Miks Euroopa Liidu ohtlikust ei tasu alahinnata

Samal ajal kui Euroopa Liit tänitab USA kallal Kyoto protokollile allakirjutamata jätmise pärast tegeleb meie armas liit tsentraliseerimisega, mille üks jubedamaid näiteid on kalanduspoliitika:

As the first batch was sorted, we watched in mounting horror as Mate, Francois Bruneel with Steve McDaid and Gary Hugman, the enormously impressive crew, threw marketable fish into red plastic bins – not unlike laundry baskets – sweeping the rest, undersize and unmarketable fish along the belt. Lubricated by a constant flow of sea water, they were flushed through a small opening in the hull, back into the sea, dead and dying, from whence they had so recently been plucked.

That was the horror. From that first, bulging net, the harvest of the sea, we estimated that at least ninety percent of the catch was dumped – or "discarded" in the clinical jargon of the trade. By far the bulk of this waste was immature plaice, thousands of baby fish, some only three or four inches long, tiny, perfect replicas of the few remaining adult fish which would be landed later that day and sold for the dinner plates of the nation.

Võiks ju loomulikult arvata, et selle massimõrva taga on üliagarad kalamehed, kuid nagu selgub peab tegeliku põhjust otsima Brüsselist:

As we grouped in the tiny mess room after the nets had been "shot" for the second time, supping mugs of scalding tea, Skipper Dell explained. It was the nets he was forced to use. They had been specified by the EU commission in regulations under the Common Fisheries Policy, perversely – to the utter frustration of all the fishermen of Fleetwood - as a "conservation" measure, supposedly designed to aid "cod recovery" in the Irish Sea.

If you wanted logic, Dell continued, there was none – none that he and his colleagues could discern.

Aga tegelikult on siin loogika olemas, sellele lihtsalt ei ole mingit pistmist keskkonnakaitsega vaid hoopis lobitöö ja rahaga:

Dell believes that the mesh size was set at 80 mm to accommodate the fleet of huge Belgian beam trawlers, sometimes as many as 40-50 at a time, which exploit the waters. They are not after plaice, but the more valuable sole. And, with a 110 mm mesh, you cannot catch sole. They can curl themselves up to swim through the larger mesh, even fish the size of a dinner plate getting clear.

With massive, 4,000 horsepower vessels (the Kiroan, itself a powerful boat, has a mere 470 horsepower), dragging huge, 12 metre beam trawls at an amazing 6-7 knots (Dell tows at 3 knots), they hoover up everything, digging up the sand and mud to get at the precious, buried sole. We’ve followed up behind them, Dell said, and everything is dead.

The ultimate irony, in the "cod protection area", is that the Belgians have a by-catch of cod, caught accidentally as they pursue the sole, 30 times larger than the entire Fleetwood quota. And when we drew the attention for the authorities to that, says Dell, they started dumping the cod overboard, so that it is not declared. They don’t even want the fish.

Antud juhtum on musternäidis sellest, milleni viib EL-iga kaasnev tsentraliseerimine - mis juhtub siis kui otsuseid võtavad vastu bürokraadid, kes ei tea kohalikest tingimustest midagi, kelle võime ja tahe informatsiooni koguda on piiratud ning on selle tõttu eriti vastuvõtlikud igasugusele lobitööle. Soovitan seda artiklit lugeda kõigil, keda huvitavad Brüsselis tehtud otsuste tagajärjed reaalses maailmas. Artikkel on pikemapoolne aga kui on huvi selle vastu, mis toimub, siis soovitan lugeda ka postitust Euroopa Liidu tegevuse kohta arenguriikide kalastuspiirkondades, kuhu näiliselt suurte summade eest ostetakse kalastamisõigusi laastavate tagajärgedega kohalikele:

Yet, according to a report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), issued on 27 December 2001, "Developing countries which open up their waters to foreign fishing fleets may lose far more than they gain". The report goes on to note that over-exploitation resulting from such deal is "driving people into ever greater poverty" as well as "robbing the marine environment of a key link in the food chain".

Argentina was cited as an example of how devastating can be the economic impact, the report assessing that the current EU agreement had actually cost the country $500 million whereas, had they developed their own fisheries, they could have made $5 billion. This is reinforced by the Namibian experience, where the country refused to enter an agreement with the EU and developed from scratch an industry which is worth $10 billion.

...

Courtesy of a British Channel 4 TV documentary on the Mauritania agreement, we know that the agreements actually cost lives. Over 200 local fishermen have been killed, some deliberately run down by EU fishing boats. Others have been lost as they have been forced further out to sea in frail craft in order to catch the fish left by the industrial fishing fleets.

Yet all of this seems to have passed by the Commission. It sponsored its own report in 1999, which concentrated on the economic benefits to Community countries. This is a strange slant, considering that much of the funding comes from the external (i.e. development) budget.

In fact, this is the biggest scandal of all. Most of the money paid from Community funds goes to the political elites of the countries concerned. Very little of it reaches the indigenous fishermen who are effectively robbed of their livelihoods. Essentially, money from EU taxpayers - including the poor - is being paid to the rich of third world countries - robbing the poor to feed the rich!

Sõnad nagu "häbematult julm","jube" ja "alatu" tunduvad kuidagi väetid, et kirjeldada seda, mis tegelikult toimub seal, kuhu enamus Euroopa pealinnade luksustes mõnulevaid, samas targutavaid ajakirjanike ei jõua. Kahjuks ei mõju eelpool kirjeldatud kalanduspoliitika katastroofiliselt ainult rannikutel elavatele inimestele vaid ka sisemaal elavatele, kes peavad nüüd toitu otsima kalaturu asemel hoopis vihmametsadest:

Now, further evidence has come to light which points up an unexpected side effect of the EU’s barbarous practice. Summarised in the National Geographic and on the BBC, a report in today’s Science magazine gives evidence that these third country deals are also driving some of the bushmeat trade in Africa.

Dr Justin Brashares and colleagues from the universities of California-Berkeley, US, and Cambridge, UK have told the Science magazine that consumption of bushmeat in Ghana rises whenever the supply of fish in the country falls. The region is blighted by overfishing, much of it by EU-subsidised trawlers, says Dr Brashares. "We took annual estimates of wildlife abundance and compared them with per capita fish supply and found that years of below average fish catches had greater declines of wildlife on land."

Brashares' team could also see this link played out in meat markets, where more bushmeat was being traded in years of low fish catches; and on game reserves where poaching increased at times of poor fish supply. What is more, this link was most obvious in coastal communities.

The possibility that over-fishing off West Africa might be having an impact on land biodiversity has been suspected for some time - but this is the first clear evidence to tie the two together.

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