Fisheries subsidies offer no help

A NEW World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on fisheries subsidies will do little to target countries most responsible for the over-exploitation of marine resources, fisher groups and civil society claimed today.

“The Sustainable Development Goals gave a clear mandate to try and reign in the issue of problematic subsidies on fishing, and what has been delivered however will do little to stop the big fleets who engage in illegal fishing. Instead the WTO effectively asks all countries to carry the same burden regardless of how responsible they are and how hard that may be,” said Pacific Network on Globalisation Deputy Coordinator, Adam Wolfenden.

In a statement released today, over 30 global small-scale fishers and civil society groups outlined their concerns about the balance of the agreement, arguing that the prohibitions will place too much of a burden on those low-capacity developing countries and least developed countries as well as small-scale fishers, leaving those large fishing fleets untouched.

“The Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies makes no distinction between Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing that is done by artisanal small-scale fishers and large industrial fleets, yet the impact they both have is vastly different,” Wolfenden said.

“The agreement seeks to ensure laws are in place to stop all IUU subsidies, this means that for those fishing communities that undertake unreported fishing on account of lack of government infrastructure may lose what little government support they get. This doesn’t address the main challenges facing fish stocks and fishing communities.”

Negotiations on this agreement were concluded at the WTO Ministerial in 2022, with countries then considering ratification. A two-thirds membership threshold required before it can come into effect.

Ratifications have also come with pressure as the recent trade deal between Indonesia and the US involved a commitment by Indonesia to ratify the agreement in return for lower tariffs on its exports to the US.

The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies contains prohibitions relating to subsidies for IUU fishing, overfished stocks and for some high-seas fishing. Under the agreement, countries will have

to provide detailed information about subsidies, type of fishing and potentially fish stocks to the WTO. It also includes ongoing negotiations on subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, often considered the most damaging subsidies.

“The imbalance in this agreement could be remedied by the ongoing negotiations on subsidies for overcapacity and overfishing yet what we have seen is that the text of those negotiations fails to hold large, advanced, industrial fleets accountable,’’ Wolfended’s aid.

Despite the Pacific’s best attempts to do so, the WTO has failed to deal with the problem directly.’’ The statement from global fisher groups and civil society is calling for discussions on subsidies to be moved from the WTO to the Committee of Fisheries under the mandate of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Sub-Committee on Trade, a forum with the expertise and greater inclusion of fisherfolk. Fiji and Tonga are currently the only Pacific Islands WTO Members to have ratified the agreement.

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