WTO plans threaten sea life: Greenpeace

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates and licensed trawlers are pillaging the world's oceans, while proposals on the table for trade ministers meeting in Switzerland next week could prove the final blow to sea life, Greenpeace said on Friday.

Three-quarters of global fish stocks are now classed by the United Nations as fully or over-exploited, and the conservation group said World Trade Organization plans to slash or cancel fish and fish product tariffs would be a disaster.

"Under trade liberalization, only a few countries will benefit, and then only in the short term," Daniel Mittler, a political adviser on trade for Greenpeace, told reporters.

"The reality is, all other countries will lose. There must be regulated trade and proper management...The last thing the world needs is a relaunch of the Doha global trade round."

The world's seas are already ravaged, with waters off developing nations most at risk from pirate trawlers flying cheaply purchased flags of convenience, Greenpeace said.

At any one time, some 600 foreign vessels are fishing off the Kenyan coast, said Athman Seif of the Kenya Marine Forum, particularly targeting lucrative hauls of yellow fin tuna.

Some of the boats are licensed, many are not, he said.

"They are sophisticated and unscrupulous, and something must be done," he said at the launch of the report in Nairobi.

MARITIME 'WILD WEST'

Greenpeace says illegal fishing will boom if tariffs are cut or dropped, as trawler crews hunt lucrative export stocks while dumping tons of unwanted "bycatch" caught in their huge nets.

The tariff plans are included in the suspended Doha round of trade talks begun in 2001. But discussions have continued behind closed doors, Mittler said, and next week in Davos, Switzerland, ministers will try to rescue the round.

Greenpeace said studies in Mauritania, Senegal and Argentina showed that trade liberalization in fisheries was a disaster for the marine environment as well as for local food security.

"Not even the economic case for liberalization is convincing," it said in its report. "Argentina, for example, is estimated to have lost at least $3.5 million in future earnings by over-exploiting its fish resources after liberalization."

The group called for an end to double standards that saw countries like Spain declaring protected marine reserves in their own waters to guard tourism incomes, while sending deep sea trawlers to harvest distant seas off developing nations.

Less than 1 percent of the world's oceans is protected under marine reserves, and Greenpeace said that figure urgently needed to be boosted to 40 percent -- alongside robust monitoring and prosecution of illegal fishing practices.

"It's the 'Wild West' out there," said Sari Tolvanen, a marine biologist with the group. "We need to protect large areas, logically and biologically connected, the world over."

GLOBAL: Liberalisation of fishing undermines food security

NAIROBI, 19 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - The liberalisation of the fishing industry will have a negative impact on food security in the developing world, according to a new report by the advocacy group, Greenpeace International.

"Trading Away Our Oceans" states that liberalisation would cause fish prices to rise in developing countries as more resources would be diverted to fishing for export, leading to a drop in supplies for local consumption.

It would also increase pressure to divert food from the plates of the poor to fishmeal processing to supply unsustainable forms of salmon and shrimp aquaculture.

Tariffs on fish and fish products are to be significantly reduced and perhaps even eliminated by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a move that will benefit only a handful of developed fish-exporting countries that have well-established fisheries management, according to Greenpeace.

"The WTO impact will be to make fish cheaper but only in the short term," Daniel Mittler, a trade adviser with Greenpeace said at the launch of the report on Friday, in Nairobi, Kenya's capital.

Liberalisation would only accelerate resource depletion through continued over-fishing, especially in developing countries, leading to higher prices in the medium to long term as global supplies diminish, according to the report.

Photo: Robert Powell/IRIN
Liberalisation of the fishing industry will have a negative impact on food security in the developing world, advocacy group Greenpeace International said in a news report In addition, liberalisation of fisheries threatens the marine environment.
Already, the effects of over-fishing are being felt along the Kenyan coast, with a decline in fish stocks undermining the livelihoods of the coastal population, Athman Seif, the executive director of the Kenya Marine Forum, said.

"Boats are sailing further from the shore but returning with less," Seif said.

The cost of fish in Malindi, one of Kenya's coastal towns, has doubled from 120 shillings (US$1.50) per fish 10 months ago to 240 shillings ($3) now, he said.

"Fishing on the inner shores is also harmful for marine life because these shores are a critical fish-breeding ground due to the coral reefs," he said.

The fishermen often lack the necessary equipment to go farther out, with offshore fishing, beyond 10 nautical miles from the shore, dominated by foreigners. The fish is usually destined for sale in Europe and Japan.

"Fish that should have fed the people [in the developing world] ends up on dinner plates in Europe," Sari Tolvanen, a marine biologist and oceans campaigner for Greenpeace International, said.

According to Mittler, local fishermen cannot compete against sophisticated large trawler fishing.

There are at least 600 foreign fishing vessels, operating with or without licences, along the Kenyan coast at any one time, according to a 2004/2005 study by the Kenya Fisheries Department.

Kenya should have a coast-guard system, Seif said. "Licensing [of foreign fishing vessels] should not take precedence over surveillance. There should be a balance between utilisation and conservation," he said.

Internationally, marine life close to becoming commercially extinct includes the popular blue fin tuna (sushi), cod and merlin, according to Greenpeace.

Greenpeace is calling on governments to create proper management systems for fisheries to prevent over-fishing.

It is also urging the international community to adhere to international conservation instruments such as the United Nations Law of the Sea, increase the monitoring and surveillance capacity of developing nations, and encourage the rebuilding of fish stocks through the establishment of marine reserves to protect threatened species and coral reefs, which are important fish-breeding grounds.

There is also a need for the implementation of fair fisheries partnership agreements between the developing countries and the north, Tolvanen said.

The launch of the Greenpeace report coincided with the World Social Forum, scheduled to start on 20 January, "which will be an opportune moment to call on leaders of the developed world to stop pursuing free trade at all costs", Mittler said.

Trade ministers are also scheduled to meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos
(Switzerland) on 27 January to discuss global trade liberalisation. "The message from Nairobi to Davos is crystal clear: plans for unbridled liberalisation of the global fish trade must be abandoned at once in light of the serious negative social and environmental impacts of over-exploitation that would follow," Mittler said.

"If Davos sets the path to move global trade liberalisation forward, our oceans and the long-term food security of billions of people will pay the price," he said. [Full Report at: http://oceans.greenpeace.org/tradingaway ]