Nautical Narratives on the Island of Newfoundland: Exploring the Fishing Industry and Reimagining Changing Futures

Abstract

Thirty (30) years have passed since the cod collapse in Newfoundland and Labrador. The cod collapse left fifteen thousand (15,000) people who made a living off harvesting and processing cod without jobs, and almost eliminated a singular fish species from Newfoundland and Labrador (Bavington, 2010). The cod collapse created many policy changes and ripples of generational disruption in individual livelihoods and inshore/coastal fishing practices among families. Harvesting cod from the waters of Newfoundland goes back for hundreds of years, and many fishers and coastal communities still depend on it today. A significant amount of research on the history of cod fishing, the 1992 cod collapse, and the almost annihilation of a species (Bavington, 2010); but there is room to further explore how local fishers and fishing communities live today. I argue that there is a need to increase local consultation during inshore/coastal fishery policy amendment processes and local engagement with environmental assessment methods in Newfoundland specifically. The thesis critically breaks down industrial ecological systems and looks at how industrial fishing has created a series of policies, regulations, and systems that have historically influenced the contingency of the inshore/coastal fishery. The local stories captured in this thesis represent hopeful futures that reconcile ways to resolve problems within regulatory fishing systems and highlight individual and collective frustrations with licensing, fishing regions, catch quotas, and environmental assessments that inform policy.