Suchergebnisse

Although the 'national' catch reconstructions presented here emphasize the coastal and thus domestic catches of Western Indian Ocean countries, the attention of their fisheries ministries is often directed elsewhere, i.e., at the tuna fisheries that have made the Western Indian Ocean a bonanza for European (mainly Spanish and French) and East Asian fishing fleets.2 These fisheries are very lucrative, and the Western Indian Ocean countries that permit tuna vessels to operate in their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) get a share — albeit small — from access fees. But they should not forget their domestic fisheries because they are the ones that ensure — or at least contribute — to the (sea)food security of their populations. The eleven chapters in this report document that this contribution to seafood security is much higher than previously assumed, but also that it is sharply declining in several countries. Thus, this report suggests that it is time to devote more attention to coastal fisheries and to rehabilitate them, e.g., as achieved in Southern Kenya, where strong, positive interactions between governments, scientists and fishers enabled the banning of gears not suitable for sustainable reef fisheries, and the establishment of marine reserves. Hopefully, initiatives such as these can be duplicated throughout the region. ; Science, Faculty of ; Oceans and Fisheries, Institute for the ; Unreviewed ; Faculty ; Graduate

In the 2000s, the Dutch beam trawl fleet was in chronic deficit and under pressure to reduce its environmental impact. Instead of converting to selective fishing gears, it successfully lobbied the European Commission with the support of public authorities and scientists to obtain derogations against formal scientific advice to practice a prohibited technique: electric trawling. Since then, electric trawling has expanded beyond regulatory threshold: 84 large trawlers now catch the vast majority of the Dutch flatfish quota, causing detrimental socio-environmental impacts. To assess whether the European Union's fisheries policies fulfilled legal objectives and implemented the 2030 Agenda, it appeared crucial to quantify how much public financial aid had been provided to the Dutch fishing sector for its conversion to electric trawling. The financial information enabling this evaluation was first concealed but was eventually obtained. We show that the institutional opacity surrounding electric trawling was not serendipitous and has served to dissimulate allocations of public monies to a prohibited fishing method (otter trawl), illegal licenses, and falsely 'scientific' fishing. In breach of EU laws, 20.8 million EUR of structural funds have so far been granted to this sector in the form of direct subsidies, i.e. over 30 times the amount acknowledged by the fishing industry. The findings presented here lift part of the veil surrounding electric trawling, but the complete reconstruction of the impacts of this fishing method can only be done when decision-makers and scientists disclose all data in full transparency and become the warrants of the public interest ; SI

One of the greatest threats to the conservation of transboundary stocks is the failure of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) to equitably allocate future fishing opportunities. Across RFMOs, catch history remains the principal criterion for catch allocations, despite being recognized as a critical barrier to governance stability. This paper examines if and how subsidies have driven catch histories, thereby perpetuating the legacy of unfair resource competition between distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) and coastal States, and how this affects ongoing allocation negotiations in the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC). Using limited publicly available data on subsidies to Indian Ocean tuna fleets, we show that subsidies have inflated catch histories of many DWFN's. As long as historical catch remains the key allocation criterion, future fishing opportunities will continue to be skewed in favor of DWFNs, in turn marginalizing half of the IOTC member States, which collectively account for a paltry 4% of the current catch. Without better transparency in past subsidies data, accounting for this distortion will be difficult. We provide alternative allocation options for consideration, with our analysis showing that re-attributing DWFN catch to the coastal State in whose waters it was caught may begin to alleviate this historical injustice.