Global Policy Forum

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is holding a workshop here on Monday and Tuesday to review the various possible approaches and to reform the current fishing subsidies system.

More than 100 diplomats, trade and fisheries experts and environmentalists participated in the workshop, and will resume talks on international fishing subsidies at Geneva-based World Trade Organization Wednesday, UNEP said in a press release.

Participants are also taking a detailed look at the various effects resulting from current subsidies, including subsidies for fisheries infrastructure, management services, access to foreign countries' waters, decommissioning of vessels, capital costs, income support and price supports.

Thanks to both analytical and diplomatic advances, UNEP said, a growing consensus has emerged over the past two years on the role of fishing subsidies in distorting trade, creating overcapacity in fishing fleets and encouraging unsustainable levels of fishing.

Seventy-five percent of the world's commercially important fish stocks are described by the Food and Agriculture Organization as either fully fished, overexploited, depleted or slowly recovering.

Fishing subsidies can often encourage this over-exploitation, and can also undermine food security, destroy jobs in the fisheries sector, increase poverty and distort markets, said UNEP.

"It is no longer a question of whether, but of how international cooperation to reform fishing subsidies should move forward," said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer.

"While the problem is complex, it is time to build on the growing momentum for reform by restructuring subsidy programs in ways that reduce incentives for overexploiting the world's increasingly depleted fisheries," he added.