Cod_ A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World - Mark Kurlansky [68]
In the 1990s, with North Sea fisheries in crisis, the action shifted to the Irish box. Soon the International Council for Exploration of the Seas (ICES), which for years had been warning about the dwindling stocks in the North Sea, began reporting a similar situation in the Irish Sea.
Within the European Union, fishing issues are settled by a much disliked bureaucracy of the Common Fishing Policy. In each country, each boat has a set quota on each species in each area of ocean each month. It is widely agreed that this system has failed to stop the decline of cod and other commercially valuable species. Politics and nationalism often play far greater roles than conservation in the decision-making process. For many years, scientists and European ministers agreed that hake was so menaced that the quotas had to be reduced by 40 percent. But at each annual meeting of European fishing ministers, the Spanish, for whom hake is a basic food, lobby to maintain the catch, and the reduction is never agreed on.
In a December 1994 meeting for European ministers, the Common Fishing Policy agreed to let forty Spanish fishing boats work the Irish box. After. forty years of overfishing by their own trawlers, the fishermen of Cornwall and Devon had someone else to blame for their dwindling cod stocks. Even before the forty boats arrived, the word Spanish seemed to sit unkindly on everyone’s lips in southwestern England. Maureen Whitehead at her Exeter fish-and-chips shop now knew whom to blame if her fish pieces seemed a bit thin. “There’ll be no more chunky pieces if the Spanish take everything,” she warned.
Far out in balmy, green Cornwall, with its lush vegetation warmed by the Gulf Stream, there was a growing obsession about the Spanish. European relationships are often mired in history, and the Spanish have never had a good name here. The Cornish recall without forgiveness that long before the two brutal World Wars against the Germans, and centuries of battles against the French, the narrow sloping streets of Newlyn had been sacked by marauding Spaniards who arrived in galleons. And now they were coming back.
The Spanish, with the largest fleet and little to offer in fishing grounds, are a favorite target in Atlantic fishing. It is seldom mentioned that they also have the largest market because of an unusually high per capita consumption. For centuries, Atlantic fishermen from the New England pilgrims to the newly independent Icelanders have been sustained by Spanish markets.
Few cod are landed anymore by the Spanish or even the Basque fishermen who began it all. The giant bacalao companies—which owned their own trawler fleets, landed salt cod from the banks, and dried and sold it—have all closed. Trueba y Pardo used to be a major company in Bilbao. In San Sebastián’s port of Pasajes, there was PYSBE—Pesquerías y Secadores de Bacalao de Espana (Salt Cod Fishermen and Driers of Spain), founded in 1926. Both closed in the 1960s. In addition to fishermen and dockworkers, PYSBE had employed 500 workers in cleaning and drying alone. Trueba y Pardo had about 200 cleaners. These workers were almost all women, earning very low wages and no benefits, spending their days simply removing the dark gray membrane that had been the organ cavity lining. It was thought to be unattractive, and these workers cost the companies very little. Each woman could process 1,000 kilos (2,200 pounds) of fish in a day. Then the cod would be air-dried in the mountains. With modern salaries and benefits, companies could not afford such huge payrolls.
When the 200-mile limit was imposed, the Basques lost access to most cod grounds. By the time Spain entered the European Community in the 1980s, European waters had little cod. By 1990, only a few very old trawlers were rigged for cod fishing from Basque ports.
The banking and financial services that were established in Bilbao and San Sebasti