Environmental Systems and Societies · Case studies

ECS.7 — Grand Banks cod collapse (Newfoundland)

Environmental Systems and Societies · SL / HL · syllabus-mapped notes

1. Overview

   The 500-year cod fishery that crashed within a generation of industrial trawling.

2. Systems and sustainability angle

   Maximum sustainable yield, overshoot and a positive-feedback stock collapse with a lasting regime shift.

3. Management and response

   The 1992 moratorium: too late to prevent collapse, and slow to reverse it.

4. HL lens angle

   The economics of a common-pool resource and the law of exclusive economic zones and quotas.