----- Original Message ----- From: Chris Burford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 11:55 PM Subject: [CrashList] Chips up for fish Tonight BBC2 Moneyprogramme ran a well-informed crisis report on the economics of capitalist fishing. Cod used to be plentiful off NewFoundland, Canada, Iceland and in the North Sea. In the late 80's cod disappeared from New Foundland although Canada had had the largest cod processing industry in the world. The factories are deserted. 35,000 lost jobs. The fish stocks have not recovered. Fishing is still banned. Scientists estimate it may be 4 or 5 decades before stocks might recover to their abundant peak. In Europe the North Sea is now being stripped of fish. The minimum quantum of cod required there for a sustainable population is 150 thousand. The current stock is less than half that. What are caught are mainly young fish. (A cod must be 4 or 5 before it can breed.) The European Union has just imposed further big cuts in quotas of 40%. They have imposed a fishing ban for 3 months on 1/4 of the North Sea. The result is that all boat will have to go further, within a few days to fish out, what fish are left in the areas where fishing is still permitted. It is not just cod. 40% of all North Sea fish species are beyond the recoverable limits. Most scientists say that a ban is necessary for at least a whole year. Politicians will not countenance that because they cannot defend that position to the electorate. It seems inevitable that the fishing areas around the North Sea will be impoverished like New Foundland. However Iceland is exporting fish, even by air. 25 years ago the Icelanders won the Cod War against England with the help of NATO [Which wanted its air bases against the Soviet Union and with the consistent sympathy of public opinion in England for the Icelanders cause - according to little publicised opinion polls] Iceland established a 200 mile fishing zone around its shores. Here started an experiment in national capitalism, tough, but serving the community of Iceland. The system depends on close social regulation with patrol boats spending more time, not just banning fishing but inspecting catches. They board boats and if they find that more than 1/4 of the catch is undersized they ban fishing in that area for at least 2 weeks. Meanwhile the boat can and *must* land all its catch. Compare the laissez faire EU capitalist industry exploiting the North Sea. This is done on a simple quota system. This means that it is in the interests of the boats to throw overboard all the dead young fish. They continue fishing until they can strip out the full quota of adequate sized fish. This accelerates the death of young fish before they reach breeding age. With a fishing boat costing perhaps one million pounds (two million dollars?) the laws of capitalism are vital here. The Icelandic system is also capitalist and accelerates the concentration of the industry. One further mechanism of this is that in Iceland boats that have brought in more than their quota, can buy quotas of other boats, that then go out of business. The Icelandic industry is concentrated in fewer hands than before, and there are fewer people working on it. But 70% of Iceland's exports are still fish, and the country has sustained its population, on this economic base, unlike a territory like Shetland which will become depopulated. It seems virtually inevitable that the North Sea will become as barren as the seas around New Foundland, because the EU capitalist system is too laissez faire, and too underregulated. As far as the evolutionary war of survival is concerned in fish production, the national capitalist solution of Iceland will survive, and grow comparatively richer. Fish and chips in England will be Icelandic, and a luxury. The community interests that prevent EU politicians of any country challenging their electorates with an outright ban, could only be partially channeled in a progressive direction by means of the national capitalist perspective of Iceland, in which 200 mile fishing areas are specifically linked with adjacent land. By comparison the more abstract competition of capitalism in the EU fishing industry, finds local expression only in voter pressure groups that will seek compensation by keeping people who formally gained their livelihood in the fishing industry, on welfare benefits for a generation. Chris Burford London _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
