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The article calls on the World Trade Organization (WTO) to eliminate harmful fisheries subsidies to curb overfishing, biodiversity degradation and loss, and carbon dioxide emissions. Fisheries subsidies that cause harm include those that lower the cost of fuel and vessel construction, those that provide price support to keep market prices artificially high, and those provided to distant-water fishing fleets.

In 2010 world governments agreed to eliminate, phase out or reform incentives that harm biodiversity by 2020. Yet few governments have even identified such incentives, never mind taking action on them. While some subsidies are well studied, such as in fisheries and fossil fuel production, there is an urgent need for the conservation community to study the potential effects a broader array of subsidies have on biodiversity. In addition, we need a better understanding of who benefits from these subsidies. We term this pursuit 'subsidy accountability', which is crucial but challenging work crossing disciplines and government ministries. It requires ecologists, forensic accountants, and policy wonks, calculating and forecasting the positive and negative effects of subsidies and their elimination on biodiversity and vulnerable human populations. The Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services recently concluded that action on biodiversity loss requires transformative economic change; true action on subsidies is one step towards such change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the issue on overfishing subsidies in all fishing nations.

The magnitude of subsidies provided to the fishing sector by governments worldwide is immense—an estimated $35.4 billion USD per year. The majority of these subsidies may be impeding efforts to sustainably manage fisheries by incentivizing overfishing and overcapacity. Recognizing the threat these subsidies pose, the World Trade Organization has set a goal of reaching an agreement that would end fisheries subsidies that contribute to overcapacity, overfishing, and illegal fishing. However, negotiations have been hampered by uncertainty around the likely effects of reforming these subsidies. Here we present a novel method for translating a bioeconomic model into an interactive online decision support tool that draws upon real-world data on fisheries subsidies and industrial fishing activity so users can directly compare the relative ambition levels of different subsidy reform options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on high-seas fishing effort, costs and benefits. It refers to the economic benefits of fishing the high seas at the scale of individual fleets, globally and nationally. It states that large government subsidies enables fishing at the current scale while patterns of fishing profitability vary widely between countries.