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Finland Fisheries
Unlike other Nordic countries, in the late 1980s
Finland had
few fishermen, and the fishing industry was small.
Finland's
coastal waters offered poor fishing grounds because of
their low
salt content (caused by the heavy flow from the country's
many
rivers). Rivers and lakes were often relatively
unproductive
because stream runoff often contained insufficient
nutrients. In
addition, those inland waterways that did support
exploitable
fish populations were often located too far from market
centers
to make commercial fishing profitable. Log-floating
operations
and hydroelectric installations disrupted some fishing
grounds,
and the paper industry polluted others.
The poverty of Finland's waters explained why, despite
considerable government aid, relatively few Finns were
Fishermen.
In 1985, for example, only 2,200 fishermen worked
full-time,
while another 5,000 worked part-time; they used a fleet of
about
530 boats. That same year, the fish catch totaled some
111,000
tons, of which roughly two-thirds were salt-water fish,
and onethird were fresh-water fish. Baltic herring was the most
valuable
catch, followed by salmon. A share of the catch came from
Soviet
and Swedish waters, to which Finland had gained access
under
bilateral agreements.
Unable to meet domestic demand, Finland had to import
about
300,000 tons of fish each year, including large amounts of
fish
offal that was used as feed on fur farms. Demand for fish
was
thus relatively strong, but observers believed that, given
the
country's poor fisheries, it was likely that the small
fishing
industry would become even smaller.
Data as of December 1988
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