China urged to cut huge subsidies for unprofitable trawler fleets to curb overfishing and save oceans
More than half of the global industry would be unprofitable without big infusions of government aid, according to a joint international study
Top fishing countries such as China should cut government subsidies for industrial fleets because the money is helping to keep many sinking and destructive high seas operations afloat, a global report has found.
Researchers from the National Geographic Society in Washington, the University of California, the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Australia found that as much as 54 per cent of the high seas fishing industry would be unprofitable at its existing scale without big government subsidies.
The research, published on Thursday in the journal Science Advances, found that the global cost of fishing in the high seas ranged between US$6.2 billion and US$8 billion in 2014. Financial results ranged from a loss of US$364 million to profit of US$1.4 billion in that year.
“I think the top fishing countries, including China, should cut the subsidies to their industrial fleets that support overfishing and destruction of the marine ecosystem, for example by deep bottom trawling,” said Enric Sala, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence who led a study behind the report.
Bottom trawling is the practice of dragging long nets along the ocean floor and destroying the marine life along the way.