The Oceans
The oceans are on the verge of complete collapse, a fact found by several reputable reports: the decrease in biodiversity due to overfishing and invasive species, the chemical threats of global warming and pollution, and destructive and increasingly efficient fishing technology - among other causes - have been found to fundamentally alter the state of the oceans in a decidedly negative manner.
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Findings released more than a year ago in Science Magazine provide overwhelming evidence that loss in marine biodiversity, which is "directly caused by exploitation, pollution, and habitat destruction, or indirectly through climate change and related perturbations of ocean biochemistry" (Worm et al., 2006, p. 787), lead to significant overall decrease in productivity. This decrease in biodiversity and subsequent decrease in productivity, as well as the disruption of ocean currents from global pollution (Pew), directly impacts all of humanity, from those who eat and catch fish to the land-locked nations without any immediate connection to the fishing industry. Boris Worm, the scientist who introduced the idea of "no fish by 2050," quoted in an article as saying, "we're going to run out of viable fisheries, out of all seafood species by the year 2050" (ScienCentral, 2006), in conjunction with several other authors, issued the report in Science Magazine relating the devastating effect of the loss of biodiversity:
"Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. We analyzed local experiments, long-term regional time series, and global fisheries data to test how biodiversity loss affects marine ecosystems services across temporal and spatial scales. Overall, rates of resource collapse increased and recovery potential, stability, and water quality decreased exponentially with declining diversity. Restoring of biodiversity, in contrast, increased productivity fourfold and decreased variability by 21%, on average. We conclude that marine biodiversity loss in increasingly impairing the ocean's capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations. Yet available data suggest that at this point, these trends are still reversible" (Worm et al., 2006, p. 787).
The World Fisheries
"In 2000, the FAO stated that 72% of the world's marine fish resources are either fully exploited or in decline. This state of overexploitation has led to practices in cascade fishing, where smaller, immature individuals or different stocks of lesser value and quality replace the former stocks that existed in higher trophic levels. Thus, leading to the current declining trend in fish harvest from high-value demersal fish to lower-value pelagic fish" (Duke). According to Annual Commercial Landing Statistics from NOAA, the tonnage of fish caught in US fisheries from 1950 to 2006 has nearly doubled to more than 4.3 million tons per annum, with a peak in 1997 at nearly 4.8 million tons (NOAA, 2007), yet because of this increase in production, the fish stocks have decreased by 90% since 1950 (Big-Fish, 2003). "Only 10 percent of all large fish - both open ocean species including tuna, swordfish, marlin and the large groundfish such as cod, halibut, skates and flounder - are left in the sea, according to research published in today's issue of the scientific journal Nature" (Big-Fish, 2003). The fisheries are as susceptible to collapse as the ecosystems upon which they depend.
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The use of RFBs to promote regional cooperation and implementation of international fishery agreements is still a promising idea. In order for their potential to be met, they must be made much more powerful and gain the ability to utilize the instruments given to them by international agreements (Role of Regional Fishing Bodies, 1999).
Subsidies
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Present - MIT IS&T Wiki Service
Fishing subsidies come in many forms. Direct government payments to the industry include a grants made for the purchase of new fishing vessels, vessel decommissioning payments (buybacks), fishermen's unemployment insurance, compensation for closed seasons, equity infusions, and price support programs (Schrank, 2003).
Current Subsidies
Many countries subsidize their fishing industries because of the important role it plays in their job economy and food supply. Annual subsidies for fishing amount to $10 to $15 billion world wide---possibly more than 25 percent of the annual $56 billion trade in fish (CITATION NEEDED).
American and Canadian fisheries have been highly subsidized for many years in order to develop their domestic fisheries. Apart from that, they have also used approximately US$3,000,000,000 on income maintenance for unemployed fishermen and fish plant workers and improving fisheries science. In 1990s, when people started to realize the problem of overfishing, both countries started to subsidize to develop technologies to reduce capacity. (Schrank, 2003)
Norway, one of the largest cod-catching countries, grants loans to their fishing industries to support the export of their fishing market. They also grant loans to vessel arrangements, price support, insurance subsidies, operating subsidies, minimum income guarantees, vacation support and unemployment insurance, bait subsidies, gear subisidies and damage compensation) (Schrank, 2003)
Some are harmful; some may help to solve the problem of overfishing. In view of this, WTO agreed on restricting subsidies designed to promote export and establish controls over other form of subsidies. Canada, Japan, and other countries with a large fishery industry, however, endorse the "no-need approach" in which no restriction of subsidies should be imposed as they dispute the casual link between subsidies and overexploitation of fish resources. They propose fisheries management regimes deal with catch controls (quotas), effort controls (restrictions on boat size, engine power and days at sea, etc.) and right-based structures (permits, individual transferable quotas, etc.). Therefore, in Japan's view, it would be unfair if these varying situations are ignored and certain fisheries subsidies automatically prohibited. (Benitah, 2004)
Other countries propose the Traffic Light approach: red (forbidden subsidies), green (permitted subsidies), amber (slow down, which means that subsidies may be subjected to a complaint on the basis of their adverse trade effects). By this approach, desirable subsidies will be maintained while direct payment to promote export would be banned or discouraged.
This measure has been supported by countries like Norway. (Benitah, 2004)
The Problem
However, difficulties exist in the elimination of subsidies. As subsidies are regarded as one of the invisible protectionist measures, it is almost impossible to measure the amount of subsidies that a country provides to is fishing industry.
Currently subsidies are costing the governments around the world billions of dollars and only harming the state of fisheries by increasing the fishing effort and making it easier for us to deplete the fishing stock. Money is directed to lower the costs of shipbuilding, to compensate fishermen, and to establish joint fishermen, among other things. Studies show that fishing subsidies for the Distant Water Fleets of developed nations are harming the economy and growth of developing nations.
International Council for the Exploration of the Seas
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