Tag Archives: World Bank

Privatizing the sea: How private corps stole the sea from the commons

Since 1945, when the US unilaterally asserted ownership of the continental shelf and parts of the high seas around its shores, much of the ‘blue commons’ has been converted into private property. In 1982, UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) endorsed the biggest enclosure in history, granting countries exclusive economic zones (EEZs) that extended 200 nautical miles from their coastlines. This set in train procedures and institutional mechanisms that have expanded privatisation and financialisation to all parts of the marine economy. It also cemented neocolonialism, granting ex-imperial countries such as the US, France and the UK millions of square miles around lands far from their shores — their so-called ‘overseas territories’. >click to read< 09:18

The Reason Renewables Can’t Power Modern Civilization Is Because They Were Never Meant To

Over the last decade, journalists have held up Germany’s renewables energy transition, the Energiewende, as an environmental model for the world. “Many poor countries, once intent on building coal-fired power plants to bring electricity to their people, are discussing whether they might leapfrog the fossil age and build clean grids from the outset,” thanks to the Energiewende, wrote a New York Times reporter in 2014. With Germany as inspiration, the United Nations and World Bank poured billions into renewables like wind, solar, and hydro in developing nations like Kenya. But then, last year, Germany was forced to acknowledge that it had to delay its phase-out of coal, and would not meet its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction commitments. It announced plans to bulldoze an ancient church and forest in order to get at the coal underneath it. >click to read< 21:49

Under the Global Pew Manipulation: The deep-sea fishing, a new geopolitical issue?

ted stevens fan clubA huge operation to geostrategic nature is conducted to confiscate vast maritime and ocean spaces for the exclusive benefit of American interests. Cette manipulation est relayée en France et dans le monde par des ONG en relation étroite avec les acteurs américains de cette entreprise. This manipulation is relayed in France and worldwide by NGOs closely with American actors of this business. Read more about the Pew influence and Ocean Grabbing here 15:38

Global Ocean Commission (Pew): Race to the bottom of the ocean must end

The human footprint on the ocean, from the shoreline to the deepest abyss, is growing.,,With agricultural land under threat from climate change, it has never been more vital to our long term food security that we combat chronic overfishing, illegal fishing and worsening pollution that are pushing fish stocks to the point of collapse. Read more here if you can stand it! 08:02

Taufen: Volksverdummung’s Alive and Well in Fisheries

The Germans call the stupefaction, misleading or brainwashing of the people ‘Volksverdummung’— which seems to be well-established in the seafood industry these days. It’s been largely ushered down the regulation-making aisles by a few greedy corporations and fishermen who feel entitled, and financially assisted by major conservation (allegedly) NGOs.

Especially in the Alaska zone, the Paradox of Plenty — the reflection of a Resource Curse, lives well, and profitably so for a few winners —and those winners continues to destroy thousands of jobs for captains and fishing crews. Certainly a few Congressmen settle for nickels in campaign contributions to ignore the rights of a majority of the People.

Especially when it comes to fisheries “Catch Shares” mentality (CS), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Alaska-focused North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) — despite access to information on global failures of privatizations of public resources — continues to betray a baffling ignorance of the subject matter under discussion.

Before I get into the dispossession of fisher family opportunities, incomes, wealth and rights caused by “Enclosure of the Commons” — privatization schemes such as catch shares — or into the abrogation of the promise that no American fisherman would be charged for the privilege rights to fish, and the postured shallowness of CS proponents who exploit fear and use disaster economic lies to exploit resources, why don’t we set up some thinking ground?!  Read more here 10:43

Banking on Wealth? by Menakhem-Ben Yami

Current trends in Western fisheries economics, as exemplified by the position of the World Bank, religiously promote free markets for fishing rights During the last decade, the World Bank (WB) has been showing an increasing interest in world fisheries. In 2005, the WB, along with key donors and stakeholders, created the Global Program on Fisheries (GPO-PROFISH) and in 2009, to amplify its work in fisheries, another global partnership with the fishing industry, the Alliance for Responsible Fisheries (ALLFISH). Read more here  13:37

The Corporate Take-Over of Fisheries Policy Making – Click Here

In the past couple of years a number of international conferences and gatherings of key policy makers, corporate representatives and international NGOs have taken huge strides in setting the global agenda in fisheries policy. A worrying pattern has begun to emerge: the interests of small-scale fisheries peoples are consistently sidelined as representative organisations are rarely invited and, if so, are barely listened to. This article will run through some of the most recent events, and documents how a corporate take-over of fisheries policy is taking place. Read more here 16:08

Is the World Bank among the prophets? – Menakhem Ben-Yami

A new 80-page World Bank report entitled ‘FISH TO 2030: Prospects for Fisheries and Aquaculture’ – available for free online on the World Bank and FAO websites – represents a global view of fish supply and demand generated by an improved International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT). Based on trends in the production of fishing and aquaculture and in fish consumption, it produced – with the help of a multitude of graphs and tables – projections of global fish supply and demand all the way to 2030. In 16 years from now, my younger readers will be able to see how good it was. The report,,, Read more here 07:16

Panel report sets best course for fisheries (and what a Panel it was!)

Taking the discussion to the world’s oceans, it would make sense, then, to see CEOs of seafood corporations — no strangers to addressing efficiency in their operations — collaborating with leading voices in conservation and environmental protection. The products of such a meeting of the minds would be extraordinary, assuming that these leaders in their respective fields could stand to be in the same room with each other for more than five minutes. (but why wouldn’t they, with the exception of Hilborn? These ENGO “Icons” are corporatist, privatizing parasites that understand the REAL buzzword: RETURN ON INVESTMENT) [email protected]   Report liked here – Global Partnership for Oceans 11:45

She’s back. Oregon to help World Bank fix nation’s ocean issues

environmental-watchdog[1]A World Bank panel is calling for public-private partnerships to improve the health of the world’s oceans. In a report released Wednesday, the panel convened by the World Bank’s Global Partnership for Oceans — an alliance of more than 140 governments, social groups, industry and other interests — encouraged greater cohesion between ocean users and a focus on holistic policy goals. more@sustainablebusiness 16:55

Insight: Comeback cod lessens gloom over emptying oceans

Just over six years ago, an article in the U.S. journal Science projected that all fish and seafood species, on current trends, would collapse by 2048. Read more here