marie-Hélène Savard Other related Curio.ca content Associate Producer: Francine Laprotte Supervising Manager: Laraine Bone • Cyanide-laced Fish and Other Tasty Hazards Visit our website at curio.ca/newsinreview, where • One Ocean: Footprints in the Sand you will find an archive of all previous News in • One Ocean: Mysteries of the Deep Review seasons. As a companion resource, we • Peril at Sea recommend that students and teachers access cbc.ca/news for additional articles. • Suzuki Diaries 2: Coastal Canada Closed Captioning News in Review programs are closed captioned for the hearing impaired, for English as a Second Language students, or for situations in which the additional on-screen print component will enhance learning. CBC Learning authorizes reproduction of material contained in this guide for educational purposes. Please identify source. News in Review is distributed by: Curio.ca – CBC Media Solutions www.curio.ca © 2017 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 1 VIDEO REVIEW 10. What impact has the cod moratorium had on the crab and shrimp stocks? Before Viewing 11. Which group is pressuring the government As a class, create a brainstorm note about to increase the cod quotas? what you know about Newfoundland and the 12. What is the recommendation of the fisheries. Can you think of other parts of scientists with regards to lifting the Canada that are mostly dependent on a moratorium on cod fishing? single resource? How do these single-source local economies compare to the community After Viewing that you live in? 1. After the moratorium was declared, what Viewing did fishermen need to do to survive as fishermen? What role, if any, do you think 1. What was once said about the number of small, family-owned fishing boats play in cod in the North Atlantic? the future of the Newfoundland fishing 2. What does Gord James fish instead of industry? Explain your reasoning. cod? 2. Are you surprised that people are pushing 3. What is Gord James’s attitude towards to end the moratorium? Is there any John Crosbie now? indication that we have learned important lessons from the cod stock crisis? 4. Beginning in the 1960s, what change in the fishing industry had a devastating impact 3. How important do you think generational on the cod stocks? differences are to the future of Newfoundland communities? Most of the 5. What other countries besides Canada people interviewed in the video are from were fishing the North Atlantic cod? an older generation. Do you expect the younger generation to have different 6. In addition to more systematic offshore views of what Newfoundland communities fishing practices, what other factors could and will become? What will those contributed to overfishing of the cod? communities look like? 7. When did Glen Winslow take possession of his new million dollar off-shore fishing boat? 8. What amount was initially offered to the fishermen as compensation? What actions made it possible for Crosbie to get more compensation for the fishermen? 9. What role did the oil industry play in the aftermath of the cod moratorium? 2 THE STORY Gord James wasn’t always a lobster fisherman. Twenty-five years ago, he, along Minds On with most of the men of his generation, pulled his cod pots up for the last time. The equipment mouldered in the shed until, Check out the Overfishing Infographic at: by one, the wooden pots were broken up overfishing.org/pages/Overfishing_in_one_minute.php and burned as scrap. Today, James readily admits that then Fisheries Minister John Consider the following questions: Crosbie had no choice but to impose the cod moratorium. • What is the definition of overfishing? • What causes overfishing? Encountering the waters around Newfoundland for • What can individuals do to help species the first time in 1497, explorer John Cabot described that are being overfished? them as “swarming with fish, which can be taken not only with the net, but in baskets let down with a • What are some of the consequences of stone.” overfishing? Taking stock Watch the Canadian Heritage minute that Gord James steers his small fishing boat dramatizes the moment that Cabot and his crew through the ice forming on the surface of the first saw the North Atlantic cod: North Atlantic. He won’t be able to access historicacanada.ca/content/heritage- his lobster pots until the ice clears. Until then, minutes/john-cabot he can only guess at what his efforts have produced. Like most people who depend on the sea for their living, James is used to Land and sea accepting what the ocean provides. “When ice backs off now we’re going to take an In 1497, the cod may have been among the inventory and see if there’s anything left. first important discoveries made by English Whatever is left, we will try to figure out how explorer John Cabot in this new found land. to make a living with.” Initially, the cod were fished, salted and transported directly back to England and other coastal European countries. The English were the first to come to land in order to salt and dry the cod. Drying the fish resulted in lighter loads and increased the number of fish that could be carried back across the Atlantic. Settlements in Newfoundland reflect this functional history. Wharfs and buildings were positioned to serve the needs of the Gord James fishery and all human effort turned to the sea. 3 Former scientist with Fisheries and Oceans season. In the late 1960s, foreign fishing boats Canada George Rose describes the Grand scooped up a significant portion of the stock Banks as “monstrous” in size and significance. using a dragging method that could capture When, over 200 million years ago, the North almost entire schools of cod. A decade later, American land mass pulled away from Europe Canada extended its maritime claims from 12 and Africa, a shallow plateau was created off nautical miles to 200 miles offshore, protecting its northeastern edge. The plateau runs for all but the outward tips of the Grand Banks almost 500 kilometres along the coast of from foreign draggers. While the extension Newfoundland and Labrador. The Labrador offered a slight reprieve, allowing for some re- Current pulls the cold arctic water toward the building of the cod stocks, it would not be warm upward flow of the Gulf Stream and, enough. Temperatures on the Grand Banks where the two flows meet, they combine to cooled causing capelin stocks to shrink and churn up plankton from the deep Atlantic. The shift to the south; the cod followed, moving plankton then comes into contact with the southward and travelling in tighter schools transformative power of energy from the sun. searching for diminishing food sources. This sets in motion a conversion of nutrients up Here the winds blow, the food chain, ultimately resulting in plentiful And here they die, stocks of either shrimp or a bait fish called Not with that wild, exotic rage capelin, the food of choice for cod. It’s a That vainly sweeps untrodden shores, complex and fragile interplay of geology, But with familiar breath oceanography, and biology. It was this Holding a partnership with life, interplay that created the bountiful cod stock Resonant with the hopes of spring, that Cabot encountered in 1497. Pungent with the airs of harvest. PLANKTON – From “Newfoundland,” by E.J Pratt Very small plants and animals that float in the sea and on which other sea Environment and technology animals feed In a devastating pattern of call and response, as the fish stock faltered and cod became Pushing limits more difficult to catch, fishing technologies improved. Sounders allowed trawlers to locate For much of the 500 years of fishing on the schools of cod hundreds of metres below the Grand Banks, the industry was sustainable. surface and the fishermen used bag-shaped Small family-based fishing boats used nets to scoop the tightly packed fish. In 1990, weighted hooks and traps for their catches. two years before the moratorium, George The work was gruelling and often dangerous Rose was aboard the research ship Gadus and, as the years went on, it became harder Atlantica tracking a formation of roughly and harder for fishermen to earn enough to 450 000 tonnes of cod as it travelled south support their families with their efforts. Bigger towards waiting trawlers. That season, boats and newer methods allowed them to Canadian and foreign-owned offshore catch more cod and extend the fishing 4 trawlers reported record catches totalling protests made it easier for him to argue for 300 000 tonnes of fish. By Rose’s estimation, in larger compensation packages from the a single season over 50 per cent of the total federal government. The compensation remaining cod stocks were removed.