OECD Review of Fisheries 2025

Fisheries support can impact the health and productivity of fish stocks thereby affecting the environmental and socio-economic performance of fisheries. Fish stocks are a renewable, shared and mobile resource, and are central to all the potential benefits fisheries can deliver to society. Healthy and productive fish stocks can provide nutritious food, livelihoods, trade opportunities and income for public coffers as well as support the provision of ecosystem services and help fight climate change.

When stocks are overexploited, they require greater levels of fishing effort to harvest a given quantity of fish – hence more fuel and more vessel and fishers’ time, reducing profitability and increasing the emissions intensity of fishing (see, for example, (Kristofersson, Gunnlaugsson and Valtysson, 2021[1]; Driscoll and Tyedmers, 2010[2]; Parker et al., 2015[3]; Waldo and Paulrud, 2016[4])). Similarly, more fishing effort per unit of catch would also increase the potential for bycatch of untargeted species, pollution and ecosystem damage through abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded gear. Hence, the impacts of support policies on fish stocks also largely drive their impact on fishing profitability, on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and on biodiversity and ecosystems more generally. As a result, reforming support policies to reduce the risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing can also improve the health of the ocean, fishing profitability, and its resilience to climate change and other risks.

For all these reasons, reforming fisheries support has been a strong focus of the international community, including the OECD Fisheries Committee. The consensus for prioritising such reform can be seen in the international commitments to reform fisheries subsidies made in SDG 14.6, and in the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS) as well as in and in relation to Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework Target 18 (see Box 1.1 in Chapter 1). And, increasingly, the potential of reforming support to also reduce fishing emission intensity is discussed in relation to decarbonisation commitments. To underpin all these commitments, it is essential to understand how and why fisheries support policies can pose risks to fisheries sustainability and socio-economic outcomes.

This chapter presents a framework developed by the OECD Fisheries Committee to help governments assess the risk that their support policies may present for fish stock health and productivity and identify reform priorities. It then analyses the support policies recorded in the Fisheries Support Estimate (FSE) database (discussed in Chapter 6) within that framework to assess the progress made in moving away from potentially harmful fisheries support. The chapter concludes with recommendations to accelerate reform in view of achieving key internationally agreed-upon targets.

Some forms of government support contribute towards ensuring the health of fish stocks, and thereby the productivity and resilience of fisheries to various shocks, including climate change. Other policies, such as those that focus on short-term socio-economic objectives – for example fuel or vessel subsidies – can have unintended detrimental effects on stocks if they end up encouraging unsustainable fishing.

The OECD has developed a framework to assess the risks of unsustainable fishing posed by different types of support policy while accounting for the context in which support is granted (Figure 7.1). The framework sets out the inherent level of risk posed by different types of support policies based on how directly a type of support policy can affect the incentives for fishers (this is detailed in the next section, and summarised in the left column of Figure 7.1). This is then combined with additional information about the broader policy context, including the effectiveness of management systems, the status of fish stock health and the design of the support policy, which can mitigate the actual risk that one specific policy encourages unsustainable fishing (this is also further discussed in the next section and summarised in the right column of Figure 7.1). The framework, therefore, provides a pragmatic method for assessing support policies and identifying reform priorities.

The framework defines risk in this instance as the risk support policies can have of encouraging unsustainable fishing in the absence of effective management, when stocks are not underfished and the design of support does not significantly restrict eligibility (hereafter “risk of unsustainable fishing”). The risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing is then classified into different levels based on how directly different policies create incentives to invest in fishing capacity, intensify fishing effort or engage in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) according to the findings of previous OECD analyses and the extensive body of research in this area (Box 7.1). The framework classifies fisheries support policies into four categories based on these criteria: high risk, moderate risk, uncertain risk and no risk.

However, the actual level of risk presented by any given support policy also depends on the policy context, which accounts for case-specific conditions with respect to management (i.e. how effectively regulations and enforcement control catch, effort and capacity), stock health (status of target stocks at the time a policy is implemented) and policy design (including eligible recipients and conditions for receipt), as each influences the ultimate performance and sustainability impact of a support policy. First, effective management and enforcement systems reduce the risk posed by policies by ensuring catch and effort are at an appropriate level and cannot increase beyond this, even where support may incentivise increases in effort and capacity.

Second, stock health at the time a support policy is implemented determines whether an increase in fishing effort is likely to be sustainable. Stocks that are already fully or over exploited cannot support increases in catch, while underfished stocks have the potential to produce higher levels of value and catch as effort increases to the optimal points, such as maximum sustainable yield or maximum economic yield. As long as the stocks remain underfished, support that increases capacity will not result in overfishing.

Finally, policies that target support to specific groups of fishers can also reduce the risk posed by support if they limit who is eligible to receive support and under what conditions. For example, if policy design restricts eligibility for support to vessels operating in effectively managed fisheries, or fisheries that only target underfished stocks, the risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing will be reduced, at least in the short to medium term. A comprehensive discussion of the framework and the work upon which it is based is available in the 2022 edition of the OECD Review of Fisheries (OECD, 2022[5]).Differences in policy context can mean that the level of risk posed by apparently similar policies differs considerably. Where there are differences in policy context between countries, for example significant differences in how much governments invest in sustainably managing and controlling their fisheries, similar policy mixes will result in different overall risks. For example, countries may report similar amounts of potentially high-risk support but if the policy context differs significantly between the two in terms of the effectiveness of management, the status of fish stocks or policy targeting, then the outcomes of the support will differ substantially. Hence, cross-country comparisons of policy mixes must always be interpreted with these nuances in mind.1

Unfortunately, in many cases, information on the policy context at the level of granularity required to determine the likely impact of specific support policies on fish stocks is not available. The OECD’s risk-based approach addresses the lack of policy-level context information by highlighting the risks of a policy when there is no effective fisheries management, for stocks that are not underfished, and which do not target sustainable and sustainably managed fisheries. This approach should be considered a worst-case scenario based on the inherent risk of a specific form of support.

This approach is useful to bring policymakers’ attention both to the policies that bear risks as well as to the elements of policy context they can put in place to reduce them. The approach is also justified by the general context in which fisheries are supported globally. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s statistics, the proportion of underfished fish stocks has followed a declining trend over the last half decade, accounting for only 11.8% in 2021 (FAO, 2024[8]).

When considered through the lens of the framework, almost half of support in the FSE database for the 41 countries and territories covered in this report presents a moderate risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing (45% of total FSE, or USD 4.87 billion) over the period 2020-22 (Figure 7.2).This is followed by support that presents no risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing, which accounted for 29% of total FSE (or USD 3.10 billion) and support with a high risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing which accounted for 20% (or USD 2.12 billion, in 2020-22). A minority of support was categorised as having an uncertain level of risk (6% of total FSE, or USD 0.63 billion).

Overall, the data paints a substantially different, and improved, picture from 2010-12, when most support was categorised as presenting a high risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing (44%, USD 4.93 billion, in 2010-12), and the proportion of support with no potential risk was 4 percentage points lower (25%, USD 2.73 billion, in 2010-12). However, while the proportion of high-risk support has fallen over the last decade, moderate risk support has grown at a comparable rate. This means that in 2020-22, at least 65% of support in the FSE database still presented some risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing. This is a step in a better direction but indicates that substantial scope for policy reform remains.

In the OECD Members, support presenting no risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing accounted for the greatest proportion of support over the entire period and in the most recent years (49% of total FSE, or USD 2.69 billion, in 2020-22). The mix of support has been relatively stable over the last decade. The main changes between 2010-12 and 2020-22 have been a 5 percentage point reduction in the proportion of support that can present a high risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing (to 8% of total FSE, USD 0.45 billion, in 2020-22) and a 5 percentage point increase in the proportion of support categorised as presenting no risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing, driven by spending on management. Support categorised as presenting a moderate risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing has consistently been the second highest in the mix for the OECD Members (34% of total FSE, USD 1.84 billion, in 2020-22), followed by uncertain (9%, USD 0.51 billion, in 2020-22) and then high risk.

In the non-Members, the risk profile has been largely dominated by a combination of support considered to have either a high or moderate risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing (representing a total of 90% of total FSE in 2020-22, almost equal to the 91% of total FSE seen in 2010-12). However, that total proportion of high and moderate risk support evolved from being skewed towards the high-risk side in 2010-12 (high at 73%, or USD 4.28 billion, and moderate at 18%, USD 1.10 billion) to one skewed towards the moderate risk side in 2020-22 (moderate at 58%, USD 3.03 billion, and high at 32%, USD 1.67 billion). Support assessed as presenting either no risk or an uncertain level of risk continued to account for low proportions of the total (no risk 8%, USD 0.41 billion, and uncertain 2%, USD 0.12 billion, in 2020-22).

The reduction in the proportion of support that is high risk is positive for the progression towards sustainable fisheries; however, the large growth in the proportion of policies that present a moderate risk is less so. The proportion of support categorised as having no risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing has remained low and has fallen in absolute terms (from USD 0.45 billion in 2010-12). Investment in management, monitoring, control and surveillance (MMCS) and stock assessment, i.e. no-risk support, to ensure that fisheries are effectively managed is critical for reducing the risk posed by forms of support that, in its absence, pose a high or moderate risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing.

Risk profiles vary greatly at the country level. Some countries and territories can be seen to have relatively low (or zero) levels of potentially high-risk support combined with high levels of no-risk support, while, in others, potentially high-risk support accounts for more than a third of all the support provided to their industry (Figure 7.3). In some cases, high proportions of potentially high-risk support are combined with very low levels of no-risk support, which indicates low public investment in the provision of activities such as MMCS, all essential for effective management and sustainable fisheries, and for reducing the risk that high-risk policies might effectively lead to unsustainable fishing.

Support that poses either a high or a moderate risk of encouraging unsustainable levels of fishing accounted for more than 50% of support in 15 countries and territories in 2020-22 (which together accounted for 66% of total FSE during the period). Progressing towards sustainable fisheries objectives implies a need to transition away from these forms of support, considering the case-specific policy context.

However, a considerable amount of high-risk support is being granted in the form of non-specific support to fuel that this chapter does not take into account as much of it is unreported to the FSE (OECD, 2022[5]). It should be highlighted that Croatia and Denmark voluntarily report non-specific support to fuel, something that is not done by many other countries and territories (Chapter 6). The inclusion of this information would improve transparency around the risks posed by fisheries support while also levelling the playing field for the countries that already report it.

This chapter provided an overview of the fisheries support policy mix across countries and time and identified policies that would benefit from a closer examination and potentially reform to avoid detrimental environmental impact. It shows there is significant potential for eliminating potentially harmful support and redirecting public spending to services that are key to ensure the sustainability of global fisheries, with added longer terms benefits for profitability and resilience to shocks. Specifically, governments are encouraged to:

• Invest in fisheries management and enforcement. Given the critical role effective fisheries management plays in preventing unsustainable fishing, particularly where support policies can create incentives to overfish, effective fisheries management is necessary for ensuring fisheries remain sustainable and productive. MMCS and scientific research that can benefit the overall sustainability of the sector and its resilience to shocks will be increasingly important in the context of the challenges climate change will pose to fisheries worldwide. What is more, in effectively managed fisheries, that are profitable and sustainable, the need for risky forms of support from government should be minimal.

• Move away from the most risky types of support policies. As no management system is perfect, all forms of support that are known to present a potentially high risk of encouraging unsustainable fishing should be actively avoided. Even in the presence of effective management, support such as for fuel, vessels and access to infrastructure increases incentives to undermine the system by lowering costs and facilitating the ability to fish at levels above what is ideal. In addition, fuel support has a low transfer efficiency, making it a highly ineffective method for supporting fisheries, in particular small-scale fishers (Martini and Innes, 2018[9]).2 Put simply, more of each dollar spent by governments would benefit fishers (higher transfer efficiency) and have a lower chance of acting against the sustainability of fish stocks, and fisheries, if lower or no risk forms of support were used instead of fuel support. The priority is thus to determine which policies potentially present a high risk and reassign support away from them towards lower risk support (such as management and enforcement or even income support targeted to fishers who need it most, with defined time frames to avoid expectations that it will become an ongoing form of income).

• Target support through the use of eligibility criteria to fisheries that harvest stocks demonstrated to be well managed, i.e. healthy, and fleets that are not over capacity. Such conditional provision of support is rarely, if ever, seen, but targeting support has two potential advantages. First, providing support to effectively managed fisheries (and forms of fishing) immediately reduces the risk posed by all forms of support. Second, it can create incentives for better management, enforcement and stewardship of resources, along with the climate benefits associated with reduced levels of effort.

• Begin linking data on support recipients, their fishing activities, and the sustainability of the fisheries they engage with for particular support programmes, where possible. While detailed data on the status of the stocks harvested by recipient fisheries and the management situation in each case are not readily available across all countries and territories, examining this kind of information would be beneficial to reform the programmes that might present the most risk and could also help fine-tune targeting while developing new schemes. The WTO AFS calls for greater transparency on recipients of support and the conditions in which they receive it, mandating countries to report information to the WTO at a granular level (Box 7.2). Compiling such information to comply with the WTO AFS reporting requirements would provide excellent input to support sustainability assessments.

• Increase transparency on policy design, notably for the support policies that fall under the uncertain risk category, would help better anticipate the risks they may pose to fish stock health and productivity and inform any need for reform.

[2] Driscoll, J. and P. Tyedmers (2010), “Fuel use and greenhouse gas emission implications of fisheries management: The case of the New England Atlantic herring fishery”, Marine Policy, Vol. 34/3, pp. 353-359, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2009.08.005.

[8] FAO (2024), The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2024, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, https://doi.org/10.4060/cd0683en.

[7] Hilborn, R. et al. (2020), “Effective fisheries management instrumental in improving fish stock status”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 117/4, pp. 2218-2224, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1909726116.

[1] Kristofersson, D., S. Gunnlaugsson and H. Valtysson (2021), “Factors affecting greenhouse gas emissions in fisheries: evidence from Iceland’s demersal fisheries”, ICES Journal of Marine Science, https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab109.

[9] Martini, R. and J. Innes (2018), “Relative Effects of Fisheries Support Policies”, OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers, No. 115, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/bd9b0dc3-en.

[5] OECD (2022), OECD Review of Fisheries 2022, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9c3ad238-en.

[3] Parker, R. et al. (2015), “Environmental and economic dimensions of fuel use in Australian fisheries”, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 87, pp. 78-86, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.09.081.

[6] Roberson, L. and C. Wilcox (2022), “Bycatch rates in fisheries largely driven by variation in individual vessel behaviour”, Nature Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00865-0.

[4] Waldo, S. and A. Paulrud (2016), “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in fisheries: The case of multiple regulatory instruments in Sweden”, Environmental and Resource Economics, Vol. 68/2, pp. 275-295, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-016-0018-2.