Rewilding the Sea - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 246

Every year the taxpayers of the European Union give €1.9 billion to
the European trawler companies ransacking the fisheries of West
Africa. 47 Once rich in a remarkable variety of species, the continental
shelf there has been stripped by foreign boats, destroying the ecosys-
tem as well as the livelihoods of local fisherfolk, whose boats and
impacts are much smaller. Fish is an essential source of protein for
communities in West Africa, but the foreign fishing fleets have wrecked
many of the stocks on which they depend. One estimate suggests that
the volume of unwanted fish discarded dead or dying by a single
trawler on a single voyage in these waters is equivalent to the annual
consumption of 34,000 people. 48 Ninety per cent of the licence fees
the trawler companies would otherwise have paid to exploit these
stocks is provided in the form of subsidies by the European Union and
European governments. I wonder how many taxpayers believe that
this is a good use of their money.
An investigation into a £63 million illegal fishing racket in Scotland
discovered that a government body, Seafish (which 'supports all sec-
tors of the seafood industry'), took a £434,000 cut. 49 Seafish is funded
by a levy on the fish landed in the United Kingdom. It admits that it
was aware that the Scottish fish were illegally caught, but, after con-
sulting its lawyers, it continued to collect its fees. Chris Middleton of
Seafish told me there was 'no need' to hand the money back to the
government, and that 'there's been no call to do so'. Green campaign-
ers claim that Seafish tries to undermine their efforts to prevent
overfishing and that it defends destructive fishing practices against
reform; the organization denies these charges. While other public
bodies have been shut down or trimmed by the government, Seafish
remains uncut and unreformed.
European fisheries help to supply Japan, whose government appears
unmoved by the status of the species the country imports. Scarcity
appears to stimulate its market. Charles Clover's film The End of the
Line presented evidence suggesting that the electronics company Mit-
subishi, which controls 40 per cent of the world market for bluefin
tuna, has been stockpiling frozen carcasses, which can be sold at many
times their current value when the species becomes commercially
extinct. The company denies this.
When an international meeting in Doha tried to ban the trade in