Project
ShutterstockTowards an end to subsidies that promote overfishing
Overfishing is one of the main problems for the health of our ocean. And the provision of negative subsidies to the fishing sector is one of the fundamental causes of overfishing.
Fishing subsidies are financial contributions, direct or indirect, that public entities grant to the industry.
Depending on their impacts, they can be beneficial when they promote the growth of fish stocks through conservation and fishery resource management tools. And they are considered negative or detrimental when they promote overfishing with support for, for example, increasing the catch capacity of a fishing fleet.
It is estimated that every year, governments spend approximately 22 billion dollars in negative subsidies to compensate costs for fuel, fishing gear and vessel improvements, among others.
Recent data show that, as a result of this support, 63% of fish stocks worldwide must be rebuilt and 34% are fished at "biologically unsustainable" levels.
Although negotiations on fisheries subsidies, within the framework of the World Trade Organization, officially began in 2001, it was not until the 2017 WTO Ministerial Conference that countries committed to taking action to reach an agreement.
This finally happened in June 2022, when member countries of the World Trade Organization reached, after more than two decades, a binding agreement to curb some harmful fisheries subsidies. It represents a fundamental step toward achieving the effective management of our fisheries resources, as well as toward ensuring global food security and the livelihoods of coastal communities.
The agreement reached at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference provides for the creation of a global framework to reduce subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; subsidies for fishing overexploited stocks; and subsidies for vessels fishing on the unregulated high seas. It also includes measures aimed at greater transparency and accountability in the way governments support their fisheries sector.
The countries agreed to continue negotiating rules to curb other harmful subsidies, such as those that promote fishing in other countries' waters, overfishing and the overcapacity of a fleet to catch more fish than is sustainable.
If we want to have abundant and healthy fishery resources, it is time to change the way we have conceived fishing until now. We must focus our efforts on creating models of fishery use that allow for long-term conservation.
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Belo Monte: the river may be dying but the search for justice never will
“The river is dead!” exclaimed Raimundo as we navigated in his motorboat from Altamira toward the big bend of the Xingu River. From my perch in Raimundo’s boat, it was easy to see how bleak the landscape surrounding Altamira—the northern Brazilian city closest to the construction of the Belo Monte Dam—has become. The big island of Arapujá, located across from Altamira, has been completely deforested, causing a radical change in the currents of the river. Many of the smaller islands, previously inhabited by fishermen, are now completely submerged, only the tops of trees visible above the rising water. I visited Altamira, and the indigenous and riverine communities nearby, with colleagues from Justiça Global. We came to update our case, and to inform those affected by Belo Monte of a new hope for justice: in December, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights opened the case against Brazil for human rights violations caused by the dam. In January, Norte Energía, the company charged with the construction and operation of Belo Monte, opened the dam’s floodgates without warning communities living downstream. They say the Xingu grew seven meters in just an hour. In some communities, the rising water flooded their riverside land, taking with it canoes, boats and items of clothing. Destroying lives The boat took us to a spot in the river where a large island once stood with a house in the middle. Raimundo Nonato had lived there. He raised animals and dedicated his life to fishing. It had been the perfect place to bathe in the river. It was there, in 2013, that Antonia Melo, leader of Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Siempre, baptized me as a defender of these waters. Now the island is under water, and all that remains to be seen are the tops of some fruit trees. Leoncio Arara, an indigenous man from the community Arara da Volta Grande, says his community lives in fear of the river’s expected growth, the loss of their culture and way of life, and from the recent death of 16 tons of fish. They have seen cracks in the dike of the dam’s bypass channel and fear it will break, as the Fundão mining waste dam did in Minas Gerais. On our tour of the area, we also noticed discolored patches on the dike, which should certainly be a sign of alarm. Leoncio said the fear keeps him up at night. On the indigenous lands of the Arara da Volta Grande and Paquiçamba, the life of inhabitants has changed radically. They must now travel to the city (Altamira) to sell their harvest and to buy food. The changing environment has drastrically reduced opportunities for fishing and hunting, rendering their traditional subsistence lifestyle inadequate. Leoncio says that his peoples’ traditional knowledge and community life are being lost. Their homes are different, as is the formation of their village. Norte Energía has carelessly constructed houses that conflict with their culture, because of the location and materials used. Their community lacks even a well from which to retrieve drinking water, a condition that should have been met more than five years ago. Pain, injustice and struggle On our trip, we spent nine days in the area around the Belo Monte dam. We listened to so many stories of pain and injustice: of indigenous children that died from bad medical care in villages without access to the city; of indigenous people who left their villages to seek shelter in the city and now live in the overcrowded Casa del Indio, surrounded by filth and, often, conflicting ethnic groups. We relived the stories of tireless struggle, like that of Socorro Arara, an indigenous woman whose home was destroyed, along with those of her relatives. Socorro and her family all had to haggle with the company, as if their basic human rights were negotiable. Some received very little money in compensation, others the option of a prefabricated house in a neighborhood far from the river. Socorro’s parents live in one of those neighborhoods. Behind their new cement house, they built a small home with the wood they were able to save from their destroyed home. It is there that they really live, by the light of small kerosene lamps, sleeping in hammocks. Electricity is not part of their lives. Residents of Altamira live surrounded by the ironies of the third largest dam in the world. On February 28, Altamira and various cities in the state of Para were left without electricity. The cutoff, described by the receptionist at our hotel as routine, was due to testing on one of the dam’s turbines. There’s not much time now until the Belo Monte begins operation. If, for the countries of the region, Belo Monte represents the cherished dream of development, for me it represents a nightmare from which I’m dying to awake. It’s a nightmare of pain and human rights violations, in which a beautiful, living river is quickly fading away. Going with it are the lives and the dreams of those who have long depended upon its clean and healthy waters. Human rights are not negotiable. The victims of Belo Monte need justice now! It is that dream of justice that I hope, one day soon, becomes reality. -- I wrote these lines in honor of all the people who have dedicated their lives to defending our rivers and our life.
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Remembering Berta Cáceres before the Green Climate Fund
On March 3, Berta Cáceres, an indigenous rights defender in Honduras, was assassinated. As a leader of COPINH, Berta was fighting against the implementation of an internationally funded large dam project. She was fighting for the health of the Gualarque River, and for the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous communities that depend upon it. Her death is a glimpse at the real life impacts that megaprojects may have. That’s why, at the closing of the 12th Meeting of the Board of the Green Climate Fund, I presented a message to the Board on behalf of the civil society organizations monitoring the development and decision making process of the mechanism. The message was intended as a reminder of the care with which financing decisions must be made, as the board prepares to review and approve more projects: “We would like to ask for a moment to remember Berta Cáceres, the indigenous environmental justice and human rights defender brutally murdered last week in Honduras. She was leading a fight against an internationally financed large dam that threatened her water, her land, and her people. We would like to ask all of you to do whatever you can to secure justice for Berta, and the immediate safe return of Gustavo Castro, head of Friends of the Earth Mexico, who was injured during the assassination and whose life is now in danger. Berta’s murder serves as a tragic reminder to the GCF of the incredible risks faced by rights defenders, and the deep need to safeguard their rights and the rights of the people and land they fight for. The GCF must not support questionable projects like the one that claimed her life and must obtain in all of its projects and programmes the free, prior and informed consent of people and communities to protect their livelihoods and survival.”
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The Precautionary Principle: A legal tool against the impacts of fracking
This report analyzes the viability of using the precautionary principle to prevent, avoid or stop fracking operations in Latin America. These measures can result in prohibitions or moratoriums, as has occurred in various states, provinces and cities across America and Europe. Fracking is a technique that enables the exploration of historically inaccessible reservoirs of natural gas or petroleum. Governments and businesses across the world have pushed for the exploration of these reservoirs due to declining global reserves of conventional hydrocarbons, thanks to 150 years of overexploitation. The exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons is technically more difficult, has a higher economic cost, and implies greater risks to the environment and public health.Promoting fracking to extract unconventional hydrocarbons is a bad decision on climatic, political, social and environmental levels. It deepens our dependence on fossil fuels and wastes energy and resources that should be directed at developing renewable energies.That's why we felt it important to examine the viability of applying the precautionary principle as a legal tool to avoid or slow down the risks and damages caused by fracking, particularly in countries that have begun or are planning to begin fracking in coming years. Read and download the report (in Spanish)
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