Scandic Pragmatism
I am a fan of things Scandic. I spend my summer holidays in Skane. I think Copenhagen is a great place and relax watching Borgen.
I like the directness and straight forwardness of the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians. It makes things so much easier (for me at least). If you have thin skin, you should stay well away from them.
How to grow your fish
But, what won me over, is what these old vikings did with their fisheries. Like the rest of Europe, they too had a basket case of a fisheries industry. Take Norway, the industry made a loss, was kept alive by subsidies, and discarded nearly as much good fish as they landed.
Then, one day in 1985 Bjarne Mørk Eidema, a Norwegian fishing Minister got fed up with it all. He knew that an industry cost Norway a lot more than it brought it in. The idea of the working families paying for a privileged few went against the social democrat grain. Well, he ignored his civil servants and banned discards. The fishermen likely blockaded the ports and caused merry hell. I guess he ignored them. And, then he introduced ITQs and made fishermen responsible for their own financial destiny. Heaven forbid. And, he was a social democrat.
Can You Have Plenty of Fish in the Sea? Yes
Well, here’s a simple graph showing the state of cod stocks in the north sea and the north east arctic.
You’ll see that the landings of cod in both seas in 1970 (which I choose because it is when I was born) are similar. But, today things look a lot different. Now, the UK gets a lot of its delicious cod from Norway (the big cod tastes great).
A Nice Norwegian Model
The strange thing is that most North Sea fishing ministers simply choose to ignore what happened in Norway. The Danes and Swedes are so close it is hard for them not to notice rich fishermen. They’ve copied many of the ideas of the Norwegians. Using successful models is a good idea. It shortens the learning time. It makes things easier. And, if something works, why not copy it?