Fixing the world's fisheries

What would it take to fix the world's fisheries? A report from the United Nations Environment Program sketches the global outline. The result? Fixing fisheries pencils out as a good investment, and real people will reap the rewards.

This is good stuff.

From the UNEP Green Economy report:

Under a Green Economy response, aimed at reducing the global fishing effort to a 'maximum sustainable yield', an estimated reduction of excess capacity is required, because current capacity is 1.8 to 2.8 times what is needed.

These reductions could be achieved through careful targeting of the most ecologically damaging surplus capacity, so that of the estimated 20 million vessels and 35 million fishers deployed in this sector, the livelihoods of those that are artisanal and poor are treated equitably.

The report estimates that an investment of between US$220 to US$320 billion world-wide is required and equal to around US$8 billion a year but that this investment would:-

* Raise total income of fishing households, including those engaged in artisanal fishing, from US$35 billion to around US$44 billion a year;

* Increase annual profits for fishing enterprises from US$8 billion to US$11 billion annually;

* Increase the marine fisheries catch from about 80 million tonnes to 112 million tonnes a year worth US$119 billion annually versus the current US$85 billion.

"Discounting this flow of benefit over time at three per cent and five per cent real discount rates, gives a present value of benefit from greening the fishing sector of US$1.05 trillion and US$1.76 trillion, which is three to five times the high-end estimate of US$320 billion as the cost of greening global fisheries," says the preview report.

What are we waiting for, let's get started!

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