Ottawa - Canada said on Thursday it had banned fishing boats from Greenland and the Faroe Islands from its ports because of their "highly irresponsible" overfishing of shrimp stocks outside Canadian waters.
Canada took similar measures against Faroese fishing boats in 2002 but relented after Denmark promised to stick to quotas set by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation.
Greenland is a Danish territory while the Faroe Islands have had home rule under the Danish crown since 1948.
Federal Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan said Denmark had again allowed boats to fish more than their shrimp quota in an area close to Canadian waters.
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| 'This is an important environmental issue internationally' |
"This is an important environmental issue internationally, and for the Danish government to make a decision to ignore these quotas is highly irresponsible," he told reporters.
Overfishing is a sensitive topic in Canada, where the once-rich cod fishery off the Atlantic province of Newfoundland was shut down almost 15 years ago to let it recover.
The closure effectively destroyed a centuries-old way of life and put tens of thousands of fishermen and fish industry workers out of work.
In March 1995, Canada seized a Spanish trawler in international waters and arrested the captain in a dispute over turbot fishing.
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