Newfoundland Global Warming:
Climate Change and The Fishing Industry Impact

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Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a conference at MIT.
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a conference at MIT. The Canadian government has created and published a 445-page province by province plan to address issues in global warming across Canada. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
An abandoned wooden fishing boat is seen on a beach on Cape Cod.
The collapse of the fishing industry in Canada has resulted in far reaching consequences, including a severe reduction in tradespeople carrying forward traditional ways of life, including handmade boat building. An abandoned wooden fishing boat is seen on a beach on Cape Cod. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
Sand fences in Cape Cod.
Shorelines preservation measures are put into place to halt the impact of erosion, often to little effect, including so-called sand fences in Cape Cod. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
This home, depicted in 2016, eventually collapsed when the sand dune it was built on collapsed in 2019.
Storm surges are having an enormous impact on homes as changing shorelines put them at risk. This home, depicted in 2016, eventually collapsed when the sand dune it was built on collapsed in 2019. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
Gay Head Crews move Gay Head Lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard
It cost more than $3milllion to move the Gay Head Lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard 129 feet to save it from collapsing dunes and cliffs where it formerly resided. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
Crews work to move the Gay Head Lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard 129 feet
Crews work to move the Gay Head Lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard 129 feet to save it from collapsing dunes and cliffs where it formerly resided. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
The rapidly eroding cliffs of Gay Head Martha’s Vineyard
The rapidly eroding cliffs of Gay Head Martha’s Vineyard, a federally protected landmark and once home to countless nude bathers who covered themselves in the cliff’s mud clay, is now closed to the public. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
The 8,000 acre Cook State Forest is home stands of old growth forest.
The 8,000 acre Cook State Forest is home stands of old growth forest. Nationwide deforestation in the U.S. was and still is a vital industry and is one of the contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
Rows of windmills on farmers' land
On a drive through the farmlands of upstate New York into Canada one can see endless rows of windmills on farmers' land providing alternative energy to the region and the energy grid. The U.S now generates 120 gigawatts of electricity from windmills supplying 8% of the country’s energy needs. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
Seal herd on a Cape Cod beach.
Enormous seal herds are drawn to the fishing waters of Cape Cod, creating conflicts between the local fisherman and the seals, and drawing dangerous sharks to waters. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
The collapse of the fishing industry in Newfoundland has created countless ghost villages. More than 30,000 people were put out of work when the moratorium of 1992 was put into place, halting all fishing off its coasts. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images
President of Iceland Guoni Thorlacius Johannesson gives a talk at the Harvard University JFK School of Government.
The President of Iceland Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson speaks at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum moderated by John P. Holdren. Jóhannesson delivered a presentation, titled " Lessons from Iceland: A Nation Striving to Punch Above Its Weight in a Globalized World." President of Iceland Guoni Thorlacius Johannesson gives a talk at the Harvard University JFK School of Government about the 600-year-old Cod Wars with England and its North Atlantic neighbors in in a global fight for fishing rights. PHOTO CR: Paul Marotta/Getty Images

Paul Marotta

Paul is a documentary, news and event photographer based in the New England region. His work focuses on deeply personal stories of i…

Topics
Animals Climate Change Environment Marine Environment
Sub Topics
Fisheries Global Warming Marine Conservation Overfishing Seafaring Indigenous People
Regions
Atlantic Ocean Canada
Newfoundland Fisheries

About Newfoundland Global Warming: Climate Change and The Fishing Industry Impact

During the mid 1500s, salted, preserved cod caught in the North Atlantic accounted for more than half of all the fish eaten in Europe as Portugal, Spain, France and Britain put enormous pressure on cod stocks. That need to feed a burgeoning world population and its demands for protein increased over the centuries. By the 20th century the United States, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Japan and many others plied the waters until the stocks were very nearly completely collapsed. Forced to breed younger because they were so heavily fished, mature cod, which were once of gigantic proportions, were becoming naturally genetically modified, growing smaller in size, thereby forcing larger catches. Sonar, factory freezer trawlers and bigger nets hastened the near demise of the North Atlantic cod. The harvest peaked in 1968 at 810,000 tons, but by the mid 1970’s dropped by 82%. One of the world’s most desired proteins was on the verge of collapse when Canada extended its foreign fishing exclusion zone to 200 nautical miles, much to the world’s dismay.

Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, as it turns out, overestimated the size of its fish stocks and in 1992, on the verge of complete collapse, Canada placed a moratorium on all cod fishing. The economic impact was devastating as 30,000 people in Newfoundland lost their jobs. Cod had been worth $700m to the Canadian economy, the largest exporter of seafood to the world.

Entire fishing villages were decommissioned and emptied of its inhabitants. Fishermen were given jobs catching cod with single hook hand lines, tagging and returning them to the icy Atlantic waters. And although various studies claim the biomass and resulting cod stocks are today returning, Newfoundland will never be the same. Generations old fishing families no longer fish, make their famed handmade wooden fishing boats, string nets, or otherwise earn their living on the water.

In a massive, 442-page climate change report and action plan created in 2019, Trudeau’s government stated the rate of change in Northern Canada is more than double the international average, and the then-administration in the US was unwilling to become a partner in any effort to effect change or even slow the progression.

Sea levels are rising from greater iceberg flows in the northwest of region Newfoundland and Labrador, from iceberg alley in the spring of every year. Warming waters, effect the growth of algae and alter maturation rates of sea life and generally increase pressure on local waters.

Botany, animal wildlife, various fish anomalies, rates of change, visual clues, icebergs, communities, artisan trades, shifting shore lines, water temperatures and more are all key indicators.