Canada signs on to Arctic fishing ban
Affects commercial industry in North Pole seas
Stewart Burnett
Northern News Services
Monday, July 20, 2015
IQALUIT
Leaders from Canada, the United States, Russia, Norway and Denmark signed an agreement July 16 to ban commercial fishing in seas around the North Pole.
The move is in response to melting sea ice in the central Arctic Ocean, which could mean commercial fish stocks such as cod start moving into the area.
Arctic cod are expected to be the first fish to thrive in the North Pole waters.
The agreement was delayed a year by tensions in Ukraine. It was negotiated in Greenland in February 2014, to be signed in June 2014. But Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014, and in protest, both the United States and Canada boycotted one meeting of the Arctic Council last year in Moscow.
