After twenty years of discussion, the member states of the World Trade Organization will regulate aid that promotes the overexploitation of fish populations.
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A watered down and partial agreement, of course, but an agreement all the same: the hundred and sixty-four member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded their negotiations on subsidies in the fishing sector, Thursday, June 16 , with thirty-six hours behind the agenda, after endless night discussions and more than twenty years of procrastination. The stakes are high: it is a question of attacking these funding with disastrous consequences for the ocean, since they help the fishermen to acquire ever more powerful ships to go and find the last fish of overexploited species .
This subject has constituted one of the three essential themes – with the global food crisis caused by the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the temporary lifting of patents of the COVVI -19 vaccines – of the 12 e ministerial session of the WTO which has just ended, in Geneva, the first to be held since December 2017. “The results show that the WTO is capable of responding to the emergency room of our time”, rejoiced The director general of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-iweala, about the unprecedented “unpreciated” measurement.
Tuesday, she exhorted the ministers to redouble their efforts as the discussions seemed to be able to succeed. “This requires that we work harder,” she insisted with an assembly, which adopts its decisions by consensus. With regard to fishery resources that decline in the world, there is an emergency. According to United Nations estimates, 34 % of fish populations are overexploited and will not be able to reconstruct themselves. Since 2015, the UN has been asking to revise all public supports that encourage the overexploitation of the ocean: construction and modernization of ships, acquisition of new engines, equipment, fish detection technologies, Without which very expensive campaigns on the high seas or the towing heavy chalt on the seabed would not be profitable. The sensitive case of the very popular fuel grants was returned to later.
To unlock this dossier, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala proposed the creation of a fund of $ 20 million (around 19 million euros), intended to promote the conversion of developing countries to more sustainable fishing methods . We are far from the generous amounts of subsidies in the sector, generally valued at more than $ 32 billion per year, including 22 billion considered as direct levers of overfishing.
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