Fishing
EU citizens “pay” three times for fishing – through prices, taxes to fund subsidies and environmental destabilisation. This costs them their way of life, their recreation and in many cases the future of their communities. These issues are still not dealt with when our politicians talk about reforming how we fish.
We need to learn to count correctly and properly value things that are not purely financial. While this may swim against the tide of today’s popular economic theory, the failures of the Common Fisheries Policy show clearly how neoliberal privatisation of the commons fails in its claims to be sustainable. Exporting the damage of our overconsumption by overfishing elsewhere is not the answer.
We need to define what “efficiency” is by asking what it is for. We cannot continue to confuse high level economic “efficiency” (which favours highly destructive, large-scale fishing) with what is good for fish, fishers and the rest of us – here and overseas. Instead we need to be efficient at living alongside oceans that are thriving and robust in their own right, from which we are able to harvest some food, rather than viewing them as a larder that we somehow have a “right” to exploit.
If voluntary agreements by industry were enough we would not be where we are now. We need good rules effectively enforced and based on reliable science from scientists and fishers working together.
