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Fisheries Subsidies Agreement Explained with Oceana's Dan Skerritt · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  For the first time ever, the World Trade Organization has
• 0:03
  a binding agreement to stop.
• 0:05
  Harmful subsidies that drive over phishing, but not
• 0:09
  every country is on board.
• 0:12
  I sat down with Dan Scar from Oceana, who's been following these
• 0:15
  negotiations for years to unpack what this agreement actually means.
• 0:20
  We talked about how billions of dollars in subsidies have propped up
• 0:24
  unsustainable fishing fleets, and why some of the biggest fishing nations
• 0:28
  have yet to ratify the agreement.
• 0:31
  Dan gives a breakdown of subsidies, the World Trade Organization.
• 0:34
  Why this is all important and what we need to know about this agreement
• 0:39
  and how it's going to move forward.
• 0:41
  Now, as someone who's been covering ocean issues for a long time, I can
• 0:44
  tell you this agreement feels like a turning point, but it's also a test.
• 0:49
  Will countries follow through?
• 0:51
  And to be honest, that's up to me and you we're gonna talk about
• 0:54
  all this on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 0:57
  Let's start the show.
• 1:00
  Hey everybody.
• 1:01
  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:04
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find
• 1:06
  out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean,
• 1:09
  and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
• 1:12
  Now on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about subsidies.
• 1:16
  We're gonna be talking about the World Trade Organizations new agreement.
• 1:19
  On fishery subsidies, how to handle fishery subsidies.
• 1:23
  Now, subsidies is also a term that we're gonna be discussing, why it's important
• 1:27
  that we need to know about this type of term and why it's important and how it
• 1:30
  drives fisheries for a lot of countries, we talk about harmful subsidies,
• 1:34
  we talk about beneficial subsidies.
• 1:36
  And we talk about how there's really no legal framework of how to dole out
• 1:41
  these subsidies within each nation and how there's not a lot of checks and
• 1:45
  balances when it comes out to being like, are the fleets and companies
• 1:50
  who are receiving these subsidies?
• 1:51
  Are they actually following the law, you know, and or are they making sure
• 1:55
  that these fleets are following the law?
• 1:57
  There's a lot of things that go on, and as taxpayers, we don't like to fund stuff
• 2:01
  that doesn't follow the law or people aren't, you know, in it for the best of
• 2:05
  the country that you're part of, right?
• 2:07
  As taxpayers, we don't want to have to deal with that.
• 2:10
  We don't want to have to prop up specific industries so that.
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  You know, they can just do whatever they want.
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  That's not fair.
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  That's not what these subsidies are for.
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  These subsidies are to benefit not only the industry, but also the citizens of
• 2:23
  that country, or part of the citizens or part of that nation, of that country.
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  And so I think it's really important to have this type of agreement.
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  But when you have this type of agreement, as Dan mentions, there's
• 2:33
  a lot of context within that.
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  There's a lot of legal frameworks and legal words and phrases that
• 2:38
  are very difficult to understand.
• 2:39
  Spoiler, there are loopholes, and Dan and I discuss that and we try
• 2:43
  to look at how to move forward with this agreement and what it looks like
• 2:47
  in the impact we think it will have.
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  So without further ado, here's Danker talking about the World Trade Organization
• 2:53
  Agreement on fishery subsidies.
• 2:55
  Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after.
• 2:57
  Hey Dan, welcome back to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 3:00
  Are you ready to talk about the WTO subsidy agreement?
• 3:04
  Hi Andrew.
• 3:05
  Yeah, really happy to be back.
• 3:06
  Al always ready to talk about subsidy.
• 3:09
  Yep.
• 3:10
  Alright.
• 3:11
  This is great.
• 3:11
  This is something that, uh, it came to be because you, you contacted
• 3:15
  me, like Andrew, I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a, a really
• 3:18
  great agreement that's coming out.
• 3:20
  This was last week when you contacted me and I was like, okay, let's do this.
• 3:23
  We need to get this out.
• 3:24
  We're gonna be talking about fishery subsidies and sort of the agreement
• 3:29
  that the WTO has come out and said.
• 3:31
  Hey, you know what?
• 3:32
  Like we need to establish some rules here of who gets subsidies, who doesn't,
• 3:37
  and what countries can do when they give out subsidies and what rules they
• 3:40
  have to abide by or they should abide by based on a lot of expertise over
• 3:45
  the years and what we've learned over the years about global fishing and
• 3:47
  even fishing within our own countries.
• 3:50
  I just wanna premise this.
• 3:51
  This is a great first step and we're gonna celebrate that here.
• 3:55
  But this is a, the first step in a long battle towards getting, you know,
• 3:59
  subsidies handled properly, especially when it comes to illegal activities and
• 4:03
  the illegal fishing, uh, and everything that goes around with overfishing.
• 4:06
  So Dan is super happy for you to be here to, to help us break it all down
• 4:11
  and just really get to, to sort of the.
• 4:13
  All the information that's given out in this agreement.
• 4:16
  So we really appreciate you being here.
• 4:18
  Before we get into all that though, Dan, why don't you just remind
• 4:20
  the, uh, the, the audience here of who you are and what you do?
• 4:25
  Yeah, sure.
• 4:25
  Uh, I'm Daniel Skerrett.
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  I'm a senior manager in Oceania's Science and Strategy, uh, group.
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  We're kind of a bit like the research and development team in,
• 4:34
  in Oceania, so we support all our various country offices, but also do
• 4:39
  a bit of, you know, novel research.
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  My particular area of research is on international fisheries, so that's why I,
• 4:46
  I, I study things like fishery subsidies as we're gonna talk, talk about today.
• 4:51
  Yeah.
• 4:51
  Yeah.
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  And it's gonna be, uh, it's gonna be easy because like when, when we talk
• 4:54
  about what you, you know, you look are on here to talk about and what your
• 4:58
  expertise is in it is a broad, uh, field, you know, that you could go into a lot.
• 5:03
  We were just talking before we record about technology and how to, to monitor
• 5:07
  better over phishing and to understand it and to act on it and, and, and so forth.
• 5:12
  And then there's also like the policy aspect of everything and how to.
• 5:16
  Get countries on board to an agreement and to ratify these types
• 5:20
  of agreements that we're gonna talk about today to put action into place.
• 5:24
  Because we can talk about it, we can do a lot of research on it,
• 5:27
  and we can identify the problems.
• 5:28
  But until governments start to enact these types of agreements and make sure
• 5:32
  that they put it in their own, uh, legal context, nothing is gonna get done.
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  And the more countries we get to, to ratify this agreement
• 5:40
  and, and agree to this agreement, then it's gonna be amazing.
• 5:43
  So.
• 5:44
  Let's get started here.
• 5:45
  Um, why don't we just break down, you know, who the WTO is, why it's
• 5:50
  important that, that they come up with this agreement and how
• 5:52
  this whole agreement came to be.
• 5:55
  Yeah.
• 5:56
  Uh, I'll try and give kind of a, a brief history of that.
• 5:58
  So go into a lot of detail, Dan.
• 6:00
  Like we've got hours, we've got, yeah.
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  And I, and just to caveat that I am, I'm not a trade kind of expert, right.
• 6:07
  I, my background as we talked about last time is in fisheries.
• 6:11
  Uh, I then studied fisheries economics for quite a while, so I've been working
• 6:14
  on subsidies for almost 10 years, which in the world of fishery subsidies is, is I'm,
• 6:19
  I'm, I'm very much a, a newcomer to it.
• 6:22
  Um, so, so I come from a kind of economics background, but not, not a trade
• 6:25
  expert, but the world, the World Trade Organization, um, was established, so it's
• 6:29
  based in Geneva and Switzerland, and it was essentially established to try and.
• 6:34
  Organized trade, global trade, so to try and usually to break down barriers
• 6:39
  to ensure like more free trade, so any kind of barrier like tariffs and
• 6:43
  things like that, which obviously have been in the news a lot at the moment.
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  They're kind of the governing body of that, that try and help facilitate
• 6:50
  easier trade around the world in order to reduce poverty, I guess, or
• 6:55
  to improve, uh, you know, GDP in, in various countries to connect the world.
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  So, you know, if there's a trade dispute that will go to wto.
• 7:03
  So, so that's their background.
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  Fishery subs for the WTO is, is, is quite an interesting topic because at the heart
• 7:11
  of it, although you know it's around trade, it's around unequal competition
• 7:15
  or, or, or the kind of the distortion of markets that fishery subsidies can have.
• 7:20
  This agreement at its heart has sustainability, environmental
• 7:23
  sustainability, and so this is the first time the WTO have really brought
• 7:27
  together an agreement that kind of focuses on environmental sustainability.
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  So.
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  You know, it's quite, it's quite a new thing for them.
• 7:36
  Uh, I say new.
• 7:38
  They started these negotiations in 2001 at their fourth ever ministerial
• 7:43
  conference in, in Doha, in Qatar.
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  And so, and they agreed, they, the, the, you know, the, the text of
• 7:48
  the agreement in 2022 in Geneva at their 12th ministerial conference.
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  So, uh, 21 years of, of talking and negotiation to agree to the text of
• 8:00
  this first part, this fish one, and then another three years after that for, for
• 8:04
  countries to kind of take that text away.
• 8:07
  Uh, to ratify into their own law and for it to have come into a
• 8:10
  force, you know, just last week.
• 8:12
  So, uh, you know, please feel free to ask any more questions.
• 8:16
  That's kind of a brief overview of who the Wwo O are and what they do.
• 8:20
  Well, I just wanted one thing that I've always, I'm always interested in as, as
• 8:24
  a science, a marine biologist myself.
• 8:26
  Uh, and, and, you know, you have the best, you know, very similar background.
• 8:29
  Obviously, you've.
• 8:30
  PhD you've been studying fisheries for, for quite some time.
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  I was always of, you know, growing up in this industry, I was in this field.
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  I was always of the, the matter of, it's interesting how, you know,
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  certain organizations like the WTO, like the Trade, the World Trade
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  Organization, even ces, which is all about trade, have such a huge impact on.
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  What is traded and, and you know, like fisheries traded
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  and, and where the money goes.
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  And as well, like with ces, like what items cannot, cannot be brought
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  past a specific border and so forth.
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  And I find it interesting when we discuss this type of work, uh, that
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  fisheries itself, like when you look at doing the fisheries models and looking
• 9:15
  at, okay, we have fisheries models.
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  We are, we, we know what we can catch, we know how much we can't catch.
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  You know, we've setting the quota here.
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  How come we need like world, the world trade organization or society
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  to regulate this trade when in my opinion, science should be enough.
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  So that's sort of where I'm at with this.
• 9:38
  Like I'd love to hear your opinion on that.
• 9:40
  Yeah.
• 9:40
  Yeah.
• 9:41
  Uh, that's a, a great question and a great point and a quite a frustrating
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  right, you know, situation that we see quite a lot for, for us.
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  Um.
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  I think, and there was a great, um, article that just came out,
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  uh, I saw yesterday about this.
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  I think the issue part, part of the issue is, you know, fisheries, although
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  they are, you know, essentially this, so you can see them in kind of two lights.
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  And we, we were kind of talking about this a little bit before we, before
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  we start recording about depending on the lens through which you see.
• 10:10
  You know, fisheries or this agreement.
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  So, you know, a lot of us with a fisheries background see it through a
• 10:15
  biological or an ecological lens, right?
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  This extraction of these, of these animals out of an out of the environment.
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  And so, you know.
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  Our models are often built around that, around that idea of, of,
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  you know, the population, how much fishing can it, can it take?
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  But obviously the other huge part of it are the people and
• 10:34
  in, and in the case of industrial fisheries, the businesses, right?
• 10:37
  That, that are, that are extracting these resources.
• 10:40
  And if you see it from a kind of economics or trade heavy lens or focus.
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  You know, then your priorities might be quite different or Yeah.
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  Uh, you know, the goals that you have for the fish, this
• 10:54
  fishery might be quite different.
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  I mean, I think the frustration is that many of us see that like, well, surely
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  the first principle should be like, you can't keep fishing if the bi, if
• 11:04
  the biological sustainability is, is flawed, or you are, you're over fishing.
• 11:07
  Right.
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  But, you know, I, I guess it becomes very murky, especially with these
• 11:12
  international fisheries when there's all this like competition and trade, you know?
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  Um, I, I feel like that can kind of add to it.
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  So I think all these elements are, are important.
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  And I think, you know, fisheries as a whole, so you need these kind of, mm-hmm.
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  This economic understanding and you need political will.
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  I think that's the other important thing, you know, when there's these resources
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  out there that could be extracted, especially when it's, you know, in
• 11:36
  other people's waters or the high seas.
• 11:38
  Right.
• 11:39
  Yeah, I think especially in the high seas, you know, you can end up with this kind of
• 11:43
  race to fish and so, so I, I, I think it's because probably there's, you know, it's
• 11:47
  a lot more complicated sadly, than simply here's what the science and what the
• 11:51
  biology of this fishery says, you know?
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  And, and that's it.
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  And you know, I guess this is the crux of everything that was happening in
• 12:00
  the WCA for the last 20, 25 years, was this political toing and throwing.
• 12:05
  I don't think there was too much argument around.
• 12:09
  The scientific principles of what was being discussed, right?
• 12:12
  It was the political, you know, manifestation of that.
• 12:16
  Like how do we get an agreement that we can all sign up to?
• 12:18
  And I think, you know.
• 12:20
  That's the frustration, but I guess that's the reality of
• 12:23
  our, you know, current systems.
• 12:25
  Yeah, no, a hundred percent.
• 12:27
  I, I totally agree, and I, I, I wanted to kind of put that out into the podcast
• 12:31
  sphere because I think it's something that a lot of people look at as, as
• 12:35
  scientists, but also just from the outside in, it'd be like, well, hold on.
• 12:38
  Why do we need all these different measures and all these different tools?
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  They are very important tools when we look at fisheries management.
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  On a global scale.
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  Uh, and so I'm glad we're, we're, we're able to distinguish that.
• 12:49
  But that's something that's always been kind of like, well, what,
• 12:51
  why is it the science just enough?
• 12:53
  So, yeah.
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  I mean it's the same with, um, you know, climate change science, right.
• 12:57
  You know, that's probably, that's probably an even better example where there's even
• 13:00
  less uncertainty, you know, fish stock assessments, you know, we we're pretty
• 13:05
  good at it, especially when we have a lot of data, but there's always uncertainty.
• 13:08
  There's always like, you know, you're trying to hit this.
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  This, this, this single point that we've kind of come up with
• 13:14
  of maximum sustainable yield.
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  You know, there is a lot of uncertainty in it and we try and as scientists we try
• 13:19
  and accommodate that and, and explain it.
• 13:21
  But in climate change there's a lot less uncertainty.
• 13:24
  Yet still we see this, you know, it seems so simple, right?
• 13:28
  Like what we have to do.
• 13:30
  Yeah.
• 13:30
  Actually doing it apparently becomes a lot less, a lot more complicated.
• 13:34
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:35
  Uh, before we get into more of this, this agreement, can you just help
• 13:39
  explain how subsidies work and, and you know, obviously it doesn't have to go
• 13:44
  into the great detail 'cause it's, it's different for each country, but this is
• 13:48
  a big part of this agreement be, and, and the big argument around overfishing
• 13:52
  is like, we need to stop subsidizing.
• 13:55
  Uh, certain fisheries or certain types of fishing because it's, it's perpetuating
• 13:59
  the overfishing problem that we have.
• 14:02
  So can you just kind of go into a, a description for my, for the audience
• 14:06
  to be like, Hey, like what is subsidies and, and why is it important to
• 14:09
  have certain regulations around it?
• 14:11
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 14:13
  And you know, there's, there's, there's various, um, versions of the, of
• 14:18
  definitions of, of water, a subsidy, and especially a fishery subsidy.
• 14:22
  I'm gonna take the wto.
• 14:24
  Definition and that's generally all my work kind of is based on that because
• 14:28
  these, you know, because of this agreement and the negotiations of this agreement,
• 14:32
  so from the WTOs point of view, a subsidy kind of needs, needs three elements.
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  So it's a direct or indirect financial transfer.
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  So direct essentially, you know, here's some money.
• 14:45
  Indirect is like, maybe you don't owe me that money you owed me before.
• 14:49
  So it's a transfer of of wealth.
• 14:51
  The second part is it, it has to come from a government or a public
• 14:55
  body and go to the private industry.
• 14:58
  So it's, it, it is government, it is public to private,
• 15:01
  indirect or direct transfer.
• 15:03
  And then that, that transfer has to, uh, you know, confer some kind of benefit.
• 15:07
  Um, you know, historically there's a lot of reasons why governments might do that.
• 15:12
  You might want to, um, incentivize the development of a particular sector.
• 15:16
  So we hear a lot about, um, you know, subsidies for offshore
• 15:19
  renewable energy, for example.
• 15:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:21
  I mean, we also provide subsidies for offshore oil and gas, but
• 15:24
  that's a different conversation.
• 15:25
  So you might want to, you might want to incentivize the development of sector that
• 15:29
  maybe is quite, you know, costly at the beginning of that, of that development.
• 15:33
  Um, you might want to, um, address social equity issues.
• 15:37
  So you may want to prop up the way, support the wages of certain, you
• 15:41
  know, sectors of society, for example, or particular jobs that, that maybe,
• 15:45
  you know, are really important.
• 15:47
  We need to kind of, uh, subsidize the wages there to encourage people into it,
• 15:51
  for example, like health workers maybe.
• 15:54
  And then, uh, the other one that we're talking about today is to
• 15:57
  address conservation, um, concerns.
• 16:01
  So.
• 16:01
  In the UK for example, a lot of farmers might get paid to not farm up to the edge
• 16:06
  of a river or to leave certain fields to, to go, uh, you know, to go wild or
• 16:12
  to, to kind of have this crop rotation.
• 16:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:15
  And the government might give them money, so, so they benefit and
• 16:18
  then we benefit from this like additional conservation benefit.
• 16:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:22
  So there's a lot of different.
• 16:23
  Reasons why.
• 16:25
  Um, another key reason it's often actually unspoken is this competition element.
• 16:29
  You know, particularly in fisheries, if we're all targeting the same tuna
• 16:32
  stocks, well, if, you know, if we, if we, if we help out the cost of our fishing
• 16:36
  fleet, they might do a bit of a better job or, or manage to get a bit more
• 16:41
  of that, of that fish or sell the fish cheaper access certain markets, right?
• 16:45
  So, you know, so there's, there's stated reasons or drivers of subsidies, and
• 16:49
  then there might be hidden ones as well.
• 16:50
  Yeah.
• 16:52
  In, in the case of fisheries, um, you know, the harm that they can cause
• 16:56
  as, as I said earlier, they can cause what we call trade injuries, which
• 17:00
  the WT o have largely been focused on.
• 17:02
  That's, you know.
• 17:04
  Steel from One Nation is being subsidized, so is really cheap and,
• 17:07
  and changes the market, you know?
• 17:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:09
  The wt a might step in and be like, you shouldn't subsidize that so
• 17:13
  you can get these trade injuries.
• 17:14
  But in fisheries we get what we call this capacity enhancing effect,
• 17:18
  and that's the ones that we kind of call harmful fisheries subsidies.
• 17:21
  And what that is, is it's basically that that subsidy the government give is,
• 17:25
  is, is lowering the cost of phishing and by or, or increasing their profits, but
• 17:30
  let's say lowering the cost efficient.
• 17:32
  By doing that, what we end up with is, is is it results in over capacity.
• 17:36
  So each fishing vessel or the fleet as a whole essentially gets
• 17:40
  too big for this, for what the fishing the fish stock can handle.
• 17:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:45
  So like really simply, you have too many boats chasing too few fish.
• 17:49
  Right?
• 17:50
  Right.
• 17:51
  Instead of like in what you might call the free market, you know, situation,
• 17:55
  some of those vessels might drop out or go bust 'cause there's not enough fish.
• 17:59
  You know, I can't make profit, I have to leave.
• 18:02
  But if you start reducing the cost of fishing or, or, or, you know, reducing
• 18:07
  the cost of fuel, for example, you kind of maintain this fishing fleet at a scale
• 18:11
  at size, that, that wouldn't actually exist based on either the size of the
• 18:15
  stock or the economics of the fishery.
• 18:17
  So we kind of are to fisher hold these fleets, you know, uh, size that, that we
• 18:22
  wouldn't really see without the substance.
• 18:25
  And that's over capacity.
• 18:26
  And when you have over capacity, it tends to lead to overfishing.
• 18:30
  Yes, you can have really strict rules in there that prevent that.
• 18:32
  But you know, the science kind of shows that that doesn't always happen, as we
• 18:37
  talked about just a minute ago, right?
• 18:39
  You can have these stock assessments say Only take X tons.
• 18:42
  Yeah.
• 18:42
  But it's even harder when you've got boats and you know, a lot of a huge inflated
• 18:47
  industry on this particular fishery.
• 18:48
  Maybe saying like, you know.
• 18:50
  We need more tons because otherwise we're not gonna be able to pay all
• 18:53
  these work, you know, hundreds of thousands of workers potentially.
• 18:57
  Yeah, so, so that's kind of the issue we have here is this economic tool.
• 19:01
  That actually then ends up having the ecological impact by, by,
• 19:05
  by creating a, a, a bloated fishing industry with subsidies.
• 19:11
  Have you seen models where there's alternative to subsidies or alternative
• 19:15
  to subsidies proposed that might work better or have worked better in the past?
• 19:21
  Yeah, I mean.
• 19:23
  So, you know, generally we have these kind of three categories of fishery subsidies.
• 19:27
  So I thought there a lot about these harmful capacity enhancing subsidies,
• 19:31
  but we also have beneficial subsidies.
• 19:33
  You know, that's a bit like the example I gave you of the, the farmer.
• 19:37
  Who might be getting paid to, to leave some, you know, not, not farm right
• 19:41
  up to the edge of a river, to, to, to ensure the river stays healthier.
• 19:44
  You know, that's a beneficial subsidy.
• 19:46
  We have that in fisheries too, you know, um, that might be to, to, to pay fishes,
• 19:51
  not to fish in a particular area or to use to, to help fund the replacement
• 19:57
  of certain gear that they have to a more environmentally friendly gear.
• 20:01
  And then we have these ones we call ambiguous, which is like, we
• 20:04
  don't really know what affects it.
• 20:05
  It might depend who you give it to or how you apply it.
• 20:08
  So they're kind of a gray area, but, right.
• 20:11
  Let's think we have these harmful and we have these beneficial, you
• 20:14
  know, a lot of the times when, when I'm advocating for removing harmful
• 20:18
  subsidies, and this is a point I try and really emphasize, especially to,
• 20:23
  to, you know, my industry colleagues.
• 20:25
  Is, I'm not saying stop funding fishing, you know, don't invest in fisheries.
• 20:29
  I, I want to see money being spent on fisheries.
• 20:32
  Yes.
• 20:32
  I think it's vital.
• 20:33
  I'd like to see more money spent on it.
• 20:35
  I just don't want to see it spent in a way that incentivizes over
• 20:39
  capacity and leads to overfishing.
• 20:41
  Right?
• 20:41
  Like, let's find beneficial ways that we can invest in our fishing
• 20:45
  fleets to try and, yeah, make them more efficient without.
• 20:49
  Adding capacity or to help, like, boost the amount of fish available
• 20:53
  or, you know, lower the impact it has on the rest of the, um, ecosystem.
• 20:58
  So a lot of this, you know, we, what we hope this agreement might
• 21:02
  achieve is a reduction in harmful subsidies, but really want, we
• 21:05
  wanna see that then, you know, spent elsewhere in, in a beneficial format.
• 21:10
  Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 21:11
  I think that's, I think that's really great.
• 21:13
  And, and a lot of these subsidies are coming from tax dollars, right?
• 21:16
  They're coming from the budget of the government that's largely funded by tax.
• 21:20
  It could be funded by other, other sources depending on where this money comes from,
• 21:24
  but it's largely funded by tax dollars.
• 21:26
  So some people, citizens, I know here in Canada we're always like, why are we
• 21:30
  funding, you know, like big time for big, uh, a problem for, for Canada or a big
• 21:36
  contentious issue is, you know, funding.
• 21:38
  Oil and gas subsidies here, right?
• 21:40
  So people are like, why are we doing this?
• 21:42
  I don't want to do this.
• 21:43
  Um, even though it's like, it's, it's a necessity when you look at, you know, oil
• 21:48
  and gas and the benefits usually outweigh the, the subsidies that we have to pay.
• 21:52
  Um, but a lot of people.
• 21:55
  We'll say that, you know, we'll be like, why are we funding If, if they
• 21:59
  want to decrease over phishing, why are we funding, you know, subsidies
• 22:02
  for, for phishing in general?
• 22:05
  But it's not necessarily, not all subsidies are going to encourage.
• 22:09
  Uh, overfishing or illegal fishing, that that's not what
• 22:12
  the subsidy iss for, correct.
• 22:13
  Like the, the subsidy is for, you know, the agreement, I assume with the
• 22:17
  people who who are receiving and the companies who are receiving the subsidy
• 22:21
  is to do legal fishing under the law of that country and not to do that.
• 22:26
  I know that sounds stupid to say that as I say that, I'm like, Andrew,
• 22:29
  why are we talking about this?
• 22:30
  But I want people to really understand the purpose of a subsidy is to.
• 22:34
  Help that with the industry benefit not only the citizens, but also that, that
• 22:39
  industry, um, but also to contribute to the legal phishing of a, a specific stock.
• 22:45
  Correct?
• 22:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:47
  I mean, I, I don't think that many subs are, are.
• 22:52
  You know, dished out with that kind of, with environmental destruction in
• 22:57
  mind and, and also, you know, a lot of the, kind of the drivers of, of, of
• 23:02
  maybe providing this, these subsidies.
• 23:04
  You know, again, as you say, it's not to encourage legal fishing or overfishing.
• 23:07
  You know, in many cases these governments are probably trying to
• 23:11
  support a lot of jobs that may be, you know, um, may be, um, in the balance.
• 23:17
  You know, the, the, the, a lot of these jobs, they're not.
• 23:19
  You can't predict year on year, you know, how, how secure they are.
• 23:23
  'cause they're based on, you know, weather and, and, and the biology of the fishery.
• 23:27
  So, you know, I think, I think some of the subsidies are provided with intentions
• 23:30
  like that also, you know, although we've talked a lot about the, the business of
• 23:35
  fishing and that element of it ultimately is also producing a food source.
• 23:39
  Right?
• 23:39
  And again, we see a lot of subsidies being spent on, you know, uh, food production.
• 23:46
  A big argument around that is food security, sadly, that again, that doesn't
• 23:50
  always actually kind of, um, add up when you look at the end result in that we're
• 23:55
  subsidizing a lot of phishing vessels, you know, in the EU or the uk where,
• 24:00
  where the fish actually goes elsewhere.
• 24:01
  Like, you know, it's not supporting food security in the uk.
• 24:04
  So, you know, it is a really complicated system and.
• 24:10
  A lot of kind of, what we do is, and what this agreement should be doing is,
• 24:13
  is trying to reveal, you know, what is the actual result of this subsidization?
• 24:17
  And when we do that, can we have a, you know, better, more informed discussion
• 24:21
  about, okay, what are the intentions of these subs and what is the actual outcome?
• 24:25
  You know, are, are we seeing, are we achieving what we, what
• 24:29
  we say we're gonna do with this?
• 24:30
  Are we actually achieving, you know, environmental degradation at home?
• 24:34
  Or taxpayers' money is being used to, you know, it's resulting in
• 24:37
  environmental degradation and food security for, you know, another nation.
• 24:42
  You know, if that's a result, like, is this the best way to do this?
• 24:45
  Is there a better way we can do this?
• 24:46
  So yeah, the intention is very rarely, I would say, if, if
• 24:50
  ever, to fund over phishing.
• 24:52
  Right?
• 24:54
  But as I say, when, when the, when the, when the data and the science
• 24:58
  says that's what's happening, I think there needs to be a reconsideration of.
• 25:02
  Of how we, how, how we're funding that.
• 25:04
  Of course, here and, sorry.
• 25:07
  No, no, go ahead.
• 25:07
  No, please do.
• 25:08
  Go ahead.
• 25:08
  Uh, just to emphasize, again, not saying don't fund it.
• 25:11
  Not saying take the money out, just of course, let's
• 25:13
  find a better way to spend it.
• 25:14
  Right?
• 25:15
  Well and income.
• 25:15
  This incomes this, this WTO agreement, right?
• 25:18
  This World Trade Organization agreement where.
• 25:21
  This is like a, a, a, essentially like a, a framework that countries
• 25:25
  can use to implement into their own legal, uh, you know, legal
• 25:28
  structure to say, Hey, you know what?
• 25:31
  This is a great way to go forward based on a lot of research that's
• 25:34
  been done, a lot of expertise that's been, uh, put together.
• 25:38
  This is what we recommend.
• 25:39
  How you sort of, you know, put in the rules to put in subsidies or
• 25:44
  not give subsidies to specific, uh, fleets who are not abiding
• 25:48
  by the laws, not only of the sea.
• 25:51
  Also by their own country, which for a lot of countries who have signed onto the, to
• 25:55
  the UN Law of the Sea is the same thing.
• 25:57
  Right?
• 25:57
  So, um, you know, I think that's, that's really important
• 26:00
  coming into this agreement.
• 26:01
  So I want to, to get that the, the reasoning why we're putting in this for
• 26:04
  a lot of our, our audience members here.
• 26:06
  Um, and because this is all stuff we all had to learn, you know, in terms of what's
• 26:10
  been happening with these subsidies, how does this continue to happen?
• 26:14
  Um, in many countries it does get a little outta hand sometimes, uh, you know, in
• 26:17
  terms of illegal phishing as we've seen.
• 26:19
  Um, and so.
• 26:20
  Let's talk about this, this agreement.
• 26:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:23
  How important is this as a first step to the battle of really reducing and
• 26:28
  hopefully one day eliminating, uh, you know, over phishing and illegal fishing?
• 26:33
  Yeah, I mean, as we said at the beginning, it's really important, you know, we
• 26:36
  are celebrating this, this agreement.
• 26:39
  Um, you know, and we'll, we'll talk about this and we'll probably talk
• 26:42
  about it right now actually, about how this is just the first step.
• 26:45
  This was never intended to be the kind of the end of this discussion.
• 26:49
  This is, um, you know, it's.
• 26:50
  A lot of us are calling it, referring to it as Fish one.
• 26:53
  Fish Two is being negotiated right now, and we can maybe come onto that later.
• 26:57
  But yeah, I mean it's incredibly important.
• 26:59
  What it does at the moment is it, it first tackles the worst kind of it,
• 27:05
  it tackles where these subsidies, who these subsidies are going to.
• 27:08
  It doesn't yet tackle subsidies because of the nature of certain subsidies being bad.
• 27:13
  It tackles who these subsidies go to, like we said earlier.
• 27:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:16
  So what it does is these ratifying members, I think there's 112 now.
• 27:20
  Are now bound by law to, to stop providing subsidies to, um, any illegal fishing.
• 27:27
  Um, you know, the, who determines whether it's legal fishing or not.
• 27:31
  We'll see how that actually plays out in reality.
• 27:34
  Um, at the moment, from from the text, it says it's either the, the, the vessel
• 27:38
  that, the, the flag state that, you know, the, the vessel is fishing under.
• 27:42
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:43
  The coastal state where the vessel is fishing, or if they're fishing in the
• 27:47
  jurisdiction of an RFMO, a regional fisheries management organization, you
• 27:51
  know, they can determine, so they're the three, the three groups, the entities
• 27:54
  who can determine it's illegal phishing.
• 27:57
  Right.
• 27:57
  At the moment, we have, you know, all the.
• 28:00
  Kind of official lists of IUU, um, vessels in the world, I think at the
• 28:05
  moment adds up to about 230 vessels.
• 28:07
  Okay.
• 28:08
  So hopefully there'll be a, you know, a more stringent way of, of actually doing.
• 28:12
  'cause if it's only 230 vessels that are gonna have subsidies pulled,
• 28:15
  you know, it's not gonna make a huge dent in the 22 billion of harmful
• 28:19
  subsidies currently provided.
• 28:21
  The sec, the second prohibit, prohibition, prohibition that it, that it has is
• 28:26
  it stops, uh, subsidies to phishing on overfish stocks, which again,
• 28:32
  sounds really strong on paper, has the potential to be really strong on paper.
• 28:36
  The entity that determines whether the stock is overfished is the
• 28:40
  country who, whose waters it's in.
• 28:43
  So it's kind of marking your own homework.
• 28:45
  There, there's also a bit of a loophole that says, you know, if you
• 28:48
  have management measures in place that you know, show that it's gonna,
• 28:52
  that that are aimed to rebuild the stock, then you can keep subsidizing.
• 28:55
  And again, it's a subsidizing member that can be like, yeah, it's over
• 29:00
  fished, but you know, we've got these management measures in place that aim to
• 29:04
  rebuild it so we can keep subsidizing.
• 29:07
  So, you know, again.
• 29:09
  It's a really great first step.
• 29:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:13
  Hopefully over, you know, over the course of implementation, we can
• 29:16
  really tighten the kind of nut on that and be like, you know, yeah,
• 29:18
  no, you haven't rebuilt the stock.
• 29:20
  Stop subsidizing it.
• 29:22
  Right.
• 29:22
  And then the last one is, is, is, is, um, subsidies to phishing on
• 29:25
  the unregulated high seas, which.
• 29:27
  It is a small fraction of kind of global fisheries.
• 29:30
  You know, most fisheries are in coastal waters, but it's quite an
• 29:33
  important one because that's the fishing, uh, activity that basically
• 29:38
  is, you know, the wild west.
• 29:39
  There's very little, very few rules on that.
• 29:42
  So, you know, probably shouldn't be, um, subsidizing that.
• 29:45
  So they're the kind of three main prohibitions that, that it includes.
• 29:49
  As I said, there's, there's, you know, loopholes and, and
• 29:52
  we'll see how it's implemented.
• 29:55
  There's a couple of really strong articles in there that I like.
• 29:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:58
  Um, there's an article on, you know, transparency.
• 30:01
  So WTA members are now gonna have to be a lot more stringent in the
• 30:05
  information they give to the WTO every year on the subsidies they provide,
• 30:09
  who they go to, what fish stocks are.
• 30:11
  They kind of, are these subsidies impacting?
• 30:14
  You know, that's a really great step.
• 30:17
  In the nine years I've been doing this research, there's often, you
• 30:20
  know, quite poor data and we're often filling gaps in with, with
• 30:24
  kind of models or, or, or, you know, through, through poorer data sources.
• 30:28
  Um, and then, and then another one is, is, is this article that allows member states
• 30:33
  to basically hold each other accountable.
• 30:35
  And that's the one that I think could be really key to the success of this is.
• 30:39
  How well will each of our, these members be able to hold each other to account to
• 30:43
  say, you know, show us you're working.
• 30:45
  Prove to us that, you know, these management measures are
• 30:49
  helping to rebuild the stock.
• 30:50
  And again, I, I think also that's prob probably where civil society comes in.
• 30:55
  You know, trying to work with, with different members to, you know, to
• 30:59
  ask for this information or to, to, to, you know, to get them to kind of.
• 31:03
  Show us.
• 31:03
  Yeah, show us what subsidies are you providing?
• 31:06
  Like what subsidies are going to these distant water fishing fleets,
• 31:08
  or which fisheries are you, are you subsidizing in your waters?
• 31:12
  And I think that could be a really key part to it.
• 31:14
  Yeah, I think it's really, I think it's really important.
• 31:16
  The question with that, so you have.
• 31:18
  WTO members.
• 31:20
  Uh, and there are 166 WT members as of, uh, July 17th, 2024.
• 31:25
  I just looked it up.
• 31:25
  Kimura is, is the, the last country to, to join, which is great.
• 31:29
  So you have these WTO members who have to, uh, abide by this transparency
• 31:34
  rules when they, when they report to the WTO, which is, which is great.
• 31:39
  So it's almost separate of whether they ratified or not, if
• 31:42
  they want to be part of the WTO.
• 31:44
  They have to submit to this transparency rule for phishing.
• 31:47
  Is, is that, am I getting that right or do they still have to
• 31:50
  ratify this agreement to do that?
• 31:53
  Um, I guess that's the question at hand, right?
• 31:56
  So me, I mean, I'm not, I'm not entirely sure, but, um, members
• 32:01
  have always been able to and should have been notifying the wto.
• 32:05
  You know, right before this agreement came in, um, it has been improving over
• 32:09
  the years as these negotiations have been getting a lot closer and since the, since
• 32:14
  the, they agreed the text, we've seen more countries, uh, notifying with, with, with
• 32:19
  better, uh, more detailed information.
• 32:22
  So I think there is a requirement to report to some extent.
• 32:25
  I think what this agreement does is it really sets out like this
• 32:28
  is what you must include and the periodicity, so it has to be annual now.
• 32:33
  Unless you're a, um, kind of self, uh, if, if you're a developed or least developing
• 32:38
  country, uh, developed country, they're the terms that are used, then you have,
• 32:42
  then you can report every four years.
• 32:44
  Okay.
• 32:44
  So there are parts of this agreement again, that try and what they call
• 32:47
  special and differential treatment.
• 32:49
  Yeah.
• 32:49
  And that account either allows like a lower threshold or, uh, longer
• 32:53
  time periods for developed and least developed countries, uh, to adhere to
• 32:58
  the rules, which is, that's usually.
• 33:00
  Yeah.
• 33:00
  And that's usually 'cause they don't always have the resources to like
• 33:03
  the people and stuff to do that reporting and even the, the means
• 33:06
  to get that data at this point.
• 33:08
  Yeah.
• 33:08
  Which obviously, you know, not great in terms of a, of a, of a way of un
• 33:13
  understanding what's happening in their fishery, but also understanding that these
• 33:16
  countries are trying, they have other things to that, that they're focused and
• 33:20
  they just may not have the, the people, the resources to be able to accomplish,
• 33:23
  uh, an annual type of reporting.
• 33:24
  Right.
• 33:25
  It, it, it is, it is true to that as well.
• 33:27
  The other, the other thing is it really helps to, or this is part of the goal, is
• 33:32
  to, um, ensure that the biggest subsidizer subsidizes those with the broadest
• 33:36
  shoulders burden the most, you know, have the biggest burden from this agreement.
• 33:40
  Yes.
• 33:40
  So, just to go a few stats that might help the, uh, you know, the, the
• 33:43
  listener on this, we talked about 22 billion US dollars a year is
• 33:48
  provided in harmful fishery subsidies.
• 33:50
  Across the whole world.
• 33:52
  But when we look at kind of how that breaks down, who's providing
• 33:55
  it, you know, the top 10 are providing about 70% of the top 10.
• 34:00
  You know, countries are providing about 70% of all that.
• 34:03
  So that's, uh, China, the eu, the us, Japan, Korea, Indonesia,
• 34:09
  um, I don't remember that.
• 34:10
  I, I think that's about the right order, right?
• 34:12
  So 70% is provided by those, by those 10 entities.
• 34:15
  Some of those are actually developed nations, although they won't be
• 34:20
  able to, uh, benefit from the special and differential treatment.
• 34:23
  Right.
• 34:24
  And then even within that, so you have, so you have 10, let's call
• 34:27
  'em like the richest countries, providing most of the subsidies.
• 34:29
  When you're looking even within that, about, uh, 90% of that is then going to
• 34:35
  the, to the large scale fishing fleet.
• 34:37
  So the biggest boats often fishing, you know, um, furthest away from shore,
• 34:42
  hardest to kind of monitor control.
• 34:45
  Um, and then even when you, you know, there's so many layers to this.
• 34:48
  And then below that, we found about, um, you know, recent paper we did,
• 34:52
  we found that about, um, 20 to 37% of all those harmful subsidies are
• 34:58
  actually being given to vessels, not even fishing their own waters.
• 35:01
  So it's often the EU or China, for example, will be subsidizing
• 35:05
  vessels that are fishing elsewhere, generally in, um, Africa or Oceania.
• 35:11
  Um, you know, so, so there's a real inequality kind of baked into how
• 35:15
  ssis who provides them and who they provide them to, if that makes sense.
• 35:19
  So, you know, so part of this special differential treatment is also
• 35:23
  because, you know, as, as we've just said there, 10 countries account
• 35:27
  for, you know, 70% of all of it.
• 35:29
  So it's kind of to also to put the emphasis on like who this
• 35:33
  agreement should really be targeting.
• 35:36
  And it's those the biggest subsidizes.
• 35:37
  Yeah.
• 35:38
  Yeah.
• 35:38
  That's not to say that that harm can't be done, you know,
• 35:41
  by spending a l less money.
• 35:44
  Uh, it's just that, you know, when you look at it on a global scale, which
• 35:47
  as a wt, you know, is interesting kind of global trade and systems.
• 35:52
  Yeah.
• 35:52
  That, that's how, how it's done.
• 35:54
  And I think this is really important when we, when we talk about this type
• 35:57
  of, of work and, and what it's, what it seems to bring, uh, in terms of like.
• 36:05
  Countries really want to be part of this WTO.
• 36:07
  Like they, this a, it's a very important aspect to their pride, uh, to be
• 36:11
  part of a, of a, a global sort of agreement, a, a global organization,
• 36:16
  uh, to say, Hey, you know, we're participating in all these things.
• 36:19
  That's something that I've realized when it comes to
• 36:21
  policy and, and to these, these.
• 36:24
  Being part of these large organizations or these large agreements is
• 36:27
  it's, it's a prideful thing.
• 36:29
  We're a part of this, we're part of the Paris Agreement.
• 36:31
  We're a part of the WTO, and, and we're abiding by the rules of the, of,
• 36:34
  of this, these organizing bodies to say, Hey, let's, let's do this thing.
• 36:39
  So when it, when an agreement like this comes out.
• 36:42
  Uh, you know, it's important for like, we can, it's, it's not like
• 36:46
  we, I mean, you can use it as like a name and shame of like, these, these
• 36:49
  countries haven't ratified this yet.
• 36:51
  Like, why haven't they ratified it?
• 36:53
  But it's also, it's like you can say, Hey, look, like if you want
• 36:55
  to really be a part of this WTO.
• 36:57
  Incorporating this agreement into your, into your laws not only benefits your
• 37:01
  fishery, but also benefits like for the, the long-term aspect of your fishery.
• 37:06
  Um, so I, I think that's a, a really good point to, to hammer home that I want
• 37:10
  to, to get across is because of this.
• 37:13
  Countries are, are, have a little bit more incentive to be a part of this
• 37:17
  agreement, especially, you know, some of the top 10 that you mentioned just
• 37:20
  earlier, that, that are providing the most harmful, uh, subsidies, the
• 37:23
  most amount of harmful subsidies.
• 37:25
  But I think there's also like some really cool things, although we've,
• 37:28
  we've identified already some loopholes, potential loopholes that
• 37:31
  countries can get a get through.
• 37:33
  But I really like that, uh, the subsidies that enable, uh, phishing on unregulated.
• 37:38
  High seas.
• 37:39
  Like you, you can't do that.
• 37:40
  So this is really interesting 'cause I'm working on this story for, I, I
• 37:44
  mentioned it to you before we recorded that, uh, for the, for the next episode.
• 37:48
  And, and one of the things that I found is like, they're using sar,
• 37:52
  which is like a, a type of radar, like satellite radar that identifies
• 37:57
  like the presence of fishing boats.
• 37:59
  You know, they, they know what these fishing boats look like and
• 38:01
  the SAR can really identify these.
• 38:03
  They come and look up like black dots or, or, or black objects.
• 38:07
  So you can identify.
• 38:09
  Which, and using that in the combination of a number of other things, AI a
• 38:12
  IS and stuff, you can identify which boats are in the high seas and like
• 38:17
  they shouldn't be in the high seas.
• 38:19
  And, and eventually you can get where they're from if they're
• 38:21
  part of the a IS program.
• 38:23
  And you can get, so like, I feel like this, there's a lot of potential in that
• 38:27
  last, or the, the third thing that you said in terms of the pro prohibitions,
• 38:31
  um, especially as like, if you're found on the un, like on the high
• 38:34
  seas and it's, you know, we know it's unregulated, we know it's, it's difficult.
• 38:38
  Then you can remove those subsidies from that, from that vessel or
• 38:41
  that company that that monitors that vessel or, or works that
• 38:44
  fleet or vessel, just like that.
• 38:46
  Like you have the capability to do that if you incorporate and
• 38:50
  ratify this, this agreement.
• 38:52
  I feel like there's a benefit in that if, you know, people start to use that
• 38:55
  now there are limitations with this, this technology, because it only passes
• 38:59
  certain amount of times and you know, it could be difficult to do that.
• 39:02
  But just having that access, there's a potential there to really be able
• 39:06
  to enforce these types of subsidies on the high seas, which traditionally
• 39:11
  has been impossible to, to navigate and, and to really monitor.
• 39:15
  Right?
• 39:16
  Yeah.
• 39:17
  And, and just, you know.
• 39:19
  Important as well to say a lot of these fish, this fishing
• 39:23
  on the unregulated high seas.
• 39:24
  So this is, you know, generally any fishing that's outside of a regional RFMO
• 39:30
  or what we call regional fisheries bodies RFPs, um, you know, it's not illegal.
• 39:36
  It just, it just, there there are no laws that regulate it.
• 39:39
  Right.
• 39:40
  So, so, you know, so the, the, they're not necessarily not supposed to be there.
• 39:44
  It is just that mm-hmm.
• 39:45
  There isn't any rules that regulate it.
• 39:47
  Um, you know, I'm not sure how, what proportion of fisheries are
• 39:51
  unregulated on the high seas.
• 39:52
  It's kind of mm-hmm.
• 39:53
  I generally work on fisheries that have regulation.
• 39:56
  Yeah, of course.
• 39:56
  Um, but I think, um, you know, and I, I was thinking about this the day, like,
• 40:00
  I, I, I, I think there could be a real, this could be a strong article in terms
• 40:04
  of, um, you know, maybe future fisheries.
• 40:07
  You know, I hear a lot about.
• 40:08
  The potential of like miso fisheries, these are mm-hmm.
• 40:11
  I think as I understand it, these high seas fisheries of, of fish stocks are,
• 40:15
  are below the surface a bit, I think.
• 40:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:18
  And they're generally like this, you know, uh, I hate to say untapped
• 40:22
  resource, but they're, they're not really targeted at the moment.
• 40:24
  Yeah.
• 40:24
  From my understanding, you know, initially when I looked at, you know,
• 40:29
  these fisheries, the cost of them, you know, for the return is so low that it
• 40:33
  looks like the only way they might be able to establish these fisheries is.
• 40:38
  As kind of, um, you know, experimental fisheries or I
• 40:41
  assume by heavily subsidizing it.
• 40:44
  So, so I wonder if this article that stops that actually also might be quite
• 40:47
  useful for preventing, you know, uh, these, these experimental fisheries
• 40:52
  being, you know, trying to, trying to, trying to target this, this, this, uh,
• 40:57
  this, um, you know, resource that's currently not being targeted, but because
• 41:01
  it's so inefficient, it needs subsidies.
• 41:03
  You know, maybe this might prevent things like that.
• 41:06
  I don't know.
• 41:06
  Yeah.
• 41:07
  As I said, I think throughout all of this, you know, it's really gonna be around, and
• 41:11
  this is what we want wt O members to focus on now, is like, start implementing it.
• 41:16
  Show us like, you know, how are we gonna make sure that this
• 41:19
  actually has some impact and, and starts to, you know, remove or
• 41:24
  redirect these harmful subsidies.
• 41:26
  And I think, you know, seeing really, because the texts, as you said at the
• 41:29
  beginning, when it might have been off, off count, off mic, you know, some of it's
• 41:33
  a bit vague and it's, you know mm-hmm.
• 41:34
  Some of these especially legal texts.
• 41:36
  You know, you almost need a qualification in, in how to read legal text
• 41:40
  to, to, you know, and there's all these footnotes and, and, you know,
• 41:43
  and, and if this, then, so I think that's gonna be key, is like mm-hmm.
• 41:48
  Start, start reporting what subsidies you give now.
• 41:51
  Let's see what this does over time.
• 41:53
  And you know, maybe in two or three years when we can see a change
• 41:56
  in how subsidies are provided.
• 41:58
  And then ultimately, hopefully that will start leading into, you
• 42:01
  know, more sustainable fisheries ideally, or more equitable fisheries,
• 42:05
  you know, as, as well, hopefully.
• 42:08
  Yeah.
• 42:08
  It's interesting 'cause you, what you mentioned there is like being
• 42:11
  transparent and, and identifying what subsidy is given out for, for
• 42:15
  what you know, in terms of fisheries.
• 42:17
  Um, I was just actually gonna look it up being like.
• 42:20
  I don't even know, like I live in Canada, I don't even
• 42:21
  know what subsidies are given.
• 42:23
  And to a lot of these, these, uh, industries, we don't know how many,
• 42:28
  like what's given for how much money is given, what companies or, or parts of the
• 42:34
  industry like get more than than others.
• 42:37
  What do we get back from it?
• 42:39
  Uh, that's, I feel like there, that.
• 42:41
  Information.
• 42:42
  I'm hoping that information is out there, you know, as, as a government,
• 42:45
  'cause it should be transparent.
• 42:46
  But sometimes I, I, you know, based on your smile, you know, just being like
• 42:51
  that probably isn't, isn't readily available to, to your average sort of
• 42:56
  citizen who, who might want to know.
• 42:58
  And maybe there's like, I know like.
• 42:59
  With, with Canada, we get like freedom of, of information act, so you can
• 43:03
  submit a freedom of Information Act if you want to know specific data,
• 43:07
  uh, that they have to abide by.
• 43:08
  And usually it's a bit of a crap shoot.
• 43:09
  I know journalists do do that quite a bit.
• 43:12
  Um, this, that, that information is usually not readily
• 43:16
  available, I assume, right?
• 43:18
  Yeah, it is.
• 43:19
  It's, you know, patch it best.
• 43:21
  Obviously cer certain countries or certain kind of groups are much better at this.
• 43:26
  You know, I'm, I'm based in, or was based in the European Union.
• 43:29
  I'm in the uk, but the European Union are, are kind of, you know,
• 43:32
  they're, they have, they have incredible kind of fiscal management.
• 43:36
  You know, you can find out a lot of information about, about the provision
• 43:39
  of the finance of funding, uh, particularly for the Fisher Sector,
• 43:43
  not, not everywhere's like that.
• 43:45
  I think part of the issue as well is the format of how
• 43:48
  these subs might be provided.
• 43:49
  You know, it's generally quite relatively straightforward to find
• 43:53
  direct transfers of, you know.
• 43:56
  This fishing fleet or this individual vessel got money
• 43:59
  to put in a brand new engine.
• 44:00
  You know, stuff like that is relative.
• 44:02
  There's always a paper chain.
• 44:04
  It's more the indirect subs or, um, you know, one of the, one of the subs
• 44:09
  I work quite a bit on is, uh, fuel tax concessions, which sadly won't be
• 44:14
  kind of picked up by this agreement.
• 44:16
  But what that is, is basically we all pay tax for fuel when we go
• 44:19
  to the, you know, to the pump to fill up your, the gas in your car.
• 44:23
  Um.
• 44:24
  You know, most are pretty, I would say all phishing industries don't
• 44:27
  have to pay tax on fuel generally, or they pay a very reduced rate of tax.
• 44:31
  Right.
• 44:31
  And so that's the subsidy, right, because you've reduced the cost of, of, of, of
• 44:35
  phishing by reducing the cost of mm-hmm.
• 44:37
  You know, the arguments around it may be valid or may not, you know,
• 44:40
  around competition or like to, uh, makes sense, shield them from fuel,
• 44:44
  price hikes, things like that.
• 44:46
  But regardless, like it's a, it is a subsidy, but it's
• 44:48
  one that isn't generally.
• 44:50
  Uh, you know, there's no paper trail for that.
• 44:53
  And actually we've worked with governments for where we've modeled what is the cost
• 44:56
  of that, and they then used our modeled estimate as like, cool, this is the
• 45:00
  fuel tax con concession that we provide.
• 45:03
  Because they just haven't, you know, they haven't done the work now of how much
• 45:06
  fuel is used by the industry every year.
• 45:08
  What's the reduction in cost per liter, you know, and things like that.
• 45:11
  So, so hopefully, you know, we'll see with this transparency article.
• 45:17
  What information the governments do have, like and, and what
• 45:20
  they don't because right.
• 45:23
  Not all subs are, are, are, are born equal, as it were.
• 45:27
  No, exactly.
• 45:28
  Exactly.
• 45:28
  And I, I think it's important to, to identify that and,
• 45:31
  and, and to understand that.
• 45:33
  And I think it's great.
• 45:34
  Um, you know, you being a, you know, coming from a science background and, and
• 45:38
  you know, working with policies, seeing agreements like this, do you automatically
• 45:44
  identify, okay, this is where we need to direct our research in the future to help.
• 45:52
  With this agreement, like from an Oceana perspective, when you look
• 45:56
  at this agreement, what are you looking at for in the future of how
• 46:02
  this, this will shape the future?
• 46:03
  Is this gonna have, like, do you think this is gonna have a, I guess
• 46:06
  the first question is, do you think this is gonna have a big impact
• 46:08
  on the fishing industry worldwide?
• 46:15
  Just this agreement, not like, you know, steps later.
• 46:20
  I think it will, but, and, and we'll get onto those, um, habits for sure.
• 46:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:26
  For sure.
• 46:26
  And I, I think it will, because this is the first legally binding agreement on
• 46:31
  fishery subsidies, like we now have Yes.
• 46:34
  Rules that say, you know.
• 46:36
  They, they even recognize like, you know, certain subs are bad.
• 46:40
  Yeah.
• 46:40
  And we need to stop providing them and redirect them.
• 46:43
  Like I think that is a, is a, is a bit of a, you know, a sea change.
• 46:46
  And, and even because there was, that was a debate, you know, quite a while ago.
• 46:50
  Hasn't been from, I don't think for the last five, six years as
• 46:53
  they've really been sitting down and trying to negotiate this text.
• 46:55
  So I think it is gonna have a big change.
• 46:58
  Will this.
• 46:59
  Fish one, you know, from my reading of it, result in a, in a significant
• 47:03
  reduction in harmful fishery subsidies.
• 47:05
  You know, next year, maybe not.
• 47:08
  And I think because of some of these, um, caveats, you know, some of these
• 47:12
  loopholes, the fact that it doesn't quite, you know, a third of, uh,
• 47:16
  the world's fish catch is made by countries that haven't yet ratified it.
• 47:21
  You know, so when you start looking at that and taking out the little
• 47:24
  bits that aren't quite covered yet.
• 47:26
  You know, it starts to reduce.
• 47:27
  But having said that, as, as we said at the beginning, like, we do
• 47:30
  celebrate this, I think it is important.
• 47:32
  I think it's a really important platform to build off, you know, and, uh, as
• 47:36
  I've said two or three times now, I think we're gonna learn a lot more
• 47:40
  as this starts getting implemented.
• 47:42
  Um, you know, I think I, I potentially see a role for, as in and other
• 47:48
  entities is in trying to hold.
• 47:52
  You know, the governments where we operate accountable, you know?
• 47:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:55
  Asking for that transparency, looking for the receipts and the, the evidence
• 47:59
  of, you know, okay, you're sub, like, are you subsidizing this Overfish stock?
• 48:03
  You know, if yes, are you gonna stop that?
• 48:06
  Or like, what's your evidence that the stock is rebuild?
• 48:08
  You know, so trying to use this as a tool to kind of say, you know, you are
• 48:12
  now legally bind, you ratified this, you negotiated it first, then ratified it.
• 48:15
  Like let, let, let's, let's end to this with, you know.
• 48:19
  Kind of honesty and, and really trying to actually, you know,
• 48:22
  adhere to the letter, the spirit of the agreement rather than mm-hmm.
• 48:25
  You know, maybe trying to find these loopholes.
• 48:28
  So yeah, I think it is gonna have a big impact in that sense, in the sense that,
• 48:32
  you know, it's the first real tangible step, you know, to 25 years of talking
• 48:38
  and, you know, maybe this would happen.
• 48:40
  Like we now have something that we can hold up.
• 48:42
  It's in force.
• 48:44
  Uh, you know.
• 48:45
  Yeah.
• 48:45
  And we now have, as I said, the next thing four years to, to, to get the, the
• 48:49
  rest of the agreement, to make it in the WTOs own words, to make it comprehensive.
• 48:54
  Right, right now from, uh, you know, for, for ratification, so there's,
• 48:58
  people can sign on that they want, they, they like the agreement,
• 49:01
  but then they have to ratify it.
• 49:03
  That means they have to actually, once they ratify it, that means they're putting
• 49:06
  in laws in their own, like they're, they're incorporating the, the components
• 49:09
  of this that they have to incorporate to fully ratify it and put it in their laws.
• 49:15
  Uh, this is something from a, from an individual perspective,
• 49:19
  uh, what can people do to help?
• 49:23
  That ratification like to help countries, like their country, their own country,
• 49:27
  to sign on to that ratification.
• 49:28
  So for instance, I live in Canada.
• 49:30
  I want my country to ratify this as an individual.
• 49:33
  What can I do to ensure that this country, like my country, ratifies this deal?
• 49:41
  Yeah.
• 49:41
  I mean, thankfully Canada and as a Canadian as well has
• 49:44
  ratified it, so that's good.
• 49:46
  But if we're in a country, yeah, prior to that.
• 49:50
  You know, we are members and there's, and there's dozens of members
• 49:53
  of this coercion called the Stop Funding Over Fishing Coalition.
• 49:56
  And, you know, certain, certain colleagues in that have been doing
• 50:00
  really tireless work on trying to push nations and work with nations and, and
• 50:05
  their delegation at the, at the WTO in Geneva to try and get this, even to
• 50:10
  just get the text agreed, you know, the, the individual words on it, but part
• 50:14
  of what they do as well as work with, uh, local CSOs, local NGOs to try and.
• 50:19
  You know, campaign or advocate in those particular countries.
• 50:23
  So I, I, I, you know, it may not be easy, but I think maybe first step would
• 50:26
  be check out, stop funding of fishing.
• 50:29
  See who their membership is, if there's members from your country and trying to
• 50:33
  see, you know, do they have campaigns on, on fishery subsidies or, or, you
• 50:37
  know, um, letters that you can sign to, to get sent to your politicians.
• 50:43
  And if not, like, you know.
• 50:45
  Anybody can contact, I hope in most, you know, country of the world can
• 50:48
  contact their politician and say like, this is an important issue.
• 50:52
  What is happening?
• 50:53
  Or like, your environmental minister, your fisheries minister, you know, what are we
• 50:56
  doing about the WTOs subsidies agreement?
• 51:00
  Um, yeah.
• 51:01
  And as you say, I forget, um, I can't calculate off the top of my head, but
• 51:05
  it's, I think we've got 112 ratifications.
• 51:07
  Did you say 12 outta 1 66?
• 51:09
  Yep.
• 51:10
  Yeah, so there's a good, you know, 50.
• 51:12
  What's that?
• 51:12
  54. 55 never do mass live, but, so there's 54 member states that
• 51:19
  haven't, that members that haven't yet done it, some of those will be
• 51:22
  landlock countries, you know, whether they ratify it or not, I don't know.
• 51:26
  And bearing in mind this only, um, addresses marine fisheries.
• 51:30
  It doesn't do inland fisheries, you know, in lakes or rivers or agriculture.
• 51:33
  Right.
• 51:34
  So some of those landlocked countries won't be ratifying it or probably won't.
• 51:38
  Um, yeah.
• 51:39
  Yeah, so there's still, there's still, and there's some, you know, I
• 51:41
  think there's two out of the top 10 subsidizes still to ratify and some,
• 51:45
  some important players in there.
• 51:46
  So, yeah.
• 51:48
  So there's a lot of kind of work still to be done, even on ratification.
• 51:51
  But, you know, I think the focus especially, um, well, especially
• 51:56
  in those 112 countries is on implementation, you know, getting this,
• 51:59
  getting this thing up and running.
• 52:01
  Yeah.
• 52:02
  'cause that takes a while too.
• 52:03
  Like it's not just, there's, there's the one of ratifying it, but then
• 52:06
  you actually, the country actually has to put it into place, into
• 52:08
  their legal framework to say, Hey, this is what we're gonna be doing.
• 52:11
  And then they have to actually act on it.
• 52:14
  You know, they actually have to put out those transparent, uh, reports.
• 52:17
  They have to, uh, tell people, you know, their citizens of like, this
• 52:21
  is how we're gonna go forward.
• 52:23
  That takes a long time.
• 52:24
  Government works slow, we know that.
• 52:25
  And, and it, and it takes a while.
• 52:27
  Yeah.
• 52:27
  Um, you know, I like to.
• 52:29
  You know, the, the, the, the idea of talking to your, your local member of
• 52:33
  Parliament for, for Canada and the u and, and the UK was, we have members
• 52:37
  of Parliament or your government representative to, to sort of be
• 52:40
  like, Hey, where are we on this?
• 52:42
  Like, you know, they, they need to report to us that being like, hey, like, you
• 52:45
  know, we're like, this is what I know.
• 52:46
  I know we ratified as, as Canadians, but where do we go from here?
• 52:50
  Like, like, you know, how does this, how does this proceed, you know, and
• 52:53
  make sure that they, it's on the top of their priority list, you know?
• 52:57
  Yeah.
• 52:57
  Uh, because that's gonna be, and remember this is.
• 52:59
  This is taxpayer's money, right?
• 53:00
  Yeah.
• 53:00
  Like that, that, that, that definition we had at the beginning of what is a subsidy,
• 53:05
  it's public money being, being, being transferred directly into private sectors.
• 53:10
  So, you know, I, I, I think that we have a right to know where it's going.
• 53:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 53:14
  Who it's going to and, and what it's being used for.
• 53:16
  What or what.
• 53:17
  It's incentivizing.
• 53:18
  Yes.
• 53:19
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 53:20
  Absolutely.
• 53:21
  Um, I think that's really important.
• 53:23
  Dan, this has been absolutely amazing.
• 53:25
  I really appreciate you coming on.
• 53:27
  I know it was a bit of a last minute thing that we, we kind of put together here and,
• 53:31
  and I do really appreciate you coming on and, and breaking down this agreement.
• 53:35
  Uh, you know, this is, I feel like I, I think you agree
• 53:38
  this is a great step forward.
• 53:40
  Um, we still have a lot of work to do in, in making sure that illegal
• 53:43
  phishing is done and we're not.
• 53:45
  Funding illegal phishing, um, and, and overfishing.
• 53:48
  And so, we'll, we'll put people onto that, uh, stop funding, uh, overfishing
• 53:52
  website so people can get access.
• 53:54
  We'll, also, I'll put in the, in the description all the material that
• 53:57
  Oceania has come up with, uh, you know, based on, on this agreement,
• 54:01
  but also on your phishing campaigns as well, overfishing campaigns as well.
• 54:04
  Um, you guys have been so great to us, uh, to provide all this information.
• 54:08
  We, we, we really appreciate you coming on.
• 54:10
  Look forward to having you back on to explain more of, of.
• 54:13
  Phishing and, and what the new technologies and everything like
• 54:16
  that that's coming into play.
• 54:18
  Yeah.
• 54:18
  And hey, hopefully it's not 25 years until the next.
• 54:22
  Yes.
• 54:22
  You know, fish the next, the next agreement on fishery subsidies.
• 54:25
  Right.
• 54:25
  So, absolutely.
• 54:26
  Yeah.
• 54:27
  Be great.
• 54:27
  Yeah.
• 54:28
  Well, I think it'll be nice to see like a, maybe potential amendments to
• 54:31
  these ones as we start to learn how countries are reacting or even not
• 54:35
  reacting, uh, to some of these things.
• 54:38
  And, and I think like there's the part of, you know, the ratification.
• 54:41
  The putting into the legal framework, acting on it, but
• 54:44
  making sure they're acting on it.
• 54:46
  And that's where I feel like supporting organizations such as Oceania, uh, in,
• 54:50
  in, in wherever country you, you live in and wherever they, wherever you guys work,
• 54:54
  I know we have an Oceania Canada here into supporting those organizations into,
• 54:58
  you know, working with the government.
• 55:00
  Not just pressuring them, but working with the government to make sure that
• 55:03
  they're, uh, implementing these, these, this agreement and, and, uh, parts of the
• 55:07
  agreement that are part of their league.
• 55:08
  Legal framework.
• 55:09
  So I think that's, that's a really important thing as well.
• 55:11
  And we appreciate Oceania for doing that.
• 55:13
  So, uh, Daniel, thank you so much for, for coming on.
• 55:15
  I'd love to have you back on.
• 55:17
  Yeah.
• 55:18
  Cheers, Andre.
• 55:18
  Thank you very much.
• 55:19
  Thank you.
• 55:22
  Thank you, Dan, for coming on once again to break down this important agreement.
• 55:25
  I feel like I said at the beginning, this is a turning point in the way we are
• 55:29
  looking at how to manage subsidies with fisheries and to ensure that we are not
• 55:34
  going to subsidize overfishing or illegal unreported and unregulated fishing.
• 55:40
  This is an important aspect to every country and 112 OUTTA 166.
• 55:44
  Members of the WTAO have ratified it, including my own country, Canada,
• 55:48
  which is great, but there are still some big fishing nations who have not
• 55:51
  ratified it, and we need them to ratify.
• 55:53
  The more countries that are a part of this, the better shape it'll be.
• 55:56
  This is a work in progress, of course, as this agreement has come out, and
• 56:01
  this has taken a long time to put together, but there still needs to be.
• 56:05
  More stringent rules as we go forward, but we're gonna see how this plays out.
• 56:09
  Initially, conservation is done in steps.
• 56:11
  It's not done all at once.
• 56:12
  We have not solved over fishing with this agreement, but we are
• 56:15
  moving in the right direction, and I think that's really important.
• 56:19
  So I'm very happy that Dan was able to come on.
• 56:21
  He actually contacted me to say.
• 56:23
  We need to talk about this on your podcast.
• 56:24
  You ready?
• 56:25
  I'm like, yes, absolutely a hundred percent.
• 56:28
  Let's do it.
• 56:29
  And so he came out and did that, and I really appreciate him doing that.
• 56:32
  So that's always great to have Dan and Ocean in the work they do to
• 56:35
  share this type of information, to break it down for us.
• 56:38
  We really appreciate Ocean and Dan for doing this.
• 56:40
  So thank you so much to them for coming on the podcast and I
• 56:44
  wanna thank you for listening.
• 56:45
  If you have any questions or comments, let me know in the comments below.
• 56:48
  If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're watching the audio or listening
• 56:51
  to the audio version, I should say.
• 56:53
  I really appreciate you listening to the audio version,
• 56:54
  'cause we started with audio.
• 56:56
  We're gonna continue with audio always.
• 56:58
  And so if you wanna get ahold of me, you can do so Using Instagram.
• 57:02
  Just DM me at how to protect the ocean that's at how to protect the ocean.
• 57:06
  Or you can go on the website, go speak up for blue.com/contact.
• 57:11
  Fill out the form.
• 57:12
  It goes right to my personal email.
• 57:13
  Love to have a chat with you about that, and that's the episode for today.
• 57:17
  I want to thank you so much for joining me on another exciting episode of
• 57:20
  the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 57:22
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nord Strong and Free.
• 57:24
  Have a great day.
• 57:25
  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.