Fuel subsidies for fisheries
EU Member States provide fuel subsidies for fishing activities both directly through subsidies and indirectly through fuel tax exemption. These are environmentally harmful subsidies and Seas At Risk is calling for a shift from such subsidies to incentives for the transition to low-impact fisheries.
The precise scale of fuel subsidies for EU fisheries is not known, but global fuel subsidies are estimated at US$4.2-8.5 billion per year (in 2000) or around 8% of the value of the catch. Fuel subsidies reduce the cost of fisheries operations and make fishing enterprises more profitable than they would otherwise be. This results directly or indirectly in the build-up of excessive fishing capacity and effort, leading to the over-exploitation of fishery resources, supporting economically unprofitable practices and undermining future economic benefits.
Fuel subsidies promote the use of active, fuel-intensive fishing techniques such as dredging, beam trawling and bottom trawling, and in general these are more damaging to the marine environment than passive fishing techniques. Scientists have estimated that the highly destructive and unsustainable practice of high seas bottom trawling would operate at a loss without fuel subsidies. The increase in fuel-intensive fisheries also leads to a substantial increase in CO2 emissions from fishing vessels.
By promoting the replacement of man power by horse power, fuel subsidies have socio-economic impacts. They distort the competition between large scale fuel intensive fishing fleets and small scale fleets using passive, low impact techniques.
The most direct and obvious way to encourage a shift towards fisheries with less environmental impacts is to ban direct fuel subsidies and bring duty levels up to those paid by other users of diesel fuel, and Seas At Risk is promoting this approach.
Reducing the carbon footprint of fisheries: A strategy for greening the fishing industry (30/11/07).
view pdf | download pdf
Seas At Risk response to the European Commission´s Green Paper on market based instruments (26/7/07).
view pdf | download pdf
Joint NGO position on the "de minimis" regulation for state aid (28/6/07).
view pdf | download pdf
In the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme’s mid-term review (COM(2007) 225 final, page 13) the European Commission has committed itself to phasing out environmentally damaging subsidies (30/4/07).
view pdf | download pdf
|
