Assessing fisheries subsidies

Abstract

Fisheries subsidies can contribute to overfishing and pose a challenge to effective fisheries management. In absence of reliable data on fisheries subsidies worldwide, modeling work quantifying subsidies contributes to a meaningful outcome in the ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations and fulfillment of UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14.6. We assess whether the methods used in the latest assessment of fisheries subsidies worldwide is applicable when estimating fisheries subsidies in Iceland (Sumaila, et al. 2019). Using Iceland as a case-study, we evaluate the accuracy of the resulting estimate of 162 million USD, total in 2018. These estimates are compared with estimates using official data. Also, a re-evaluation of the amount of fisheries subsidies for fishing access for Icelandic vessels is presented. Findings show that the methods used by Sumaila et al. (2019) overestimate the amount of fisheries subsidies in Iceland. These findings do not invalidate the approach used by Sumaila et al. (2019) to assess fisheries subsidies in general but show the estimates in the study are not a compelling result for Iceland. For a more general validation of the methodology its applicability needs to be tested more widely.