Military history of Iceland called the Icelandic Cod Wars (Icelandic: "Þorskastríðin", "the cod war", or "Landhelgisstríðin", "the war for the territorial waters"), were a series of three confrontations from the 1950s to the 1970s between the United Kingdom and Iceland over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. The First Cod War lasted from 1 September until 12 November 1958. It began as soon as a new Icelandic law that expanded the Icelandic fishery zone from , came into force at midnight of 1 September. After a number of rammings and a few shots fired between the Royal Navy and Icelandic patrol boats, Britain and
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