An Examination of Trade and Environmental Policy Responses to the Challenge of Fisheries Subsides

• Date: 01 November 1999
• Author: Beatrice Chaytor
• Published date: 01 November 1999
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9388.00211

Volume 8 Issue 3 1999 The Challenge of Fisheries Subsidies

Beatrice Chaytor

Introduction

The crisis in world f‌isheries is one of the major chal-

lenges facing the international community as it moves

into the twenty-f‌irst century. In the past few decades,

the world f‌ishing f‌leets have outstripped the increase in

harvest levels, enabling the overall f‌ishing effort to con-

tinue unabated. And governments continue to maintain

mutually conf‌licting policy objectives that have had an

impact on the environment and trade, thereby

undermining the achievement of sustainable develop-

ment. Over-f‌ishing is spawned by excess capacity and

the overall lack of adequate and consistent f‌isheries

management. Subsidies and other revenue transfers

encourage excess capacity, while f‌ishing seasons and

quotas do little to reduce the overall pressures on f‌ish-

eries resources.

Fish stocks are an essential part of global biodiversity

and the oceans’ ecosystems. They also represent an

important source of nutrition to the citizens of many

developing countries, who depend more on f‌ish than any

other animal protein for their diet. Fish trade represents

a signif‌icant source of foreign currency earnings for

many developing countries – a dependency which is set

to rise steadily in the coming decades. Fisheries indus-

tries provide employment and income to an estimated

30 million individuals around the world (28 million in

developing countries). They are essential to the sus-

tainable development of coastal f‌ishing communities

around the world.

It appears that conventional management techniques

alone are no longer appropriate remedies for the exploi-

tation practices in most traditional f‌isheries. Therefore a

dual approach to f‌isheries management which combines

both economic and conservation policies needs to be

Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

275

adopted at the national, regional and international lev-

els. Such policies must incorporate a precautionary

approach to f‌isheries management in order for f‌ishing

effort to be rationalized to a more sustainable level.

This article examines the response by the international

community to the relationship between the provision of

subsidies, excess capacity and the crisis in f‌isheries. It

suggests ways to co-ordinate the responses and support

regional and national efforts to sustainably manage f‌ish-

eries resources.

Worldwide Fisheries

Overview

About 70% of the world’s stocks are now regarded as

fully exploited, overexploited, depleted or recovering.

1

World f‌ish production has therefore levelled out in

recent years, averaging 100 million tonnes. Capture f‌ish-

eries accounts for the bulk of this f‌igure, but the growth

of aquaculture has begun to offset a decline in marine

and inland capture f‌isheries harvests.

2

Ten countries

account for about 70% of worldwide capture f‌isheries.

Low-income food-def‌icit countries account for 35% of

capture f‌isheries production, but their production in this

sector is increasing. The Food and Agriculture Organiza-

tion (FAO), the UN’s technical agency with responsi-

bilities for various f‌isheries matters on the global scale,

estimates the potential harvest from capture f‌isheries is

between 85 and 90 million tonnes with current f‌ishing

regimes, and 100 to 105 million tonnes if management

systems for capture f‌isheries are improved.

3

The steady rise in international trade in f‌isheries pro-

ducts is due to the increased f‌ishing by coastal countries

in their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). Long distance