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
Cod fisheries waters to the West of Scotland where cod has continued to decline. It is broadly accepted that the plan has been a failure and has not delivered its objective of recovering the cod stocks in these areas because of the plan’s over reliance on effort (days-at-sea) that created an indiscriminate ‘race to fish’ which in fact increased fishing mortality on the biomass for cod, on other demersal species and had a destructive impact on the benthic zone of the seabed where it is intensely fished. On the other hand, conservation initiatives undertaken by fishermen working in cooperation with government, such