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Above And Below The Water: Social/Ecological Transformation In Northwest Newfoundland, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Richard L. Haedrich, Cynthia M. Duncan

Sociology

Marine fisheries and fishing societies develop around the resources provided by a particular ecosystem. As they exploit these resources, fisheries transform the ecosystem, which pushes fishery and society to adapt in turn. This process is illustrated by fisheries, ecological and social data tracking dramatic changes on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula and its adjacent marine ecosystem, the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence. There a longstanding fishery for cod and other groundfish collapsed in the 1990s, and was replaced by fisheries targeting invertebrates. The new invertebrate fisheries have different socioeconomic characteristics than the former groundfish fisheries. The shift in target species reflects deep …