Canada announced Wednesday the end of a 32-year moratorium on cod fishing in Atlantic waters off its island Newfoundland province.
In force since 1992, the ban put tens of thousands out of work and devastated coastal communities.
“Ending the northern cod moratorium is a historic milestone,” in reestablishing the commercial fishing waters, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Diane Lebouthillier said in a statement.
“We will cautiously but optimistically build back this fishery,” she said.
The fishery was closed in 1992 after overfishing led to the collapse of cod stocks in the region that were once so abundant that early European explorers described waters so thick with fish that it made paddling difficult.
More than 20,000 fishers were instantly put out of work and coastal towns were devastated. Newfoundland’s population plunged as locals moved to other parts of Canada in search of work.
Last October, Canada’s fisheries department assessed that cod stocks in recent years had finally started to recover and were no longer in a critical zone.
On Wednesday, Lebouthillier set an allowable catch of 18,000 metric tonnes of fish this year — significantly less than an annual haul of 250,000 metric tonnes recorded in the late 1980s before the moratorium.
