In 1992 the Canadian Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, John Crosbie, declared a moratorium on the Northern Cod fishery, which for the past 500 years had largely shaped the lives and communities of Canada's eastern coast. The interplay between fishing societies and the resources which they depend on is obvious to almost any observer: fisheries transform the ecosystem, which pushes the fishery and society to adapt. In the summer of 1992, when the Northern Cod biomass fell to 1% of its earlier level, Canada's federal government saw that this relationship had been pushed to breaking point, and declared a moratorium, ending the region's 500-year run with the Northern Cod.