Fishing on Common Grounds: The Consequences of Unregulated Fisheries of North Sea Herring in the Postwar Period

摘要

The book explores the growth of a fishing industry in the Northeast Atlantic waters after the Second World War, including issues related to the managementrnof open-sea fisheries. Hrefna Karlsdottir's case is the North Sea herring fishing industry from 1947 to 1977, and the establishment and failure of the regional North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC). NEAFC was one of the early attempts to regulate an international fishery of a pelagic stock. The years after 1945 were marked by a rapidly increasing effectiveness in the North Sea and North-Atlantic fisheries. The fishing fleets of many nations expanded and the introduction of new technologies contributed to larger catches. New forms of international fisheries management were introduced with the aim of regulating fishing resources. Only in 1970 did fisheries management turn from exploitation to conservation as its overall goal for the fisheries management was realized. Until then there seemed to have been a tendency to use scientific uncertainty as a reason to continue the fishing.