Environment News – Tax Havens Help Over-Fishing, Deforestation

 

Over-Fishing and Deforestation – Why Isn’t It Stopped? Tax Havens

over-fishing protected by tax havens

When I read about the gross over-fishing that goes on around the world, I wonder why the owners of the ships aren’t prosecuted. The same goes for the companies that cut down old-wood forests like in the Amazon basin – why does it keep happening?

Well, now I know part of the answer – and of course, it’s not simple.

The fishing ships are a network of mostly unregulated fishing vessels operating under “flags of convenience”. The deforestation of the Amazon is also funded by companies with one thing in common – billions of dollars used in countries that are tax havens.

They’re causing huge environmental destruction – all for profit. And it’s really, really difficult to catch the companies responsible.

A new report shows that a full 70% of vessels involved in illegal fishing are registered in tax havens.

Which Countries Are Tax Havens?

Countries such as the Bahamas, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico and Jersey are well-known havens. Less well-known are countries such as Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland which are also regarded as tax havens.

Of course, it’s not illegal to use a tax haven. But the financial secrecy means that it’s difficult to trace the activities and their environmental impacts.

You can read the full article below.

70% of vessels implicated in illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing are registered in tax havens, report finds

Money channelled through secretive tax havens has been used to fuel deforestation in the Amazon and illegal fishing around the world, racking up a heavy environmental toll but leaving few ways for businesses to be held to account.

Billions of pounds worth of finance has travelled through countries internationally recognised as tax havens, and has been traced by researchers to activities that contribute to environmental destruction, such as growing soy and beef in deforested areas of the Amazon, and expanding a network of largely unregulated fishing vessels operating under “flags of convenience”.

The amounts traced are likely to be just a fraction of the total amount channelled through tax havens that ends up funding environmentally destructive behaviour, according to Beatrice Crona, co-author of a report published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Victor Galaz, of the Stockholm Resilence Centre at Stockholm University and lead author of the study, added: “The use of tax havens is not only a sociopolitical and economic challenge, but also an environmental one. While the use of tax haven jurisdictions is not illegal, financial secrecy hampers the ability to analyse how financial flows affect economic activities on the ground, and their environmental impacts.”

The study found that more than two thirds of foreign capital directed to Brazil’s soy and beef sectors between 2000 and 2011, as recorded by the Central Bank of Brazil, was channelled through tax havens. Soy and beef farming have been associated with deforestation in the Amazon.

During the period studied, almost $27bn of foreign capital was transferred to key companies within these sectors, and of this about $18.4bn came through tax havens, with the Cayman Islands most commonly used.

Crona, executive director of the Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the availability of the data from Brazil’s central bank for the period in question was unusual, and shone a brief light into what is likely to be a much greater global business.

Continue reading…

Original source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/13/tax-havens-shielding-companies-deforestation-overfishing


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