Investing around $8 billion a year in rebuilding and greening the world’s fisheries could raise catches to 112 million tonnes annually while triggering benefits to industry, consumers and the global economy totalling $1.7 trillion over the next 40 years.
These are among findings of a new landmark report compiled by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and economists, titled the Green Economy, part of which was previewed today in New York.
The investment, some of which can be covered by phasing down or phasing out some of the $27 billion-worth of fishing subsides currently in place, is needed to dramatically reduce the size of the world’s fishing fleets while supporting workers in alternative and livelihoods.
Funding is also required to reform and re-focus fisheries management, including through policies such as tradable quotas and the establishment of Marine Protected Areas in order to allow depleted stocks to rest, recover and grow.
Such measures, backed up by bold and forward-looking investments, would not only generate important economic and environmental returns.
They would also assist in fighting poverty by securing the primary protein source of close to one billion people.
UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: “Fisheries across the world are being plundered and over-exploited at unsustainable rates. It is a failure of management of what will prove to be monumental proportions unless addressed”.
“The lives and livelihoods of over half a billion people, linked with the health of this industry, will depend on the tough but also transformational choices governments make now and over the years to come,” he added.
“The Green Economy preview report presented today offers a way of maximizing the economic, social and environmental returns from rebuilding, reforming and sustaining fisheries for current and future generations.
“The scenarios recognize that millions of fishers will need support in retraining and that fishing fleets must shrink. But this needs to be set against a rise in catches, an overall climb in incomes for coastal communities and companies, improvements in the health of the marine environment and ultimately hundreds of millions of people whose incomes and livelihoods are linked to fishing,” he added.
The final Green Economy report, which will cover 11 sectors from agriculture and waste to cities and tourism, will be published in late 2010.
Today’s preview, launched during the meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Rio+20 meeting in Brazil in 2012, covers marine fisheries; water and transport.
