The majority of subsidies given to Baltic Sea fisheries and agriculture have a negative impact on the health of the sea, a new WWF report says.
Some 14 billion euros of taxpayers’ money is distributed to these sectors in the region every year. But according to WWF at least 84 per cent of this cash pile is being used in an environmentally harmful way or instead of serving the public good is supporting purely profit related activities.
A previous Swedish Environment Protection Agency showed that the minimum cost to reach the environmental targets for eutrophication and fisheries in the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan is calculated to be approximately €2.6 billion per year.
“This shows that we have enough money to save the Baltic Sea,” says Lasse Gustavsson, the CEO of WWF Sweden. “Just the money provided to the agriculture and fisheries sectors in the form of misdirected subsidies equals four times the amount of money needed to save the Baltic Sea.”
According to WWF the most urgent measure to solve the fisheries crisis is to bring down fishing over-capacity to a sustainable level. Today subsidies are used both to scrap vessels and to support increased fishing. The report shows that the cost to bring down over-capacity would be less than zero – it would be a net gain for society.
In order to put agriculture policy on a more sustainable track the WWF vision states the importance of working in partnership with environmental NGOs, farmers’ representatives and others to develop a new Common Environment and Rural Policy for implementation in 2019.
