An inshore fishery: A commercially viable industry or an employer of last resort

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Traditional fisheries often coexist tenuously with modern economies. Within Canada, Newfoundland has a heavily subsidized groundfishery. Despite repeated crises and innumerable studies, the commercially unviable fishery continues to support too many fishermen because the industrial society in which the fishery is embedded provides few employment alternatives. Society can “muddle through,”; hoping that demographic or political changes will solve the problem, or can eliminate subsidies, letting fishermen fend for themselves, or systematically reduce the size of the industry. Action must ultimately be taken; governments will not subsidize the industry forever, and continued overfishing can lead to the complete closure of the fishery. This article describes the historical and economic framework of the Newfoundland fishery, the crises it has faced over the past twenty‐five years, and the public debate over its future. Although the details are specific to Newfoundland, a similar story could be told of many of the world's fisheries.

This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit: