Iceland in the Cold War Iceland, as the United Kingdom conceded to a Icelandic exclusive fishery zone following threats that Iceland would leave NATO. As a result, British fishing communities lost access to rich areas and were devastated, with thousands of jobs lost. The term "cod war" was coined by a British journalist in early September 1958. None of the Cod Wars meets any of the common thresholds for a conventional war, though, and they may more accurately be described as militarized interstate disputes. There is only one confirmed death during the Cod Wars: an Icelandic engineer killed in the Second Cod War. Iceland hosted
Cod fisheries needed and areas where opposite observations were gaining press attention. In effect, DFO's opposition to a listing compromised its ability to carry out its conservation mandate. The ban on Canadian cod fishing was partly lifted in 1997 by the Minister for DFO just ten days prior to a federal election, despite that independent Canadian scientists and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea doubted there had been sufficient recovery. In general, depleted populations of cod and other gadids do not appear to recover easily when fishing pressure is reduced or stopped. In 2003, COSEWIC in an update designated