About Canada: Canada's fisheries

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The village of St. Paul's River is reeling after the 2003 moratorium on cod fishing. What will become of their way of life if they can't fish?

The fate of tiny St. Paul's River hangs in the balance after the closure of the East Coast fisheries. This isolated hamlet on Quebec's Lower North Shore depended entirely on cod fishing for its existence. Now the community that feels like "paradise" to its residents is losing its young people, its ancient skills, its very identity as it searches for a way to survive until the fish come back. Questions of responsibility fuel their discussions: Who is at fault? The government? Foreign fleets? Or maybe the fishers themselves? Tenacity, make-work programs and limited-quota seasons allow St. Paul's River to cling to life on this rocky coast, "The land God gave to Cain". But for how long?