Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.09.1974, Blaðsíða 2

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LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 26. SEPTEMBER 1974
1
Högberg-^etmðferíngla ®eUa tt ín tauUuib
Letter from the lcelondic National League
Following is the text of a
letter written to Lögberg-
Heimskringla, by Grettir
L. Johannson, treasurer of
the Icelandic National
League. It accompanied a
donation from the League
to Lögberg-Heimskringla
and is self explanatory:
The Icelandic National Leag
ue of North America is of-
ficially committed to sup-
port the publication of the
Lögberg-Heimskringla, and
has re-iterated its commit-
ment at many of its fifty-
five annual conventions by
resolutions virging chapters
and members to give every
posible aid to the continu-
ation of the publication of
the paper; as well as support
ing it financially each year.
The Lögberg-Heimskringla
is an indispensable adjunct
to the League in carrying
out its three-fold aims and
objectives. Without the regu
lar publication of the Lög-
berg-Heimskringla, cohesion
among the widely scattered
settlements of people of Ice-
landic extraction, as well as
the cultural ties with the
land of our heritage. Such a
loss would tend to negate
our cultural efforts, and the
great achievments of the
past would have béen in
vain.
The executive committee
of the League is most grate-
ful to a few dedicated per-
sons who are in the process
of establishing a printing
company in support of Mr.
Garðar Garðarsson’s initiat-
ive. The offices of the Lög-
berg-Heimskringla will be in
the same area as the Gardar
Printing Limited, in the
Avenue Building on Portage
Avenue, which will serve as
a means to insure 'that the
paper will be published on
the designated dates, and
very close liaison will be
maintained. The financial
support given by these few
people in providing substent
ial financial assistance be-
speaks altruistic regard for
the benefit of people of Ice-
lan'dic background and
should provide an exempl-
ary incentive for others to
rally to the assistance of as-
suring the continuity of our
history in a very visable
way.
The legal counsel for the
League has advised us that
it would not be in aecord-
ance wilth our Charter for
‘the League to invest monies
in business ventures. The
executive committee of the
League has, consequently, de
cided to donate an additional
$2,000.00 to the Lögberg-
Heimskringla, we having al-
ready given $1,000.00 this
year, and in this way would
indirectly support both these
allied ventures in aid of our
culturai affairs.
A cheque for $2,000.00 is
submitted with this letter.
With sincere good wishes
in your worthwhile endea-
vours.
Yours truly,
Grettir Leo Johannson,
treasurer.
Iceland s Cod Wa r:
A Fighl for Survival
v
i
t
A.
Reykjavik Harbor the day Iceland’s cod war began. . . . Some
0 specialists say these boats might be out of business within 15 years.
By Waverley Root
ARIS (IHT).—The Intemational Court
of Justice at The Hague has ruled
that Iceland cannot exclude other nations
from taking fish—in practice, this means
cod—more than 12 miles beyond its coast-
line (IHT, July 26); but Iceland does not
recognlze the court’s jurisdiction in this-
matter, so the scene has been set for an-
other cod war.
History ’is used to them. Rivalry for
the taking of that important food fish,
the cod, has erupted into “wars” any
niimber oi times during the thousand
years, at least, that the cod has been an
intemationally traded fish; cod played a
role in the American Revolution and lts
sequel, the War of 1812 (IHT, July 9).
The protagonists in the Icelandic cod
war of the last two decades have been
Iceland and Great Britain, for historic
and geographical reasons; in the case
just terminated, West Germany had
joined Britain as a plaintiíf, but the
country most responsible for the bitter-
ness of the present struggle remained on
the sidelines—the Soviet Union.
The Hague court touched on the cir-
cumstance whlch has most aroused Ice-
land lately, the necessity íor conserving a
fish which is rapidly disappearing, but
no solution has been found. It is Soviet
trawlers which have been most damaging
to the cod fisheries because they are—
from the short-term point of view—the
most eíficient, which means—írom the
long-term point oí view—the most waste-
ful.
The danger to the cod as a species
began when trawlers started using nets
oí a íine mesh whlch not only took 70 per
cent oi the mature fish, but also began
plcking up young, immature fish. And
the latest Soviet trawlers, which are the
most ruthless, are now so disastrously
eíficient that they sweep the sea íloor
clean (cod are bottom feeders), leaving
almost no life behind.
Some f ish — salmon, for instance —
spawn only once, and then die. Cod
spawn every year—or used to. Since the
trawlers became more efficient, cod in
many areas no longer have a chance to
spawn more than once in their lifetimes.
This alone would be sufficient to reduce
the cod population appreclably. But now
that smaller íish are belng taken, possi-
bly a majority of cod never reach spawn-
ing age at all.
Cod are slow growers. It takes them
from two to íour years to mature, and
as they are by then often as much as
2 feet long, they are swept up by modern
trawlers before they have produced eggs.
The result has already been bitterly
felt on the Newfoundland Grand Banks,
once the great cod fishery of the world,
which an icthyologist has lately described
as “now nearly deserted.” P a s s i n g
Georges Bank off the coast of Massachu-
setts last October, I saw a íleet of Soviet
trawlers engaging in ravaging its fish life
too The last stands of the cod are the
waters around Greenland and Iceland.
It is a question today of how many years
it will hold out.
If it is predictable that Iceland will not
accept the verdict of the World Court, it
is because for Iceland the cod fisheries
are a matter of life aid death. Cod is
virtually the island’s only resource. Even
tourism, a lifesaver for some other coun-
tries with little else to depend on, can
with difficulty be developed beyond its
present rather limited extent, because of
the geographic and climatic peculiarities
of the country.
Beíore the worldwide lowering of tem-
peratures which began about the year
1000 and culminatéd in the Little Ice
Age of the 14th century, Iceland grew
wheat, but since then this has not been
feasible and the sole important food of
the island has been the cod, a fish which
thrives in cold water, the colder the
betUr. If the ood goes too, Iceland will
be pauperized.
It is consciousness of this fact that has
made Iceland uncompromising about the
cod. In self-defense, for the immediate
future, the country seeks to preserve for
itself the major share of the fish in
adjacent waters. For the more distant
future. Iceland is attempting to establish
lts own authority over the fishing prac-
ticet iu those waters, for the conservation
of the cod, since no international organi-
zation seems able to prptect it.
It was when Iceland discovered, two
decades ago, that it was netting only 50
per cent of the fish taken in what it
considered its own waters that the coun-
try announced the extension of its terri-
torial waters from three miles beyond its
coasts to 12 miles. This led to the íirst
modern, open cod war with the British.
These are the tradltional British íishing
grounds. The British have been operat-
ing there for more than 400 years. The
dispute over the shift from a three-mile
to a 12-mile limit was marked by acts of
violence on both sides and was finally
ended by a compromise agreement in
1961.
But with further depletion of the fish-
eries. Iceland became desperate. On
Sept. 1, 1972, it announced the extension
of its territorial waters from 12 to 50
miles The fat was in the fire again. The
Common Market offered to reduce its
tariffs on Icelandic fish by 50 per cent
if Iceland would stick to the 12-mile
limit, but Iceland refused, on the theory
that 50 per cent of nothing is nothing,
and nothing was precisely what her cod
take would become if unrestricted fishing
continued in the area.
Why 50 miles? Because 50 miles is
almost exactly the distance of the circle
formed around Iceland by its continental
shelf, ií an island can be said to have a
continental shelf—call it the 1,300-foot
isobath if you prefer. This covers vir-
uially all the cod-inhabited area.
If Iceland is likely to turn a deaf ear
to the ruling of the Hague Court, Brit-
ain, strengthened by its decision, can
be expected to return to the attack. Not
only have the British been fishing these
waters for centuries, but the fish taken
there are an important factor in the
British economy too, which does not
depend as exclusively as Iceland on the
cod, but is not strong enough in other
sectors to be able to give anything away.
Britain has been netting 160,000 tons
of fish a year from what Iceland now
defines as its waters; this represents 60
per cent of the total take of all British
ships "fishing outside of Britain’s own
territorial waters. It is not to be ex-
pected that Britain will abandon this
resource.
Is there any solution? The only likely
direction seems to be that of international
agreement on fishing methods which will
assure the reproduction of the cod—
methods by which everybody must abide,
including fishermen from countries dis-
tant from the cod fisheries, like the Soviet
Union and Japan. In the light of the
reactíon of these two countries to
attempts to save whales from extinction,
it would take an optimist to expect
success in preserving the cod. The
prospect as of now would seem to be
something like: In five years, no whales;
in 15 years, no cod.