UN General Assembly
1971

104. The Icelandic Government considers that as far as Iceland is concerned we have to protect our interests now. It is quite clear that at any time the highly developed fishing fleets of distant-water fishing countries will be increasingly directed to the Iceland area. These fleets have now for some time had huge catches from the Barents Sea. Fishing there is no longer as profitable as it was, and they are directing their attention to the Iceland area. And the absence of highly developed fishing techniques and fishing capacity with huge factory trawlers, electronic equipment, and so on could very well cause irreparable harm to the Iceland area. I might mention in this connexion that the three nations mostly concerned in the Barents Sea area have for some time tried to establish some kind of quota system for that .area, but as far as we know those efforts have not met with success. In any case we cannot afford to take the risk of just doing nothing and we sincerely hope that our actions will be understood in that light by other delegations in this Assembly.