Maritime history of the United Kingdom and echo sounders making life easier now. Fishing in waters off Iceland became important, which led to three "Cod Wars" from the 1950s to the 1970s. British boats were excluded from Icelandic waters in 1976. In 1977 a fishing limit was set up by the European Economic Community, and British waters were opened to other Community members. This led to overfishing. Landings decreased 28% between 1967 and 1997, with fishing now mainly off Scotland. Other sorts of fishing also take place on a commercial basis such as for crab, lobster, shellfish and mackerel. Sport fishing is popular from coasts 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