Environment groups welcome long-awaited deal to curb harmful subsidies but say key measures to curb overfishing were dropped
After 20 years of failed negotiations, the World Trade Organization has secured a deal to. Conservationists and campaign groups welcomed last week’s agreement as historic, despite criticism of “big holes” in the agreement.
The agreement creates a global framework that limits subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, for fishing over-depleted populations, and for vessels fishing on the unregulated high seas. Crucially, the agreement does not include a single reference to “capacity enhancing” or “harmful subsidies” – the largest ones that lead to exploitation. It does not ban any public money from governments going towards subsidising capital costs, such as modernising fishing fleets and replacing engines, or running costs such as fuel.
“A lot of people are giving credit because this was so hard politically,” he said. “All I’m interested in is, ‘Will fish stocks become more sustainable?’ In its current form, I don’t think it will remove many subsidies from the fishing environment.”
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