Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. I am Tracy V. Wilson and I'm
Speaker 1: Holly Fry. An interesting headline caught my eye this week.
Speaker 1: It was that the Icelandic Coastguard vessel a Year is
Speaker 1: being sold after fifty years of service. It's being sold
Speaker 1: because it has fallen into disuse over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. And this headline caught my eye not just
Speaker 1: because I've been really, really nostalgic for a trip I
Speaker 1: took to Iceland a few years back, but also because
Speaker 1: this vessel played a major part in the Cod Wars,
Speaker 1: which took place between Iceland and the UK. Our previous
Speaker 1: episode on the Cod Wars came out on October and
Speaker 1: this news gave us a good excuse to put it
Speaker 1: right back into everybody's feeds. So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: you missed in History Class. A production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio Hello and Welcome to the Pod asked I'm Tracy B.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. When I was in Iceland
Speaker 1: back in the spring, I learned a very tiny bit
Speaker 1: about the Cod Wars. Uh. Long time listeners to the
Speaker 1: show will probably notice some similarities between the thing that
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today and the Chesapeake Bay
Speaker 1: Oyster Wars, which we talked about back in But while
Speaker 1: the Chesapeake Bay conflict was mostly confined to the states
Speaker 1: of Virginia and Maryland, the Cod Wars were an international
Speaker 1: dispute that wound up having a lot more long lasting
Speaker 1: ramifications in both the United Kingdom and in Iceland. So
Speaker 1: after I got home from the Strip where I learned
Speaker 1: that the Cod Wars had happened, I put them on
Speaker 1: the potential episode list, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: over the last week or so, multiple other people, sort
Speaker 1: of apropos of nothing, said hey, would you talk about
Speaker 1: the Cod Wars um and that included most recently Gemma
Speaker 1: and Steve. So I thought, okay, I guess I'll put
Speaker 1: cod Wars at the top of the list. Have been
Speaker 1: kind of languishing there, and now we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1: I do want to be clear that this is definitely
Speaker 1: not the only fishing dispute that has ever happened in
Speaker 1: these particular waters, but it's definitely one of the most famous.
Speaker 1: Uh and in some ways it's the weirdest and the
Speaker 1: most comical, even though it was not actually funny to
Speaker 1: the people it was happening to like it sounds funny,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people's livelihoods were deeply at stake
Speaker 1: in the middle of this thing. That sounds sort of comedic.
Speaker 1: So to give you the setup, Iceland and the United
Speaker 1: Kingdom are two relatively small island nations. The UK is
Speaker 1: a little more than nine thousand square miles and Iceland
Speaker 1: is a little less than forty thousand square miles. That's
Speaker 1: about two hundred forty three thousand square kilometers and one
Speaker 1: hundred three thousand square kilometers respectively. The UK, however, has
Speaker 1: much more habitable land than Iceland does. The middle of
Speaker 1: ice Land is mountainous, and it's covered in glaciers and
Speaker 1: also in many places volcanic, so nearly all of its
Speaker 1: population lives relatively close to the coast. It is completely
Speaker 1: unsurprising that two relatively small island nations, one of which
Speaker 1: is only really habitable along the coastline, have historically relied
Speaker 1: on fishing, both as an industry and for the nation's cuisine.
Speaker 1: As we discussed in our podcast about the volcanic eruption
Speaker 1: on the island of Hamming, fishing is critically important to
Speaker 1: Iceland's economy today. The fishing industry and Iceland employees about
Speaker 1: eleven thousand people, which is a little more than four
Speaker 1: percent of Iceland's total workforce, and the fishing industry directly
Speaker 1: contributes to about eleven percent of Iceland of the icelandic
Speaker 1: GDP and indirectly a full quarter of Iceland's GDP. About
Speaker 1: fort of Iceland's export earnings come from fish today, with
Speaker 1: cod being a primary export, and before the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: almost of Iceland's exports were fish. Meanwhile, Britain's fishing industry
Speaker 1: employs a little under twelve thousand fishers today, so about
Speaker 1: the same size as Iceland's industry, but because the UK's
Speaker 1: population and economy are so much larger, it's really a
Speaker 1: much smaller proportion of the UK economy as a whole.
Speaker 1: The UK has a population of sixty four million compared
Speaker 1: to three hundred and twenty three thousand in Iceland. Marine
Speaker 1: fishing is about zero point oh five percent of the
Speaker 1: British GDP, and all forms of fishing together make up
Speaker 1: about zero point zero seven percent of the British GDP.
Speaker 1: Prior to the nineteen fifties, though fishing was a much
Speaker 1: bigger part of the British economy, especially in fishing ports
Speaker 1: cities like Hull, Gramsby and Fleetwood. In these ports, fishing
Speaker 1: trawlers were the prime arey employer and most of the
Speaker 1: fishing fleet that sailed from these ports did what's known
Speaker 1: as distant water fishing, so boats would leave these ports
Speaker 1: in Britain and they would travel hundreds of miles to
Speaker 1: fish in the waters around Iceland. In addition to catching
Speaker 1: a lot of cod, Britain eight and continues to eat,
Speaker 1: for that matter, a lot of cod. In the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties and nineteen sixties, four d and thirty thousand tons
Speaker 1: of cod were being eaten in Britain annually, overwhelmingly in
Speaker 1: the form of fish and chips. Britain continues to eat
Speaker 1: more cod than anywhere else in the world, a third
Speaker 1: of the cod in the world, and of the cod
Speaker 1: caught in European waters. So yeah, the Iceland and Britain
Speaker 1: were united by the fact that there's lots of cod
Speaker 1: around Iceland and Brittain was eating almost all of it,
Speaker 1: almost all the cod because fish and chips, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's delicious and also kind of astounding just how
Speaker 1: much was being eaten. Another important piece of background information,
Speaker 1: and all of this story has to do with the
Speaker 1: idea of international waters and how nations get to decide
Speaker 1: which parts of the ocean are There's the idea that
Speaker 1: a nation with the coastline has rights to a certain
Speaker 1: amount of the ocean around it. Has existed for centuries,
Speaker 1: and a nation's territorial waters extend a certain distance past
Speaker 1: its coast and then beyond that our international waters. Starting
Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds in Europe and the America's, a
Speaker 1: nation's territorial waters typically extended about three miles past the coastline,
Speaker 1: although there were definitely exceptions, with nations claiming more or less.
Speaker 1: Prior to its independence in nineteen four, Iceland was a
Speaker 1: part of Denmark, and according to the Anglo Danish Territorial
Speaker 1: Waters Agreement, it, like so many other nations, followed that
Speaker 1: three mile limit. That agreement was set to expire in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, But when Iceland became independent from Denmark,
Speaker 1: it got to work setting its own terms for where
Speaker 1: other nations could fish immediately. Iceland had two primary motivations
Speaker 1: for reevaluating its fishing boundaries. One was that fishing was
Speaker 1: so enormously critical to its own economy that it wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure its own fishing fleet had the greatest advantage.
Speaker 1: Iceland sort of viewed this situation as a zero sum game.
Speaker 1: Other nations that were taking fish out of the waters
Speaker 1: around Iceland were taking them from Iceland because Iceland had
Speaker 1: so few other industries or national or natural resources to
Speaker 1: add to its economy. The other was that Iceland was
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly concerned about the health of the fish stocks
Speaker 1: around it and the threat of overfishing, so banning other
Speaker 1: nations from fishing closer to its shores was a way
Speaker 1: to try to keep Icelandic fishers fishing while ideal lowering
Speaker 1: the risk of depleting those fish populations. As a result,
Speaker 1: on May fifteenth, nineteen fifty two, Iceland extended the line
Speaker 1: from three miles to four And this wasn't the first
Speaker 1: push of its territorial water since becoming independent, but it
Speaker 1: was the first extension that affected a part of the
Speaker 1: sea that Britain had been using for its fishing. Yes,
Speaker 1: some of the prior extension was more to the north,
Speaker 1: which was not as much of a British fishing ground.
Speaker 1: Britain was not happy about this change. There was more
Speaker 1: shelter available in bad weather three miles out compared to
Speaker 1: four miles out. And then, of course there was just
Speaker 1: the principle of the thing. Britain's who had been making
Speaker 1: their livelihoods through fishing for generations and who lived in
Speaker 1: port cities where fishing was the biggest industry were basically
Speaker 1: being shut out of a strip of the sea that
Speaker 1: they'd historically had access to. When Iceland said its new
Speaker 1: line at four miles, flags flew at half mast in
Speaker 1: British distant water fishing ports. The Grimsby Evening Telegraph called
Speaker 1: it black Thursday. In spite of this new law, the
Speaker 1: four mile zone around Iceland did not make that big
Speaker 1: of a difference to British distant distant water fishing boats.
Speaker 1: A lot of them had already been crossing the three
Speaker 1: mile line when fish were scarce beyond it. A number
Speaker 1: of captains and owners also thought that the fine that
Speaker 1: came with crossing that four mile line was worth the
Speaker 1: risk if it meant better fishing on the other side
Speaker 1: of the line. All in all, even though there was
Speaker 1: a bit of cat and mouse darting around the line,
Speaker 1: British captains and crews surrendered when they realized they were
Speaker 1: caught in ICELANDIC Coastguard personnel were always honest and faring
Speaker 1: court cases over illegal fishing. Aside from some tomfoolery, people
Speaker 1: on both sides of this dispute were generally respectful and
Speaker 1: professional about it. Yeah, and in spite of all the
Speaker 1: like the flying the flags that half mast and the
Speaker 1: s ring back and forth across the line where people
Speaker 1: weren't really supposed to be like, you know, when the
Speaker 1: coast Guard showed up and was like, you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to be here, they would have been like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: you gottess. The UK also took the very reasonable course
Speaker 1: of action of taking their dispute with Iceland before the
Speaker 1: International Court of Justice. When Iceland's four mile limit was upheld,
Speaker 1: Britain responded by banning Icelandic fishing vessels from landing their
Speaker 1: fish in Britain. Since Britain, as we said earlier, was
Speaker 1: buying most of Iceland's cod, and I mean British British
Speaker 1: cod catches were not nearly enough to keep the nation
Speaker 1: supplied in fish and chips. This basically was an economic
Speaker 1: sanction sanction against Iceland, but Iceland did not back down
Speaker 1: and this was only the first of several times that
Speaker 1: Iceland would move its fishing boundary, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about where things stopped being so sort of cordial
Speaker 1: and respectful and started to really get ugly. After we
Speaker 1: have a brief sponsor break. In ninety eight, the international
Speaker 1: community participated in the first International Conference on the Law
Speaker 1: of the Sea. The u n's International Law Commission had
Speaker 1: been discussing and evaluating maritime international law for nearly a decade,
Speaker 1: but this was the first conference that was specifically devoted
Speaker 1: to international maritime law. Eighties six states participated in this conference. Fishing,
Speaker 1: we should point out, was certainly not the only thing
Speaker 1: being discussed at the conference. Resolutions were adopted regarding nuclear tests,
Speaker 1: radioactive pollution of the oceans, and conservation, and various smaller
Speaker 1: nations suggested a major expansion of the commonly used three
Speaker 1: mile limit between international and territorial waters. The new proposed
Speaker 1: limit a twelve mile economic exclusion zone around a nation's coast.
Speaker 1: Most larger nations resisted this idea for reasons ranging from
Speaker 1: economic unfairness to concerns that their navies could not effectively
Speaker 1: maneuver or patrol with that much of the sea off limits. However,
Speaker 1: when Iceland then expanded its exclusionary zone to twelve miles,
Speaker 1: and part of its argument was that that twelve miles
Speaker 1: was eventually going to be international law anyway. And while
Speaker 1: that previous move from three miles to four miles had
Speaker 1: been met with flags at half masted in Britain's port towns,
Speaker 1: the jump to twelve miles was genuinely alarming. The zone
Speaker 1: between four and twelve miles from Iceland's coast was prime
Speaker 1: fishing territory for Britain's distant water fishing fleet. Shutting Britain
Speaker 1: out of twelve miles around Iceland had the potential to
Speaker 1: completely disrupt the fishing industry. Aside from really genuine win
Speaker 1: concerns about the British economy, especially in these sports cities,
Speaker 1: Britain was also really frustrated on principle. I understand this.
Speaker 1: I'm a person who gets colossally frustrated on principle, as
Speaker 1: had been the case with that four mile line. The
Speaker 1: twelve mile line was cutting Brittain out of waters that
Speaker 1: it had historically had access to and felt entitled to.
Speaker 1: And then there was an emotional way to all of it,
Speaker 1: and the cities that were home to Britain's distant water
Speaker 1: fishing fleets. Fishing was really at the heart of the
Speaker 1: community and of people's identities. So pushing out distant water
Speaker 1: fishing felt like it was stripping people of their way
Speaker 1: of life and of something that they felt like was
Speaker 1: a core part of who they were. Also, there's the
Speaker 1: whole fish and chip thing again, which is also part
Speaker 1: of like the identity issue. Yes, Like in the United States,
Speaker 1: fish and chips and a lot of places they're just
Speaker 1: like they're just sort of stand pub food, right, But
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties and Britain, fish and chips
Speaker 1: was really a working class staple, and like chippies were
Speaker 1: places that that sold fish and chips, and like there's
Speaker 1: a whole cultural layer to the existence in the consumption
Speaker 1: of of fish and chips that um does not have
Speaker 1: the quite the same weight. And most of the United States,
Speaker 1: yeah uh, And the UK was not the only nation
Speaker 1: affected by this expansion in Iceland's territorial waters. Belgium, West
Speaker 1: Germany and the Faroe Islands were among the other nations
Speaker 1: fishing in that same area, But it was the British
Speaker 1: fishing fleet that was making the most use of it
Speaker 1: among the international community, and it was Britain that became
Speaker 1: the most vocal in wanting continued access to that four
Speaker 1: to twelve mile zone. Those cat and mouse shenanigans that
Speaker 1: had happened at the four mile line kicked up several
Speaker 1: role notches in the four to twelve mile zone around Iceland.
Speaker 1: As one might expect, Iceland deployed its Coastguard to try
Speaker 1: to enforce the policy, and it allowed officials to board
Speaker 1: British ships and arrest their crews for fishing in waters
Speaker 1: where they were not supposed to be. In response, Britain
Speaker 1: deployed ships from the Royal Navy to protect the trawlers,
Speaker 1: essentially mandating that the trawlers fishing areas where the Royal
Speaker 1: Navy was patrolling, and the trawlers used nets to try
Speaker 1: to keep Icelandic inspectors from boarding, as well as springing
Speaker 1: boarding parties with hoses and trying to use spears to
Speaker 1: puncture the rubber dighis the Coastguard used for boarding. When
Speaker 1: a trawler was boarded, they'd often call in the Royal
Speaker 1: Navy to assist, and on at least one occasion, the
Speaker 1: Royal Navy then refused to let the Icelandic Coast Guard
Speaker 1: officials go back to their own vessel, instead kept them
Speaker 1: on board as guests in quotation marks of the Crown.
Speaker 1: One boarding party was eventually put into a little boat
Speaker 1: off the coast of keef Levik and allowed to row
Speaker 1: back to shore there. And that's really irritated the people
Speaker 1: that were, uh, we're working at the NATO base in
Speaker 1: kef Levik, because they were like, what do you mean
Speaker 1: there is a British warship right there that just dropped
Speaker 1: you off in the water. Because Iceland had about six
Speaker 1: gun boats compared to the thirty seven Royal Navy ships
Speaker 1: that Britain had deployed, Iceland didn't really feel comfortable making
Speaker 1: a direct assault on the British force. Instead, Iceland kept
Speaker 1: thorough records of the names and numbers of all of
Speaker 1: the British ships that broke the twelve mile limit. I
Speaker 1: kind of love fighting it with bureaucracy and I don't
Speaker 1: even understand why. Yeah, yeah, this distribute wound up being
Speaker 1: settled with a compromise in nineteen sixty one. Britain ultimately
Speaker 1: agreed to respect the twelve mile limit and exchange for
Speaker 1: a three year period to phase out the distant water
Speaker 1: fishing in the twelve mile zone. Once this agreement was reached,
Speaker 1: Iceland destroyed all those records of who all had been
Speaker 1: illegally fishing in the twelve mile zone, which I also
Speaker 1: am kind of charmed by. Yes, it's like this is
Speaker 1: going on your permanent record. Okay, now we're cool. We
Speaker 1: could get rid of that permanent record. Uh. In the agreement,
Speaker 1: Iceland also acknowledged that it would continue to consider extending
Speaker 1: the border even further, but would give Britain advanced notice
Speaker 1: if this were to happen. Quote, the Icelandic Government will
Speaker 1: continue to work for the implementation of the al Thing
Speaker 1: Resolution of five May nineteen fifty nine regarding the extension
Speaker 1: of fisheries jurisdiction around Iceland, but shall give to the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom Government six months notice of such extension, and
Speaker 1: in case of a dispute in relation to such extension,
Speaker 1: the matter shall, at the request of either party, be
Speaker 1: referred to the International Court of Justice. Yes, those based
Speaker 1: referring to a resolution that had been put out a
Speaker 1: couple of years before about possibly having an even bigger
Speaker 1: exclusion zone. And then on July fourteenth of nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: the government of Iceland released a new policy statement which said,
Speaker 1: quote the fisheries agreements with the United Kingdom and the
Speaker 1: Federal German Republic I'll be terminated and a resolution be
Speaker 1: made about an extension of fishery limit up to fifty
Speaker 1: nautical miles from the baselines, effective not later than one
Speaker 1: September ninety two. So at this point we've gone from
Speaker 1: three miles to four miles, to twelve miles to fifty miles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a big jump. I can imagine if you are
Speaker 1: part of the fishing industry, the knee jerk reaction could
Speaker 1: be irate at that point. Uh, And that would explain
Speaker 1: why this is where things got really really heated between
Speaker 1: the UK and Iceland. The United Kingdom once again took
Speaker 1: its dispute to the International Court of Justice in the Hague,
Speaker 1: which found in Britain's favor, but Iceland argued that the
Speaker 1: court did not have jurisdiction. Iceland was at this point
Speaker 1: incredibly frustrated and alarmed over the condition of its fishing stocks.
Speaker 1: Stocks of the icelandic herring had dropped precipitously almost to nothing,
Speaker 1: and Iceland was concerned that cod were headed for this
Speaker 1: same fate. They had made repeated calls for international discussions
Speaker 1: on conservation of fish stocks and sustainable fishing practices, and
Speaker 1: none of that had gotten enough attention for Iceland to
Speaker 1: really feel secure in the future of of a nation
Speaker 1: that was basically dependent on fishing. Like at this point
Speaker 1: and even still today in a lot of ways, if
Speaker 1: the if the fishing industry in Iceland is gone, Iceland
Speaker 1: as a nation cannot survive. And so even though there
Speaker 1: were some nations that were willing to talk about more
Speaker 1: conservation oriented fishing practices at this point in the seventies,
Speaker 1: Iceland was like, no, really, we will die as a
Speaker 1: nation if we don't look after these fish. And to
Speaker 1: make matters worse from the British point of view, also
Speaker 1: in ninety two, the United Kingdom joined the Common Market,
Speaker 1: and this was basically an approach by the European Economic
Speaker 1: Community that gave all its members equal access to the
Speaker 1: territorial waters of all the other members after a grace period. Iceland,
Speaker 1: not being a member of the European Economic Community, was
Speaker 1: not affected, but the UK was concerned about what it
Speaker 1: would mean for its own fishing industry to give the
Speaker 1: rest of the European economic community access to its fishing
Speaker 1: grounds the UK, to the UK fishing fleet, those waters
Speaker 1: off the coast of Iceland became even more important. So
Speaker 1: the UK once again deployed the Royal Navy to protect
Speaker 1: its distant water trawlers. And during the previous dispute, the
Speaker 1: trawlers were basically supposed to stick with the navy, and
Speaker 1: now they were trying to do it the other way around.
Speaker 1: The trawlers would go whether where they needed to fish,
Speaker 1: and the Navy would follow them to protect them. In
Speaker 1: other words, the UK had decided not to respect that
Speaker 1: fifty mile line, and we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: fallout from that a little bit more after we once
Speaker 1: again paused for a word from a sponsor. The first
Speaker 1: day that British ships made their way across the newly
Speaker 1: established fifty mile line around Iceland, they covered up their
Speaker 1: names and numbers on their ships and hoisted pirate flags.
Speaker 1: Iceland's coast Guard was mostly amused at this course of action,
Speaker 1: because at this point they had been patrolling these waters
Speaker 1: with these British trawlers for years, and they were sort
Speaker 1: of like, do you think we really can't recognize your ship?
Speaker 1: Without the name on it, like, we know what your
Speaker 1: ship looks like, we know who you are. It's the
Speaker 1: clark can't Glasses disguise of the sea. It was absolutely
Speaker 1: the Clark can't glasses to sect the guys of the sea.
Speaker 1: And this time around things really did start though, as
Speaker 1: much as we're laughing now, they became very serious and
Speaker 1: physical between Iceland and the UK. Towards the end of
Speaker 1: the previous dispute, Iceland had developed a trawling net cutter,
Speaker 1: and this was essentially a minesweeper modified with a road
Speaker 1: grading blade that was dragged through the water behind a
Speaker 1: boat so when it hit the high tension trawling wires,
Speaker 1: it would cut right through them. This was the part
Speaker 1: I learned at a museum in Iceland where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: the Icelandic Coast Guard was just cutting through trawling nuts.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. However, the cruise of the British trawlers were
Speaker 1: horrified and alarmed at this invention. The wires of these
Speaker 1: trawling nuts, I mean, these are enormous nets that are
Speaker 1: under the water and they fill up with fish. They
Speaker 1: are under a whole lot of tension. So it was
Speaker 1: within the realm of possibility that a wire that had
Speaker 1: been cut could re bound and literally cut someone in half.
Speaker 1: Iceland insisted that this cutting was happening far enough below
Speaker 1: the surface of the water that this was not a risk,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't a risk to human life because all
Speaker 1: of this energy that was being dissipated when the wire
Speaker 1: was cut basically was was dissipated in the traveling through
Speaker 1: the water. Um Even so, even if if there wasn't
Speaker 1: a risk, and I think you can argue that either way,
Speaker 1: the loss of the trawling net itself, and of the
Speaker 1: time and energy that you had put into putting it
Speaker 1: together and deploying it, and whatever time you had spent
Speaker 1: fishing with it basically meant that people were losing a
Speaker 1: lot of work and equipment in this process. The Icelandic
Speaker 1: Coastguard was vastly outnumbered. It had six Coastguard vessels plus
Speaker 1: two Polish built trawlers retrofitted for the purpose. Britain, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, had a total of twenty nine ships
Speaker 1: earmarked for the purpose, was six to nine of them
Speaker 1: in Icelandic water at any given time. In addition to
Speaker 1: those frigates were seven supply ships, nine tug boats and
Speaker 1: three artillery ships to protect its forty trawlers. Soon, in
Speaker 1: spite of being so heavily outnumbered, Icelandic vessels started intentionally
Speaker 1: ramming British Royal Navy ships and trawlers. This actually there
Speaker 1: was one collision that did lead to the death of
Speaker 1: an Icelandic officer. Britain responded by trying to update its
Speaker 1: trawler fleet by radio about the positions of Iceland's vessels,
Speaker 1: So the Icelandic Coastguards started recording Britain's transmissions on the
Speaker 1: positions of where the Icelandic vessels were and then replaying
Speaker 1: them at a later date to so confusion. When Britain
Speaker 1: realized that that was happening, their ships began to spread
Speaker 1: the word by radio to disregard the prior message, so
Speaker 1: the Icelandic Coast Guard recorded that too to replay it
Speaker 1: later on. It's a a ghost arms at that point
Speaker 1: where they're doing like these false sounds. Escapes May nine
Speaker 1: seventy three and Icelandic ship shelled a British trawler. Also
Speaker 1: in May, Iceland banned British planes from landing at Keflavik
Speaker 1: Air Base. That October, the UK and Iceland finally agreed
Speaker 1: to limit the number of British ships in icelandic waters,
Speaker 1: limit the size of the catch, and thankfully stop ramming
Speaker 1: each other. So this is kind of an uneasy piece
Speaker 1: that lasted for a couple of years. But in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five, Iceland extended its maritime border again to two
Speaker 1: hundred miles, so now we've gone three four twelve fifty
Speaker 1: two hundred. Once again, Britain refused to to respect yet
Speaker 1: another expansion in the exclusionary zone around Iceland. Negotiating negotiations
Speaker 1: really quickly broke down. Iceland threatened to close the NATO
Speaker 1: Basic Kevlovik entirely and to end diplomatic relations with Britain.
Speaker 1: The international community became really alarmed. All of these conflicts
Speaker 1: were running parallel to the Cold War, and there were
Speaker 1: some concerns that Iceland, which was strategically placed between Russia
Speaker 1: and North America, might, under all of this pressure and
Speaker 1: resistance from Britain, just abandoned its other diplomatic ties in
Speaker 1: favor of allying with Russia. Eventually, after numerous rammings and
Speaker 1: even some shelling caused damage to ships on both sides
Speaker 1: of the conflict, the Secretary General of NATO doctor Joseph
Speaker 1: Lunz had to mediate an agreement between Iceland and the UK,
Speaker 1: and that was signed in June of ninety six. It
Speaker 1: upheld Iceland's two hundred mile exclusion zone and it specified
Speaker 1: that Britain could have a maximum of twenty four trawlers
Speaker 1: in that zone at any given time. Conservation zones were
Speaker 1: established where no fishing would be allowed. After six months,
Speaker 1: there would be no more fishing in the two hundred
Speaker 1: mile zone. When those six months were up, Britain's distant
Speaker 1: water fishing fleet was effectively put out of business. Trawler
Speaker 1: owners were given some restitution for the loss of their businesses,
Speaker 1: and the government had reassured the distant water fishing industry
Speaker 1: to expect retraining for other work as well as compensation
Speaker 1: for basically having been made redundant. However, that support did
Speaker 1: not actually materialize in Britain's Fishermen's Association was formed to
Speaker 1: start fighting for compensation, and this was a battle that
Speaker 1: went on until July of two thousand, when a settlement
Speaker 1: of twenty six billion pounds was was earmarked for people
Speaker 1: who had been put out of work. As a consequence
Speaker 1: of this international agreement, fish stocks began to be depleted anyway,
Speaker 1: with Iceland needing to send boats farther afield, which turned
Speaker 1: into conflict with other nations as well, particularly Russia and Norway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's stocks have rebounded a lot now, but if if
Speaker 1: you look at sharts of the fish populations around Iceland,
Speaker 1: there's like a decline over the sixties and then a
Speaker 1: cliff and then they are very alarmingly low and then
Speaker 1: they start to recover. Uh. There's also a documentary. It
Speaker 1: was actually an Icelandic documentary, but it aired on the BBC,
Speaker 1: and one of the Icelandic officials that was interviewed for
Speaker 1: it talked about going to Britain visiting some of these
Speaker 1: ports that had been the distant water fishing ports, seeing
Speaker 1: all of these decommissioned ships just sort of derelict there
Speaker 1: in the port, and it reconfirming for him. Okay, seriously,
Speaker 1: we have got to we have got to conserve our
Speaker 1: fishing stocks because as a result of our trying to
Speaker 1: do that, all of these people were put out of
Speaker 1: work and lost their livelihoods um which I like I
Speaker 1: thought was an interesting sentiment to come back to you
Speaker 1: because at that point it was years after the decisions
Speaker 1: had all been made. I like the part with the
Speaker 1: pirate flags, that's my favorite part well, and there's also
Speaker 1: there were things about like the British ships basically throwing
Speaker 1: potatoes at people, uh I mean at the at the
Speaker 1: Icelandic ships. So this documentary documentary is really super interesting
Speaker 1: because you hear from people who were who were on
Speaker 1: these ships and we're uh, we're making living, making their
Speaker 1: living fishing, and it really does seem like, especially through
Speaker 1: the first the first couple of incidents where it moved
Speaker 1: from three miles to four and from four to twelve,
Speaker 1: that there was kind of a weird spirit of camaraderie
Speaker 1: where where the British, the British fisherman would be like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this anyway, and also throw potatoes at you,
Speaker 1: and Iceland was like, that's not cool, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: totally be fair when we arrest you and take you
Speaker 1: to court for your unsanctioned fishing activities. Um. It definitely though,
Speaker 1: just just ruined the economy of some particular ports cities.
Speaker 1: And then when you look at Britain's fishing industry today,
Speaker 1: it is completely different than it was up through nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy and also a lot of the fish that used
Speaker 1: to be UH used to be fished through distant water
Speaker 1: fishing fleets are instead now raised through aquacultures that are
Speaker 1: basically farmed instead of UM having this whole international agreement
Speaker 1: to send trawlers to other international waters to try to fish.
Speaker 1: Yeah show, thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.
Speaker 1: Since this episode is out of the archive, if you
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