In 1969, the Norwegian spring-spawning herring fishery, one of the world's largest, collapsed due to decades of overfishing and environmental changes. The collapse devastated the coastal communities of Norway, especially in the Møre og Romsdal region, and led to the loss of thousands of jobs. This event highlighted the vulnerability of marine ecosystems to human exploitation and spurred efforts to implement more sustainable fishing practices. The herring stocks took decades to recover, and the fishery only reopened in the early 1990s.

The herring collapse became a powerful theme in Norwegian literature and poetry, with writers like Tarjei Vesaas and Olav H. Hauge exploring its human and environmental consequences. The event also inspired a wave of ecocritical poetry that reflected on the tragedy of overfishing and the loss of a way of life. The herring's disappearance has been used as a metaphor for ecological fragility in Nordic literature.