Fisheries Subsidies Agreement Explained with Oceana's Dan Skeritt

0:00 For the first time ever, the World Trade Organization has a binding agreement to stop. Harmful subsidies that drive over phishing, but not every country is on board. I sat down with Dan Scar from Oceana, who's been following these negotiations for years to unpack what this agreement actually means. We talked about how billions of dollars in subsidies have propped up unsustainable fishing fleets, and why some of the biggest fishing nations have yet to ratify the agreement. Dan gives a breakdown of subsidies, the World Trade Organization. Why this is all important and what we need to know about this agreement 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 tell you this agreement feels like a turning point, but it's also a test. Will countries follow through? And to be honest, that's up to me and you we're gonna talk about all this on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. Now on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about subsidies. We're gonna be talking about the World Trade Organizations new agreement. 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 that we need to know about this type of term and why it's important and how it drives fisheries for a lot of countries, we talk about harmful subsidies, we talk about beneficial subsidies. And we talk about how there's really no legal framework of how to dole out these subsidies within each nation and how there's not a lot of checks and balances when it comes out to being like, are the fleets and companies who are receiving these subsidies? Are they actually following the law, you know, and or are they making sure that these fleets are following the law? There's a lot of things that go on, and as taxpayers, we don't like to fund stuff that doesn't follow the law or people aren't, you know, in it for the best of the country that you're part of, right?

2:07 As taxpayers, we don't want to have to deal with that. We don't want to have to prop up specific industries so that. You know, they can just do whatever they want. That's not fair. That's not what these subsidies are for. These subsidies are to benefit not only the industry, but also the citizens of that country, or part of the citizens or part of that nation, of that country. And so I think it's really important to have this type of agreement. But when you have this type of agreement, as Dan mentions, there's a lot of context within that. There's a lot of legal frameworks and legal words and phrases that are very difficult to understand. Spoiler, there are loopholes, and Dan and I discuss that and we try to look at how to move forward with this agreement and what it looks like in the impact we think it will have.

2:49 So without further ado, here's Danker talking about the World Trade Organization Agreement on fishery subsidies. Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after. Hey Dan, welcome back to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Are you ready to talk about the WTO subsidy agreement? Hi Andrew. Yeah, really happy to be back. Al always ready to talk about subsidy. Yep. Alright. This is great. This is something that, uh, it came to be because you, you contacted me, like Andrew, I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a, a really great agreement that's coming out. This was last week when you contacted me and I was like, okay, let's do this. We need to get this out. We're gonna be talking about fishery subsidies and sort of the agreement that the WTO has come out and said.

3:31 Hey, you know what? Like we need to establish some rules here of who gets subsidies, who doesn't, and what countries can do when they give out subsidies and what rules they have to abide by or they should abide by based on a lot of expertise over the years and what we've learned over the years about global fishing and even fishing within our own countries. I just wanna premise this. This is a great first step and we're gonna celebrate that here. But this is a, the first step in a long battle towards getting, you know, subsidies handled properly, especially when it comes to illegal activities and the illegal fishing, uh, and everything that goes around with overfishing. So Dan is super happy for you to be here to, to help us break it all down and just really get to, to sort of the.

4:13 All the information that's given out in this agreement. So we really appreciate you being here. Before we get into all that though, Dan, why don't you just remind the, uh, the, the audience here of who you are and what you do? Yeah, sure. Uh, I'm Daniel Skerrett. I'm a senior manager in Oceania's Science and Strategy, uh, group. We're kind of a bit like the research and development team in, in Oceania, so we support all our various country offices, but also do a bit of, you know, novel research. My particular area of research is on international fisheries, so that's why I, I, I study things like fishery subsidies as we're gonna talk, talk about today. Yeah. Yeah. And it's gonna be, uh, it's gonna be easy because like when, when we talk about what you, you know, you look are on here to talk about and what your 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 better over phishing and to understand it and to act on it and, and, and so forth. And then there's also like the policy aspect of everything and how to. Get countries on board to an agreement and to ratify these types of agreements that we're gonna talk about today to put action into place. Because we can talk about it, we can do a lot of research on it, and we can identify the problems. But until governments start to enact these types of agreements and make sure that they put it in their own, uh, legal context, nothing is gonna get done. And the more countries we get to, to ratify this agreement and, and agree to this agreement, then it's gonna be amazing.

5:43 So. Let's get started here. Um, why don't we just break down, you know, who the WTO is, why it's important that, that they come up with this agreement and how this whole agreement came to be. Yeah. Uh, I'll try and give kind of a, a brief history of that. So go into a lot of detail, Dan. Like we've got hours, we've got, yeah. And I, and just to caveat that I am, I'm not a trade kind of expert, right. I, my background as we talked about last time is in fisheries. Uh, I then studied fisheries economics for quite a while, so I've been working on subsidies for almost 10 years, which in the world of fishery subsidies is, is I'm, I'm, I'm very much a, a newcomer to it. Um, so, so I come from a kind of economics background, but not, not a trade expert, but the world, the World Trade Organization, um, was established, so it's 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 to ensure like more free trade, so any kind of barrier like tariffs and things like that, which obviously have been in the news a lot at the moment. They're kind of the governing body of that, that try and help facilitate easier trade around the world in order to reduce poverty, I guess, or to improve, uh, you know, GDP in, in various countries to connect the world. So, you know, if there's a trade dispute that will go to wto. So, so that's their background. Fishery subs for the WTO is, is, is quite an interesting topic because at the heart of it, although you know it's around trade, it's around unequal competition 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 sustainability, and so this is the first time the WTO have really brought together an agreement that kind of focuses on environmental sustainability. So. You know, it's quite, it's quite a new thing for them. Uh, I say new. They started these negotiations in 2001 at their fourth ever ministerial conference in, in Doha, in Qatar. And so, and they agreed, they, the, the, you know, the, the text of the agreement in 2022 in Geneva at their 12th ministerial conference. So, uh, 21 years of, of talking and negotiation to agree to the text of this first part, this fish one, and then another three years after that for, for 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 force, you know, just last week. So, uh, you know, please feel free to ask any more questions. That's kind of a brief overview of who the Wwo O are and what they do. Well, I just wanted one thing that I've always, I'm always interested in as, as a science, a marine biologist myself. Uh, and, and, you know, you have the best, you know, very similar background. Obviously, you've. PhD you've been studying fisheries for, for quite some time. I was always of, you know, growing up in this industry, I was in this field. I was always of the, the matter of, it's interesting how, you know, certain organizations like the WTO, like the Trade, the World Trade Organization, even ces, which is all about trade, have such a huge impact on.

8:51 What is traded and, and you know, like fisheries traded and, and where the money goes. And as well, like with ces, like what items cannot, cannot be brought past a specific border and so forth. And I find it interesting when we discuss this type of work, uh, that fisheries itself, like when you look at doing the fisheries models and looking at, okay, we have fisheries models. We are, we, we know what we can catch, we know how much we can't catch. You know, we've setting the quota here. How come we need like world, the world trade organization or society to regulate this trade when in my opinion, science should be enough.

9:35 So that's sort of where I'm at with this. Like I'd love to hear your opinion on that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that's a, a great question and a great point and a quite a frustrating right, you know, situation that we see quite a lot for, for us. Um. I think, and there was a great, um, article that just came out, uh, I saw yesterday about this. I think the issue part, part of the issue is, you know, fisheries, although they are, you know, essentially this, so you can see them in kind of two lights. And we, we were kind of talking about this a little bit before we, before we start recording about depending on the lens through which you see. You know, fisheries or this agreement. So, you know, a lot of us with a fisheries background see it through a biological or an ecological lens, right?

10:17 This extraction of these, of these animals out of an out of the environment. And so, you know. Our models are often built around that, around that idea of, of, you know, the population, how much fishing can it, can it take? But obviously the other huge part of it are the people and in, and in the case of industrial fisheries, the businesses, right? That, that are, that are extracting these resources. And if you see it from a kind of economics or trade heavy lens or focus. You know, then your priorities might be quite different or Yeah. Uh, you know, the goals that you have for the fish, this fishery might be quite different. I mean, I think the frustration is that many of us see that like, well, surely the first principle should be like, you can't keep fishing if the bi, if the biological sustainability is, is flawed, or you are, you're over fishing.

11:07 Right. But, you know, I, I guess it becomes very murky, especially with these international fisheries when there's all this like competition and trade, you know? Um, I, I feel like that can kind of add to it. So I think all these elements are, are important. And I think, you know, fisheries as a whole, so you need these kind of, mm-hmm. This economic understanding and you need political will. I think that's the other important thing, you know, when there's these resources out there that could be extracted, especially when it's, you know, in other people's waters or the high seas. Right. Yeah, I think especially in the high seas, you know, you can end up with this kind of race to fish and so, so I, I, I think it's because probably there's, you know, it's a lot more complicated sadly, than simply here's what the science and what the biology of this fishery says, you know?

11:54 And, and that's it. And you know, I guess this is the crux of everything that was happening in the WCA for the last 20, 25 years, was this political toing and throwing. I don't think there was too much argument around. The scientific principles of what was being discussed, right? It was the political, you know, manifestation of that. Like how do we get an agreement that we can all sign up to? And I think, you know. That's the frustration, but I guess that's the reality of our, you know, current systems. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I, I totally agree, and I, I, I wanted to kind of put that out into the podcast sphere because I think it's something that a lot of people look at as, as 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? They are very important tools when we look at fisheries management. On a global scale. Uh, and so I'm glad we're, we're, we're able to distinguish that. But that's something that's always been kind of like, well, what, why is it the science just enough? So, yeah. I mean it's the same with, um, you know, climate change science, right. You know, that's probably, that's probably an even better example where there's even less uncertainty, you know, fish stock assessments, you know, we we're pretty good at it, especially when we have a lot of data, but there's always uncertainty. There's always like, you know, you're trying to hit this. This, this, this single point that we've kind of come up with of maximum sustainable yield. You know, there is a lot of uncertainty in it and we try and as scientists we try and accommodate that and, and explain it.

13:21 But in climate change there's a lot less uncertainty. Yet still we see this, you know, it seems so simple, right? Like what we have to do. Yeah. Actually doing it apparently becomes a lot less, a lot more complicated. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, before we get into more of this, this agreement, can you just help explain how subsidies work and, and you know, obviously it doesn't have to go into the great detail 'cause it's, it's different for each country, but this is a big part of this agreement be, and, and the big argument around overfishing is like, we need to stop subsidizing. Uh, certain fisheries or certain types of fishing because it's, it's perpetuating the overfishing problem that we have.

14:02 So can you just kind of go into a, a description for my, for the audience to be like, Hey, like what is subsidies and, and why is it important to have certain regulations around it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, there's, there's, there's various, um, versions of the, of definitions of, of water, a subsidy, and especially a fishery subsidy. I'm gonna take the wto. Definition and that's generally all my work kind of is based on that because these, you know, because of this agreement and the negotiations of this agreement, so from the WTOs point of view, a subsidy kind of needs, needs three elements. So it's a direct or indirect financial transfer. 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. So it's a transfer of of wealth. The second part is it, it has to come from a government or a public body and go to the private industry. So it's, it, it is government, it is public to private, indirect or direct transfer. And then that, that transfer has to, uh, you know, confer some kind of benefit. Um, you know, historically there's a lot of reasons why governments might do that. You might want to, um, incentivize the development of a particular sector. So we hear a lot about, um, you know, subsidies for offshore renewable energy, for example. Mm-hmm. I mean, we also provide subsidies for offshore oil and gas, but that's a different conversation.

15:25 So you might want to, you might want to incentivize the development of sector that maybe is quite, you know, costly at the beginning of that, of that development. Um, you might want to, um, address social equity issues. So you may want to prop up the way, support the wages of certain, you know, sectors of society, for example, or particular jobs that, that maybe, you know, are really important. We need to kind of, uh, subsidize the wages there to encourage people into it, for example, like health workers maybe. And then, uh, the other one that we're talking about today is to address conservation, um, concerns. So. In the UK for example, a lot of farmers might get paid to not farm up to the edge of a river or to leave certain fields to, to go, uh, you know, to go wild or to, to kind of have this crop rotation.

16:14 Mm-hmm. And the government might give them money, so, so they benefit and then we benefit from this like additional conservation benefit. Mm-hmm. So there's a lot of different. Reasons why. Um, another key reason it's often actually unspoken is this competition element. You know, particularly in fisheries, if we're all targeting the same tuna stocks, well, if, you know, if we, if we, if we help out the cost of our fishing fleet, they might do a bit of a better job or, or manage to get a bit more of that, of that fish or sell the fish cheaper access certain markets, right? So, you know, so there's, there's stated reasons or drivers of subsidies, and then there might be hidden ones as well. Yeah. In, in the case of fisheries, um, you know, the harm that they can cause as, as I said earlier, they can cause what we call trade injuries, which the WT o have largely been focused on.

17:02 That's, you know. Steel from One Nation is being subsidized, so is really cheap and, and changes the market, you know? Mm-hmm. The wt a might step in and be like, you shouldn't subsidize that so you can get these trade injuries. But in fisheries we get what we call this capacity enhancing effect, and that's the ones that we kind of call harmful fisheries subsidies. And what that is, is it's basically that that subsidy the government give is, is, is lowering the cost of phishing and by or, or increasing their profits, but let's say lowering the cost efficient. By doing that, what we end up with is, is is it results in over capacity. So each fishing vessel or the fleet as a whole essentially gets too big for this, for what the fishing the fish stock can handle.

17:45 Mm-hmm. So like really simply, you have too many boats chasing too few fish. Right? Right. Instead of like in what you might call the free market, you know, situation, some of those vessels might drop out or go bust 'cause there's not enough fish. You know, I can't make profit, I have to leave. But if you start reducing the cost of fishing or, or, or, you know, reducing the cost of fuel, for example, you kind of maintain this fishing fleet at a scale at size, that, that wouldn't actually exist based on either the size of the stock or the economics of the fishery. So we kind of are to fisher hold these fleets, you know, uh, size that, that we wouldn't really see without the substance. And that's over capacity.

18:26 And when you have over capacity, it tends to lead to overfishing. Yes, you can have really strict rules in there that prevent that. But you know, the science kind of shows that that doesn't always happen, as we talked about just a minute ago, right? You can have these stock assessments say Only take X tons. Yeah. But it's even harder when you've got boats and you know, a lot of a huge inflated industry on this particular fishery. Maybe saying like, you know. We need more tons because otherwise we're not gonna be able to pay all these work, you know, hundreds of thousands of workers potentially. Yeah, so, so that's kind of the issue we have here is this economic tool. That actually then ends up having the ecological impact by, by, by creating a, a, a bloated fishing industry with subsidies.

19:11 Have you seen models where there's alternative to subsidies or alternative to subsidies proposed that might work better or have worked better in the past? Yeah, I mean. So, you know, generally we have these kind of three categories of fishery subsidies. So I thought there a lot about these harmful capacity enhancing subsidies, but we also have beneficial subsidies. You know, that's a bit like the example I gave you of the, the farmer. Who might be getting paid to, to leave some, you know, not, not farm right up to the edge of a river, to, to, to ensure the river stays healthier. You know, that's a beneficial subsidy. We have that in fisheries too, you know, um, that might be to, to, to pay fishes, not to fish in a particular area or to use to, to help fund the replacement 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 don't really know what affects it. It might depend who you give it to or how you apply it. So they're kind of a gray area, but, right. Let's think we have these harmful and we have these beneficial, you know, a lot of the times when, when I'm advocating for removing harmful subsidies, and this is a point I try and really emphasize, especially to, to, you know, my industry colleagues. Is, I'm not saying stop funding fishing, you know, don't invest in fisheries. I, I want to see money being spent on fisheries. Yes. I think it's vital. I'd like to see more money spent on it. I just don't want to see it spent in a way that incentivizes over capacity and leads to overfishing. Right? Like, let's find beneficial ways that we can invest in our fishing fleets to try and, yeah, make them more efficient without.

20:49 Adding capacity or to help, like, boost the amount of fish available or, you know, lower the impact it has on the rest of the, um, ecosystem. So a lot of this, you know, we, what we hope this agreement might achieve is a reduction in harmful subsidies, but really want, we wanna see that then, you know, spent elsewhere in, in a beneficial format. Yeah, a hundred percent. I think that's, I think that's really great. And, and a lot of these subsidies are coming from tax dollars, right? They're coming from the budget of the government that's largely funded by tax. It could be funded by other, other sources depending on where this money comes from, but it's largely funded by tax dollars. So some people, citizens, I know here in Canada we're always like, why are we funding, you know, like big time for big, uh, a problem for, for Canada or a big contentious issue is, you know, funding.

21:38 Oil and gas subsidies here, right? So people are like, why are we doing this? I don't want to do this. Um, even though it's like, it's, it's a necessity when you look at, you know, oil and gas and the benefits usually outweigh the, the subsidies that we have to pay. Um, but a lot of people. We'll say that, you know, we'll be like, why are we funding If, if they want to decrease over phishing, why are we funding, you know, subsidies for, for phishing in general? But it's not necessarily, not all subsidies are going to encourage. Uh, overfishing or illegal fishing, that that's not what the subsidy iss for, correct. Like the, the subsidy is for, you know, the agreement, I assume with the people who who are receiving and the companies who are receiving the subsidy 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, why are we talking about this? But I want people to really understand the purpose of a subsidy is to. Help that with the industry benefit not only the citizens, but also that, that industry, um, but also to contribute to the legal phishing of a, a specific stock. Correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I don't think that many subs are, are. You know, dished out with that kind of, with environmental destruction in mind and, and also, you know, a lot of the, kind of the drivers of, of, of maybe providing this, these subsidies. 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 support a lot of jobs that may be, you know, um, may be, um, in the balance. You know, the, the, the, a lot of these jobs, they're not. You can't predict year on year, you know, how, how secure they are. 'cause they're based on, you know, weather and, and, and the biology of the fishery. So, you know, I think, I think some of the subsidies are provided with intentions like that also, you know, although we've talked a lot about the, the business of fishing and that element of it ultimately is also producing a food source. Right? And again, we see a lot of subsidies being spent on, you know, uh, food production. A big argument around that is food security, sadly, that again, that doesn't always actually kind of, um, add up when you look at the end result in that we're subsidizing a lot of phishing vessels, you know, in the EU or the uk where, where the fish actually goes elsewhere.

24:01 Like, you know, it's not supporting food security in the uk. So, you know, it is a really complicated system and. A lot of kind of, what we do is, and what this agreement should be doing is, is trying to reveal, you know, what is the actual result of this subsidization? And when we do that, can we have a, you know, better, more informed discussion about, okay, what are the intentions of these subs and what is the actual outcome? You know, are, are we seeing, are we achieving what we, what we say we're gonna do with this? Are we actually achieving, you know, environmental degradation at home? Or taxpayers' money is being used to, you know, it's resulting in 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? Is there a better way we can do this? So yeah, the intention is very rarely, I would say, if, if ever, to fund over phishing. Right? But as I say, when, when the, when the, when the data and the science says that's what's happening, I think there needs to be a reconsideration of. Of how we, how, how we're funding that. Of course, here and, sorry. No, no, go ahead. No, please do. Go ahead. Uh, just to emphasize, again, not saying don't fund it. Not saying take the money out, just of course, let's find a better way to spend it. Right? Well and income. This incomes this, this WTO agreement, right? This World Trade Organization agreement where. This is like a, a, a, essentially like a, a framework that countries can use to implement into their own legal, uh, you know, legal 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 been done, a lot of expertise that's been, uh, put together. This is what we recommend. How you sort of, you know, put in the rules to put in subsidies or not give subsidies to specific, uh, fleets who are not abiding by the laws, not only of the sea. Also by their own country, which for a lot of countries who have signed onto the, to the UN Law of the Sea is the same thing. Right? So, um, you know, I think that's, that's really important coming into this agreement. So I want to, to get that the, the reasoning why we're putting in this for a lot of our, our audience members here. Um, and because this is all stuff we all had to learn, you know, in terms of what's 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 terms of illegal phishing as we've seen. Um, and so. Let's talk about this, this agreement. Mm-hmm. How important is this as a first step to the battle of really reducing and hopefully one day eliminating, uh, you know, over phishing and illegal fishing? Yeah, I mean, as we said at the beginning, it's really important, you know, we are celebrating this, this agreement. Um, you know, and we'll, we'll talk about this and we'll probably talk about it right now actually, about how this is just the first step. This was never intended to be the kind of the end of this discussion. This is, um, you know, it's. A lot of us are calling it, referring to it as Fish one. 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. What it does at the moment is it, it first tackles the worst kind of it, it tackles where these subsidies, who these subsidies are going to. It doesn't yet tackle subsidies because of the nature of certain subsidies being bad. It tackles who these subsidies go to, like we said earlier. Mm-hmm. So what it does is these ratifying members, I think there's 112 now. Are now bound by law to, to stop providing subsidies to, um, any illegal fishing. Um, you know, the, who determines whether it's legal fishing or not. We'll see how that actually plays out in reality. Um, at the moment, from from the text, it says it's either the, the, the vessel that, the, the flag state that, you know, the, the vessel is fishing under.

27:42 Mm-hmm. The coastal state where the vessel is fishing, or if they're fishing in the jurisdiction of an RFMO, a regional fisheries management organization, you know, they can determine, so they're the three, the three groups, the entities who can determine it's illegal phishing. Right. At the moment, we have, you know, all the. Kind of official lists of IUU, um, vessels in the world, I think at the moment adds up to about 230 vessels. Okay. So hopefully there'll be a, you know, a more stringent way of, of actually doing. 'cause if it's only 230 vessels that are gonna have subsidies pulled, you know, it's not gonna make a huge dent in the 22 billion of harmful subsidies currently provided. The sec, the second prohibit, prohibition, prohibition that it, that it has is it stops, uh, subsidies to phishing on overfish stocks, which again, 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 country who, whose waters it's in. So it's kind of marking your own homework. There, there's also a bit of a loophole that says, you know, if you have management measures in place that you know, show that it's gonna, that that are aimed to rebuild the stock, then you can keep subsidizing. And again, it's a subsidizing member that can be like, yeah, it's over fished, but you know, we've got these management measures in place that aim to rebuild it so we can keep subsidizing. So, you know, again. It's a really great first step. Mm-hmm. Hopefully over, you know, over the course of implementation, we can really tighten the kind of nut on that and be like, you know, yeah, no, you haven't rebuilt the stock.

29:20 Stop subsidizing it. Right. And then the last one is, is, is, is, um, subsidies to phishing on the unregulated high seas, which. It is a small fraction of kind of global fisheries. You know, most fisheries are in coastal waters, but it's quite an important one because that's the fishing, uh, activity that basically is, you know, the wild west. There's very little, very few rules on that. So, you know, probably shouldn't be, um, subsidizing that. So they're the kind of three main prohibitions that, that it includes. As I said, there's, there's, you know, loopholes and, and we'll see how it's implemented. There's a couple of really strong articles in there that I like. Mm-hmm. 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 information they give to the WTO every year on the subsidies they provide, who they go to, what fish stocks are. They kind of, are these subsidies impacting? You know, that's a really great step. In the nine years I've been doing this research, there's often, you know, quite poor data and we're often filling gaps in with, with kind of models or, or, or, you know, through, through poorer data sources. Um, and then, and then another one is, is, is this article that allows member states to basically hold each other accountable. And that's the one that I think could be really key to the success of this is. How well will each of our, these members be able to hold each other to account to say, you know, show us you're working.

30:45 Prove to us that, you know, these management measures are helping to rebuild the stock. And again, I, I think also that's prob probably where civil society comes in. You know, trying to work with, with different members to, you know, to ask for this information or to, to, to, you know, to get them to kind of. Show us. Yeah, show us what subsidies are you providing? Like what subsidies are going to these distant water fishing fleets, or which fisheries are you, are you subsidizing in your waters? And I think that could be a really key part to it. Yeah, I think it's really, I think it's really important. The question with that, so you have. WTO members. Uh, and there are 166 WT members as of, uh, July 17th, 2024. I just looked it up.

31:25 Kimura is, is the, the last country to, to join, which is great. So you have these WTO members who have to, uh, abide by this transparency rules when they, when they report to the WTO, which is, which is great. So it's almost separate of whether they ratified or not, if they want to be part of the WTO. They have to submit to this transparency rule for phishing. Is, is that, am I getting that right or do they still have to ratify this agreement to do that? Um, I guess that's the question at hand, right? So me, I mean, I'm not, I'm not entirely sure, but, um, members have always been able to and should have been notifying the wto. You know, right before this agreement came in, um, it has been improving over the years as these negotiations have been getting a lot closer and since the, since the, they agreed the text, we've seen more countries, uh, notifying with, with, with better, uh, more detailed information.

32:22 So I think there is a requirement to report to some extent. I think what this agreement does is it really sets out like this is what you must include and the periodicity, so it has to be annual now. Unless you're a, um, kind of self, uh, if, if you're a developed or least developing country, uh, developed country, they're the terms that are used, then you have, then you can report every four years. Okay. So there are parts of this agreement again, that try and what they call special and differential treatment. Yeah. And that account either allows like a lower threshold or, uh, longer time periods for developed and least developed countries, uh, to adhere to the rules, which is, that's usually. Yeah. And that's usually 'cause they don't always have the resources to like the people and stuff to do that reporting and even the, the means to get that data at this point.

33:08 Yeah. Which obviously, you know, not great in terms of a, of a, of a way of un understanding what's happening in their fishery, but also understanding that these countries are trying, they have other things to that, that they're focused and they just may not have the, the people, the resources to be able to accomplish, uh, an annual type of reporting. Right. It, it, it is, it is true to that as well. The other, the other thing is it really helps to, or this is part of the goal, is to, um, ensure that the biggest subsidizer subsidizes those with the broadest shoulders burden the most, you know, have the biggest burden from this agreement. Yes. So, just to go a few stats that might help the, uh, you know, the, the listener on this, we talked about 22 billion US dollars a year is provided in harmful fishery subsidies.

33:50 Across the whole world. But when we look at kind of how that breaks down, who's providing it, you know, the top 10 are providing about 70% of the top 10. You know, countries are providing about 70% of all that. So that's, uh, China, the eu, the us, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, um, I don't remember that. I, I think that's about the right order, right? So 70% is provided by those, by those 10 entities. Some of those are actually developed nations, although they won't be able to, uh, benefit from the special and differential treatment. Right. And then even within that, so you have, so you have 10, let's call 'em like the richest countries, providing most of the subsidies. When you're looking even within that, about, uh, 90% of that is then going to the, to the large scale fishing fleet.

34:37 So the biggest boats often fishing, you know, um, furthest away from shore, hardest to kind of monitor control. Um, and then even when you, you know, there's so many layers to this. And then below that, we found about, um, you know, recent paper we did, we found that about, um, 20 to 37% of all those harmful subsidies are actually being given to vessels, not even fishing their own waters. So it's often the EU or China, for example, will be subsidizing vessels that are fishing elsewhere, generally in, um, Africa or Oceania. Um, you know, so, so there's a real inequality kind of baked into how 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 because, you know, as, as we've just said there, 10 countries account for, you know, 70% of all of it. So it's kind of to also to put the emphasis on like who this agreement should really be targeting. And it's those the biggest subsidizes. Yeah. Yeah. That's not to say that that harm can't be done, you know, by spending a l less money. Uh, it's just that, you know, when you look at it on a global scale, which as a wt, you know, is interesting kind of global trade and systems. Yeah. That, that's how, how it's done. And I think this is really important when we, when we talk about this type 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. Like they, this a, it's a very important aspect to their pride, uh, to be part of a, of a, a global sort of agreement, a, a global organization, uh, to say, Hey, you know, we're participating in all these things. That's something that I've realized when it comes to policy and, and to these, these. Being part of these large organizations or these large agreements is it's, it's a prideful thing. We're a part of this, we're part of the Paris Agreement. We're a part of the WTO, and, and we're abiding by the rules of the, of, of this, these organizing bodies to say, Hey, let's, let's do this thing. So when it, when an agreement like this comes out. Uh, you know, it's important for like, we can, it's, it's not like we, I mean, you can use it as like a name and shame of like, these, these countries haven't ratified this yet.

36:51 Like, why haven't they ratified it? But it's also, it's like you can say, Hey, look, like if you want to really be a part of this WTO. Incorporating this agreement into your, into your laws not only benefits your fishery, but also benefits like for the, the long-term aspect of your fishery. Um, so I, I think that's a, a really good point to, to hammer home that I want to, to get across is because of this. Countries are, are, have a little bit more incentive to be a part of this agreement, especially, you know, some of the top 10 that you mentioned just earlier, that, that are providing the most harmful, uh, subsidies, the most amount of harmful subsidies. But I think there's also like some really cool things, although we've, we've identified already some loopholes, potential loopholes that countries can get a get through.

37:33 But I really like that, uh, the subsidies that enable, uh, phishing on unregulated. High seas. Like you, you can't do that. So this is really interesting 'cause I'm working on this story for, I, I mentioned it to you before we recorded that, uh, for the, for the next episode. And, and one of the things that I found is like, they're using sar, which is like a, a type of radar, like satellite radar that identifies like the presence of fishing boats. You know, they, they know what these fishing boats look like and the SAR can really identify these. They come and look up like black dots or, or, or black objects. So you can identify. Which, and using that in the combination of a number of other things, AI a IS and stuff, you can identify which boats are in the high seas and like they shouldn't be in the high seas.

38:19 And, and eventually you can get where they're from if they're part of the a IS program. And you can get, so like, I feel like this, there's a lot of potential in that last, or the, the third thing that you said in terms of the pro prohibitions, um, especially as like, if you're found on the un, like on the high seas and it's, you know, we know it's unregulated, we know it's, it's difficult. Then you can remove those subsidies from that, from that vessel or that company that that monitors that vessel or, or works that fleet or vessel, just like that. Like you have the capability to do that if you incorporate and ratify this, this agreement. I feel like there's a benefit in that if, you know, people start to use that now there are limitations with this, this technology, because it only passes 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 to enforce these types of subsidies on the high seas, which traditionally has been impossible to, to navigate and, and to really monitor. Right? Yeah. And, and just, you know. Important as well to say a lot of these fish, this fishing on the unregulated high seas. So this is, you know, generally any fishing that's outside of a regional RFMO or what we call regional fisheries bodies RFPs, um, you know, it's not illegal. It just, it just, there there are no laws that regulate it. Right. So, so, you know, so the, the, they're not necessarily not supposed to be there.

39:44 It is just that mm-hmm. There isn't any rules that regulate it. Um, you know, I'm not sure how, what proportion of fisheries are unregulated on the high seas. It's kind of mm-hmm. I generally work on fisheries that have regulation. Yeah, of course. Um, but I think, um, you know, and I, I was thinking about this the day, like, I, I, I, I think there could be a real, this could be a strong article in terms of, um, you know, maybe future fisheries. You know, I hear a lot about. The potential of like miso fisheries, these are mm-hmm. I think as I understand it, these high seas fisheries of, of fish stocks are, are below the surface a bit, I think. Mm-hmm. And they're generally like this, you know, uh, I hate to say untapped resource, but they're, they're not really targeted at the moment.

40:24 Yeah. From my understanding, you know, initially when I looked at, you know, these fisheries, the cost of them, you know, for the return is so low that it looks like the only way they might be able to establish these fisheries is. As kind of, um, you know, experimental fisheries or I assume by heavily subsidizing it. So, so I wonder if this article that stops that actually also might be quite useful for preventing, you know, uh, these, these experimental fisheries being, you know, trying to, trying to, trying to target this, this, this, uh, this, um, you know, resource that's currently not being targeted, but because it's so inefficient, it needs subsidies. You know, maybe this might prevent things like that.

41:06 I don't know. Yeah. As I said, I think throughout all of this, you know, it's really gonna be around, and this is what we want wt O members to focus on now, is like, start implementing it. Show us like, you know, how are we gonna make sure that this actually has some impact and, and starts to, you know, remove or redirect these harmful subsidies. And I think, you know, seeing really, because the texts, as you said at the beginning, when it might have been off, off count, off mic, you know, some of it's a bit vague and it's, you know mm-hmm. Some of these especially legal texts. You know, you almost need a qualification in, in how to read legal text to, to, you know, and there's all these footnotes and, and, you know, 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. Let's see what this does over time. And you know, maybe in two or three years when we can see a change in how subsidies are provided. And then ultimately, hopefully that will start leading into, you know, more sustainable fisheries ideally, or more equitable fisheries, you know, as, as well, hopefully. Yeah. It's interesting 'cause you, what you mentioned there is like being transparent and, and identifying what subsidy is given out for, for what you know, in terms of fisheries. Um, I was just actually gonna look it up being like. I don't even know, like I live in Canada, I don't even know what subsidies are given. And to a lot of these, these, uh, industries, we don't know how many, like what's given for how much money is given, what companies or, or parts of the industry like get more than than others.

42:37 What do we get back from it? Uh, that's, I feel like there, that. Information. I'm hoping that information is out there, you know, as, as a government, 'cause it should be transparent. But sometimes I, I, you know, based on your smile, you know, just being like that probably isn't, isn't readily available to, to your average sort of citizen who, who might want to know. And maybe there's like, I know like. With, with Canada, we get like freedom of, of information act, so you can submit a freedom of Information Act if you want to know specific data, uh, that they have to abide by. And usually it's a bit of a crap shoot. I know journalists do do that quite a bit. Um, this, that, that information is usually not readily available, I assume, right?

43:18 Yeah, it is. It's, you know, patch it best. Obviously cer certain countries or certain kind of groups are much better at this. You know, I'm, I'm based in, or was based in the European Union. I'm in the uk, but the European Union are, are kind of, you know, they're, they have, they have incredible kind of fiscal management. You know, you can find out a lot of information about, about the provision of the finance of funding, uh, particularly for the Fisher Sector, not, not everywhere's like that. I think part of the issue as well is the format of how these subs might be provided. You know, it's generally quite relatively straightforward to find direct transfers of, you know. This fishing fleet or this individual vessel got money to put in a brand new engine.

44:00 You know, stuff like that is relative. There's always a paper chain. It's more the indirect subs or, um, you know, one of the, one of the subs I work quite a bit on is, uh, fuel tax concessions, which sadly won't be kind of picked up by this agreement. But what that is, is basically we all pay tax for fuel when we go to the, you know, to the pump to fill up your, the gas in your car. Um. You know, most are pretty, I would say all phishing industries don't have to pay tax on fuel generally, or they pay a very reduced rate of tax. Right. And so that's the subsidy, right, because you've reduced the cost of, of, of, of phishing by reducing the cost of mm-hmm. You know, the arguments around it may be valid or may not, you know, around competition or like to, uh, makes sense, shield them from fuel, price hikes, things like that.

44:46 But regardless, like it's a, it is a subsidy, but it's one that isn't generally. Uh, you know, there's no paper trail for that. And actually we've worked with governments for where we've modeled what is the cost of that, and they then used our modeled estimate as like, cool, this is the fuel tax con concession that we provide. Because they just haven't, you know, they haven't done the work now of how much fuel is used by the industry every year. What's the reduction in cost per liter, you know, and things like that. So, so hopefully, you know, we'll see with this transparency article. What information the governments do have, like and, and what they don't because right. Not all subs are, are, are, are born equal, as it were.

45:27 No, exactly. Exactly. And I, I think it's important to, to identify that and, and, and to understand that. And I think it's great. Um, you know, you being a, you know, coming from a science background and, and you know, working with policies, seeing agreements like this, do you automatically identify, okay, this is where we need to direct our research in the future to help. With this agreement, like from an Oceana perspective, when you look at this agreement, what are you looking at for in the future of how this, this will shape the future? Is this gonna have, like, do you think this is gonna have a, I guess the first question is, do you think this is gonna have a big impact on the fishing industry worldwide?

46:15 Just this agreement, not like, you know, steps later. I think it will, but, and, and we'll get onto those, um, habits for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. And I, I think it will, because this is the first legally binding agreement on fishery subsidies, like we now have Yes. Rules that say, you know. They, they even recognize like, you know, certain subs are bad. Yeah. And we need to stop providing them and redirect them. Like I think that is a, is a, is a bit of a, you know, a sea change. And, and even because there was, that was a debate, you know, quite a while ago. Hasn't been from, I don't think for the last five, six years as they've really been sitting down and trying to negotiate this text.

46:55 So I think it is gonna have a big change. Will this. Fish one, you know, from my reading of it, result in a, in a significant reduction in harmful fishery subsidies. You know, next year, maybe not. And I think because of some of these, um, caveats, you know, some of these loopholes, the fact that it doesn't quite, you know, a third of, uh, the world's fish catch is made by countries that haven't yet ratified it. You know, so when you start looking at that and taking out the little bits that aren't quite covered yet. You know, it starts to reduce. But having said that, as, as we said at the beginning, like, we do celebrate this, I think it is important. I think it's a really important platform to build off, you know, and, uh, as I've said two or three times now, I think we're gonna learn a lot more as this starts getting implemented.

47:42 Um, you know, I think I, I potentially see a role for, as in and other entities is in trying to hold. You know, the governments where we operate accountable, you know? Mm-hmm. Asking for that transparency, looking for the receipts and the, the evidence of, you know, okay, you're sub, like, are you subsidizing this Overfish stock? You know, if yes, are you gonna stop that? Or like, what's your evidence that the stock is rebuild? You know, so trying to use this as a tool to kind of say, you know, you are now legally bind, you ratified this, you negotiated it first, then ratified it. Like let, let, let's, let's end to this with, you know. Kind of honesty and, and really trying to actually, you know, adhere to the letter, the spirit of the agreement rather than mm-hmm.

48:25 You know, maybe trying to find these loopholes. So yeah, I think it is gonna have a big impact in that sense, in the sense that, you know, it's the first real tangible step, you know, to 25 years of talking and, you know, maybe this would happen. Like we now have something that we can hold up. It's in force. Uh, you know. Yeah. And we now have, as I said, the next thing four years to, to, to get the, the rest of the agreement, to make it in the WTOs own words, to make it comprehensive. Right, right now from, uh, you know, for, for ratification, so there's, people can sign on that they want, they, they like the agreement, but then they have to ratify it. That means they have to actually, once they ratify it, that means they're putting in laws in their own, like they're, they're incorporating the, the components 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, uh, what can people do to help? That ratification like to help countries, like their country, their own country, to sign on to that ratification. So for instance, I live in Canada. I want my country to ratify this as an individual. What can I do to ensure that this country, like my country, ratifies this deal? Yeah. I mean, thankfully Canada and as a Canadian as well has ratified it, so that's good. But if we're in a country, yeah, prior to that. You know, we are members and there's, and there's dozens of members of this coercion called the Stop Funding Over Fishing Coalition.

49:56 And, you know, certain, certain colleagues in that have been doing really tireless work on trying to push nations and work with nations and, and their delegation at the, at the WTO in Geneva to try and get this, even to just get the text agreed, you know, the, the individual words on it, but part of what they do as well as work with, uh, local CSOs, local NGOs to try and. You know, campaign or advocate in those particular countries. So I, I, I, you know, it may not be easy, but I think maybe first step would be check out, stop funding of fishing. See who their membership is, if there's members from your country and trying to see, you know, do they have campaigns on, on fishery subsidies or, or, you know, um, letters that you can sign to, to get sent to your politicians.

50:43 And if not, like, you know. Anybody can contact, I hope in most, you know, country of the world can contact their politician and say like, this is an important issue. What is happening? Or like, your environmental minister, your fisheries minister, you know, what are we doing about the WTOs subsidies agreement? Um, yeah. And as you say, I forget, um, I can't calculate off the top of my head, but it's, I think we've got 112 ratifications. Did you say 12 outta 1 66? Yep. Yeah, so there's a good, you know, 50. What's that? 54. 55 never do mass live, but, so there's 54 member states that haven't, that members that haven't yet done it, some of those will be 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. It doesn't do inland fisheries, you know, in lakes or rivers or agriculture. Right. So some of those landlocked countries won't be ratifying it or probably won't. Um, yeah. Yeah, so there's still, there's still, and there's some, you know, I think there's two out of the top 10 subsidizes still to ratify and some, some important players in there. So, yeah. So there's a lot of kind of work still to be done, even on ratification. But, you know, I think the focus especially, um, well, especially in those 112 countries is on implementation, you know, getting this, getting this thing up and running. Yeah. 'cause that takes a while too. Like it's not just, there's, there's the one of ratifying it, but then you actually, the country actually has to put it into place, into 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. You know, they actually have to put out those transparent, uh, reports. They have to, uh, tell people, you know, their citizens of like, this is how we're gonna go forward. That takes a long time. Government works slow, we know that. And, and it, and it takes a while. Yeah. Um, you know, I like to. You know, the, the, the, the idea of talking to your, your local member of Parliament for, for Canada and the u and, and the UK was, we have members of Parliament or your government representative to, to sort of be like, Hey, where are we on this? Like, you know, they, they need to report to us that being like, hey, like, you know, we're like, this is what I know. I know we ratified as, as Canadians, but where do we go from here? Like, like, you know, how does this, how does this proceed, you know, and make sure that they, it's on the top of their priority list, you know?

52:57 Yeah. Uh, because that's gonna be, and remember this is. This is taxpayer's money, right? Yeah. Like that, that, that, that definition we had at the beginning of what is a subsidy, it's public money being, being, being transferred directly into private sectors. So, you know, I, I, I think that we have a right to know where it's going. Mm-hmm. Who it's going to and, and what it's being used for. What or what. It's incentivizing. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, I think that's really important. Dan, this has been absolutely amazing. I really appreciate you coming on. I know it was a bit of a last minute thing that we, we kind of put together here and, and I do really appreciate you coming on and, and breaking down this agreement. Uh, you know, this is, I feel like I, I think you agree this is a great step forward.

53:40 Um, we still have a lot of work to do in, in making sure that illegal phishing is done and we're not. Funding illegal phishing, um, and, and overfishing. And so, we'll, we'll put people onto that, uh, stop funding, uh, overfishing website so people can get access. We'll, also, I'll put in the, in the description all the material that Oceania has come up with, uh, you know, based on, on this agreement, but also on your phishing campaigns as well, overfishing campaigns as well. Um, you guys have been so great to us, uh, to provide all this information. We, we, we really appreciate you coming on. Look forward to having you back on to explain more of, of. Phishing and, and what the new technologies and everything like that that's coming into play. Yeah. And hey, hopefully it's not 25 years until the next.

54:22 Yes. You know, fish the next, the next agreement on fishery subsidies. Right. So, absolutely. Yeah. Be great. Yeah. Well, I think it'll be nice to see like a, maybe potential amendments to these ones as we start to learn how countries are reacting or even not reacting, uh, to some of these things. And, and I think like there's the part of, you know, the ratification. The putting into the legal framework, acting on it, but making sure they're acting on it. And that's where I feel like supporting organizations such as Oceania, uh, in, in, in wherever country you, you live in and wherever they, wherever you guys work, I know we have an Oceania Canada here into supporting those organizations into, you know, working with the government. Not just pressuring them, but working with the government to make sure that they're, uh, implementing these, these, this agreement and, and, uh, parts of the agreement that are part of their league.

55:08 Legal framework. So I think that's, that's a really important thing as well. And we appreciate Oceania for doing that. So, uh, Daniel, thank you so much for, for coming on. I'd love to have you back on. Yeah. Cheers, Andre. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Dan, for coming on once again to break down this important agreement. I feel like I said at the beginning, this is a turning point in the way we are looking at how to manage subsidies with fisheries and to ensure that we are not going to subsidize overfishing or illegal unreported and unregulated fishing. This is an important aspect to every country and 112 OUTTA 166. Members of the WTAO have ratified it, including my own country, Canada, which is great, but there are still some big fishing nations who have not 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. This is a work in progress, of course, as this agreement has come out, and this has taken a long time to put together, but there still needs to be. More stringent rules as we go forward, but we're gonna see how this plays out. Initially, conservation is done in steps. It's not done all at once. We have not solved over fishing with this agreement, but we are moving in the right direction, and I think that's really important. So I'm very happy that Dan was able to come on. He actually contacted me to say. We need to talk about this on your podcast. You ready? I'm like, yes, absolutely a hundred percent. Let's do it. And so he came out and did that, and I really appreciate him doing that. So that's always great to have Dan and Ocean in the work they do to share this type of information, to break it down for us.

56:38 We really appreciate Ocean and Dan for doing this. So thank you so much to them for coming on the podcast and I wanna thank you for listening. If you have any questions or comments, let me know in the comments below. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're watching the audio or listening to the audio version, I should say. I really appreciate you listening to the audio version, 'cause we started with audio. We're gonna continue with audio always. And so if you wanna get ahold of me, you can do so Using Instagram. Just DM me at how to protect the ocean that's at how to protect the ocean. Or you can go on the website, go speak up for blue.com/contact. Fill out the form. It goes right to my personal email. Love to have a chat with you about that, and that's the episode for today. I want to thank you so much for joining me on another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

57:22 I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nord Strong and Free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.