VENTSPILS: Fishers do not usually wish for a “perfect storm.” But Latvian boating communities are hoping for exactly that: a rare tempest that might, one day, revive waning stocks of Baltic cod.
Decreasing salinity in the Baltic Sea is robbing the saltwater fish of the conditions it needs to thrive.
And as its population shrinks, so do the fishing traditions that have long characterised villages along Latvia’s 494-kilometer (307-mile) coastline.
The result for the communities in this small EU nation is a drive to reinvent themselves, to survive.
With the European Union steadily cutting allowable catches of Baltic cod, and moving toward a total ban to replenish stocks, towns and villages are diversifying into tourism and seafood processing.
