EU Fishing Subsidies Keep Industry Afloat, Report Finds

While scientists warn there are not plenty of fish in the sea, a new report finds the European Union is sending fishermen around the globe in unsustainable numbers to find what is left.

These numbers come from heavy government subsidies that reached $4.5 billion in 2009, which is three times greater than typically quoted in public figures, and promotes a European fishing fleet that is up to three times bigger than sustainable limits, according to Oceana's "European Union and Fishing Subsidies" report.

"Fishing subsidies can create incentives to fish more, even when catches are declining," the report writes.

It says that in nearly half of EU countries, subsides are worth more than the actual catch.

Anne Schroeer, author of the report, told The Huffington Post the result was that too many vessels had been built and too much money had been put into building factories and modernizing vessels, which promoted unsustainable fishing practices.

She said the EU water fleet is sent all over the world rather than close to shores. This is made possible by subsidies covering items such as fuel, according to the report.

EU fishing fleets are found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, with widespread issues of illegal and unregulated fishing having a significant impact on fish stocks in non-European waters and developing countries, where coastal fish stocks provide food and livelihood for local communities.

Courtney Sakai, senior campaign director for Oceana, said in a press release: “Subsidies are a detriment to global competitiveness. Subsidies unfairly disadvantage coastal communities by reducing the cost of operations for industrial fishing fleets and increasing the number, size and power of boats competing for fish.”

A report by the World Bank wrote that global fisheries suffered economic losses of up to $50 billion a year from overfishing and inefficiencies in managing the industry.

According to Oceana, the subsidies allow destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling, where huge metal plates are scraped along the ocean floor and kill unwanted fish species that are thrown back to sea.

Fishupdate.com writes, "Even though subsidies that directly give incentives to the expansion of the fishing fleet - such as vessel construction, modernisation, and the export of fishing vessels - are not allowed under the EFF, there are a number of loopholes and exceptions, says Oceana."

The Oceana report says that according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, "85 percent of the world’s fisheries are now overexploited, fully exploited, significantly depleted or recovering from overexploitation."

Schoeer said subsidies, which in the EU mainly come from the European Fisheries Fund and Second Financial Instrument, "need to be stopped."

---

Comments

[Beautiful World]

02:19 PM on 09/14/2011

Please ,
In 48 hours the UN will be reviewing the destructiv­e practices of deep sea trawling used by the fishing industry. "The seafood industry uses long chains of heavy metal disks to drag nets across the sea floor in search of fish, crushing everything in their path. This bottom-tra­wling is like clear-cutt­ing a forest to catch a parrot"

The US and Australia have already banned this process.

Please take take 3 minutes of your time to review and sign this online petition. Quick read , I promise. Every vote will help. Please spread the word.

http://www­.avaaz.org­/en/stop_o­cean_clear­_cutting/?­cl=1269501­545&v=1024­2”

[Beautiful World]

02:25 PM on 09/14/2011

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_ocean_clear_cutting/?tta

This link works.

[ekg]

08:53 AM on 09/14/2011

This is the same thing I have been trying to tell people for years. The US has the STRICTEST fishing regulations in the world. We are governed by state, federal and NGO agencies in a _circlejerk_ of redundancies and policing powers. The US has made great strides over the past few decades in rebuilding stocks and instituting sustainable fisheries. There is still work to do, but we are the model for the world on this issue.

With that said: The US is also regulated by UN Fisheries in their global fishing treaties. These treaties pretty much say "America must take the full burden of these regulations while we give passes and turn blind eyes to our illegal-fishing European and Asian 'allies.'" They do NOTHING to enforce global treaties on these other nations while continuing to tighten regulations on the US. See the Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna Fishery. See the "Chilean Seabass" Fishery. See the Shark Finning Industry. Etc, etc, etc.

The UN and EU would rather see our family and small operation fishing families struggle to survive while their fleets of 400' long industrial ocean vacuums continue to indiscriminately _r@pe_ the seas all over the world. They can fish in our waters, too.

The US is part of the solution, not part of the problem. But guess what, our regulations are increasingly making US caught seafood unavailable or too expensive and exponentially increasing the amount of imported seafood (from these very EU illegal fishing industries) on our markets.

[Jim Milks]

02:40 PM on 09/13/2011

I'm currently reading a book chapter that examines in some detail the ecological consequences of overfishing. If anyone is interested, the chapter is Duffy, J. E. 2010. Sea changes: structure and functioning of emerging marine communities. in Verhoef, H. A. and P. J. Morin, eds. Community Ecology: Processes, Models, and Application. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England.

Overfishing has multiple implications for marine communities, not the least because fishing tends to target the large keystone predators. That the EU chooses to subsidize such a large fishing fleet in the face of all the scientific evidence is just as foolhardy as the current debate in the US over climate change.

[ekg]

08:55 AM on 09/14/2011

Precisely. The US fishing industry is nowhere near as industrialized as the EU fleet in most cases. Then the UN tells us we are catching too many Atlantic Bluefin Tuna while at the same time telling EU nations it's ok for them to purse sein juvenile pre-spawning stock in the Mediterranean.......

[eric14]

02:38 PM on 09/13/2011

The Anti-EU parties in the EU should get hold of this and scream and scream. I am sick of subsidizing damaging industries. For what? Jobs? These subsidies are preventing us from engaging in innovative job creation. That money could be used to create new industries and new jobs. AND you can be sure a good proportion of it is being ripped off.

[strafem2]

02:15 PM on 09/13/2011

You can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin him once. Amarillo Slim