This is a presentation given by International Institute for Environment and Development chief economist Paul Steele at Fish Night 2 on 2 March 2015. The focus of Fish Night 2, an evening of discussion and networking at IIED's London headquarters, was looking at alternative financing mechanisms to promote sustainable fisheries. Steele's presentation on the 'Minnow and the Whale: fish taxes versus subsidies' reviewed the two main forms of fiscal policies that affect fishing: subsidies and licensing fees. Fishing subsidies remain high at over $35 billion USD in 2013 causing over-fishing. There has been limited progress in moving from capacity enhancing subsidies (eg for fuel subsidies) towards beneficial subsidies (eg for monitoring and enforcement). However despite over ten years of negotiations at the World Trade Organisation, global attempts to remove fishing subsidies have come to little. The main global opportunity is that the elimination of harmful fishing subsidies is being proposed as a target in the SDGs. For fishery license fees, the picture is more positive with increased license fees in a number of countries. For example in the Pacific license fees for tuna have increased fourfold to $230 million in 2012. However, fishery licence fees are still dwarfed by capacity enhancing fishing subsidies. More details: http://bit.ly/1E9q1D3.

1. 1
Paul Steele
5/3/15Author name
Date
Paul Steele
5/3/15
Paul Steele, IIED
Minnow and the
Whale:
fish taxes versus subsidies

2. 2
Paul Steele
5/3/15
Overview
• Fiscal policies that affect fisheries
• Fishing taxes: decrease fishing effort
• Taxes as Minnow: Low, but increasing
• Fishing subsidies: increase fishing effort
• Subsidies as the Whale: massive, but some
progress (Sumaila et al, 2013)
• Minnow and the Whale: low taxes versus
massive subsidies
• When will the Minnow catch the Whale?

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Paul Steele
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Paul Steele
5/3/15
Fishing taxes: the minnow
• Fishing revenues crucial for some
LDCs and SIDS (eg Pacific,
Mauritania, Mozambique)
• Some progress in increasing taxes
• Pacific license fees for tuna have
increased fourfold to $230 million in
2012

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Paul Steele
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Paul Steele
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F

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Paul Steele
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Subsidies as the whale:
massive but some progress
- Global Capacity enhancing subsidies
(eg fuel) were $20 billion in 2009
- Global Beneficial (eg Monitoring) and
ambiguous subsidies were $15 billion
- EU is worst, then Japan
- USA much better
- WTO negotiations failed
- But SDG target to reduce subsidies

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Paul Steele
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SDG marine target
14. Conserve and sustainably use the
oceans, seas and marine resources for
sustainable development
14.6 by 2020, prohibit certain forms of
fisheries subsidies which contribute to
overcapacity and overfishing, and
eliminate subsidies that contribute to
Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU)
fishing, and refrain from introducing
new such subsidies

9. 9
Paul Steele
5/3/15Conclusion: when will the tax
minnow catch the whale subsidy?