Cod Wars Cod Wars The Cod Wars (, "the cod wars", or "Landhelgisstríðin", "the wars for the territorial waters") were a series of confrontations between the United Kingdom and Iceland on fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Each of the disputes ended with an Icelandic victory. The Third Cod War concluded in 1976, with a highly favourable agreement for Iceland; the United Kingdom conceded to a Icelandic exclusive fishery zone after threats that Iceland would withdraw from NATO, which would have forfeited NATO's access to most of the GIUK gap, a critical anti-submarine warfare during the Cold War. As a result, British
Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery that extended to 200 mi offshore. The government wanted to reverse declining fish stocks by removing foreign fishing within the new inshore fishery boundaries. With the absence of foreign fishing many Canadian and U.S fishing trawlers took their place and the number of cod kept diminishing past a point of recovery. Many local fishermen noticed the drastic decrease of cod and tried to inform local government officials. In 1986, scientists did a review of calculations and data after which they determined, in order to conserve cod fishing the total allowable catch rate had to be cut in half. However, even