Protecting
Oceans Costs Billions Less Than Fishing Subsidies
Tuesday,
June 15, 2004
It would cost governments billions less to protect
the world's oceans than it does to fund subsidies
for fishing fleets and will result in larger catches
in the long run, according to a new study by WWF
and the United Kingdom's Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds, Reuters reports.
The
study was published yesterday in the U.S. journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
and pushes for the creation of marine protected
areas (MPAs). It says the establishment of a
network of MPAs spanning 30 percent of the oceans
would cost $12 billion to $14 billion per year,
far less than the $15 billion to $30 billion
spent annually on commercial fisheries, which
environmentalists say encourages overfishing.
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"MPAs
turn around fisheries and build up (fish) populations
in adjacent areas," said Callum Roberts,
one of the study's authors, who is a fisheries
biologist at the United Kingdom's University of
York. "In St. Lucia, in the Caribbean, fish
catches increased by 50 to 100 percent as a consequence
of MPAs created in 1995."
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Some
argue that government subsidies, particularly in the European
Union, keep unprofitable boats at sea and essentially pay
them to hunt dwindling fish stocks.
"It
(fishing subsidies) encourages too much capital into the
industry and people are fishing for subsidies rather than
fish in the end," Roberts said.
The
report says setting up the MPAs would preserve marine
services valued at $7 trillion each year, including money
generated from tourism, fishing, waste recycling and the
price of coastal properties. The study also estimates
that the MPA system would generate between 830,000 to
1.1 million full-time jobs. Additional jobs could be expected
from increased fish catches and ecotourism, the study
says.
While
the study's authors would like to see 30 percent of the
oceans protected, only 0.5 percent is currently protected,
compared with 12 percent of protected land.
According
to WWF, marine habitat loss now equals or exceeds the
loss of rain forests, with 60 percent of coral reefs expected
to disappear by 2030 at the current rate of decline (Ed
Stoddard, Reuters/Planet Ark, June 15).
Published in UN Wire - Copyright, National Journal Group,
Year 2004
