Iceland, which landed practically no mackerel before 2006, has allocated itself a 130,000-tonne quota. The Faroes, a collection of islands 250 miles north of Scotland, has tripled its usual entitlement.
The conflict led to a tense stand off at the port of Peterhead last week, when Scottish fishermen blockaded a Faroese trawler - preventing it from landing its £400,000 catch.
Coupled with an EU warning to take “all necessary measures” to protect its fishing interests, it led to comparisons with the last “Cod War” of the 1970s which saw Icelandic gunboats clash with a Royal Navy frigate.
We seem to never learn from our mistakes. Our incessant hunger seems to lead us to just take and take until there is nothing left for the future.
Humans are tragic creatures.
Everyone should lay off the fish for a while. Let the sushi houses close, the fisherman find other work. In ten or twenty years’ time, when the next generation of sushi chefs and fishermen and Long John Silver’s franchisees want to start up business, everything will be booming again.
