All countries need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions drastically in the middle of this century if Paris Agreement targets are to be reached. Credit: Bigstock

By Busani Bafana
BREMERHAVEN, Germany, Nov 8 2017 (IPS)

Climate change is altering the ecosystem of our oceans, a big carbon sink and prime source of protein from fish. This is old news.

Scientists say despite knowing enough about climate change, humankind is failing to turn the tide on climate change and the window of opportunity is fast closing. The sooner politicians listen to science, the faster can they commit to cutting global carbon emissions.“Wouldn’t it be a great achievement if the age of human dominance on earth goes down in history as an era of rethinking and changing behaviour?” --marine biologist Ulf Riebesell

Carbon emissions are increasing but our willingness to do something about them is not, scientists say.

As global leaders gather for COP23 which opened this week, the need to raise global ambitions to cut carbon emissions and put the world on a cleaner, more sustainable path, has never been more urgent.

Climate change projections point to increasing extreme weather, rising temperatures, droughts and floods. Seas and oceans – our biggest lungs – are warming and reaching a saturation point to absorb increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Are the impacts of climate change witnessed now motivation enough for our politicians to do something about it?

“Many of these changes are in line with what has been projected for climate change and there is a debate currently going on among governments that the ambition needs to be strengthened, but this is only an assumption and we do not know yet,” Hans-Otto Portner, Co-Chair of the IPCC’s Working Group II and Head of research section in Ecosystems Physiology at the Alfred Wegener Institute, told IPS.

Portner expects the current round of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to show to what extent extreme events have changed the mentality of policy makers. Should we expect a radical shift in climate change positions at COP23?

“Climate change does not go away and its impacts will become more and more intensive so the pressure on policy makers to do something in the shorter term will be increasing,” Portner said. “It is really about those countries that are not much affected at the moment where there is this inertia and where maybe the awareness is large enough. Then you have individuals that do not follow the obvious insight from scientific information but rather follow their own beliefs. As a citizen you can only hope that these individuals will lose influence over time.”

Warming climate, cooling ambitions

There is no shortage of political influence for more ambitious actions on reducing carbon emissions and addressing climate change. It is however, peppered with attention-grabbing deniers like US President Donald Trump, who has triggered the process for the US to exit the Paris Agreement.

It is clear that the world knows enough about climate change than it did over the last century ago, but actions taken to date are insufficient, Portner said blaming the inertia on technological uncertainty. For, instance, he said the European car industry has taken a long time in establishing alternative engines despite many years of talk about electric vehicles.

Under the climate change agreement reached in 2015, global leaders committed to lower carbon emissions and cap global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius to about pre-industrial level. They also pledged to ensure a lower 1.5 degrees of warming to keep the earth sustainable for life. Scientists worry that political ambitions are still weak.

With the start of the 6th IPCC assessment cycle, pressure is on to validate the Paris Agreement at whose core is the world’s ability to adapt and reduce the impacts of climate change.

Acknowledging that defining climate change thresholds remains a challenge, Portner said all countries need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions drastically in the middle of this century if Paris agreement targets are to be reached.

“The current world climate report indicates clearly that net zero emissions are a precondition for limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. However, reducing CO2 emissions alone may not be sufficient,” Portner observed. “Net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere would have to contribute. This is already technically possible but the challenge is to develop and implement respective technologies at a larger scale.”

A recent report by the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington-based research group says more than 55 countries – accounting for 60 percent of global emission- have committed to peaking their emissions by 2030. While this is good, global emissions need to peak by 2020 to prevent dangerous warming levels, the report urged.

Acting as a gigantic carbon sink, oceans take up about a third of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activities. However, when absorbed by seawater, the greenhouse gas triggers chemical reactions, causing the ocean to acidify, scientists say. While on the one hand, the ocean’s CO2 uptake slows down global climate change on the other, this absorption affects the life and material cycles of the ocean and those who depend on it.

The German Research network, Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification (BIOACID) has just concluded an 8-year extensive research on ocean acidification involving a team of more than 250 scientists from 20 German institutions. The research indicates that ocean acidification, warming and other environmental condition are impairing ocean life and compromising ecosystems services provided by oceans.

Fish off the menu

Ocean acidification reduces the ocean’s ability to store carbon and this threatens marine ecosystem that supports global fish stocks.

Research by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel shows that ocean acidification and warming will affect the availability of fish and global fish stocks. Besides, over fishing is a global problem though it is unevenly distributed.

“Overfishing is not necessarily an ecological catastrophe but its economically stupid and is unfair,” says Gerd Kraus, director of the Thunen-Instiute of Sea Fisheries in Hamburg. “Science is needed to make informed choices, for example, advising governments on the sustainable management of fish stocks.”

Fish are the primary source of protein for one billion people globally, primarily in developing countries. The loss of coral reefs that provide habitat and coastal protection will affect aquaculture and fish harvests.

“The future of this planet depends on us,” says Ulf Riebesell, a marine biologist at GEOMAR and Coordinator of BIOACID said, adding that, “Wouldn’t it be a great achievement if the age of human dominance on earth goes down in history as an era of rethinking and changing behaviour?”

But change is hard as it is slow. According to BIOACID in adopt a more sustainable lifestyle and economy, political influence is needed in regulating the phase out of fossil fuels.

Stop fumbling on fossil fuels

According to Felix Ekardt, Director of the Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy in Leipzi, fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, which a 2017 landmark study says kills 9 million people, more than those killed by war, AIDs, hunger and malaria combined.

“Both (GHG and air pollution) are not only drivers of climate change but also cause ocean acidification,” Ekardt said. “Knowledge of natural scientific facts on sea and climate alone however does not trigger sufficient motivation in society, businesses and politics to reduce their emissions….The usual emissions-intensive lifestyle in industrialised countries and increasingly in developing countries has to be put on the spot.”

Arguing that shifting problems will not solve them, said ocean acidification and climate change are prime examples of truly global problems. BIOACID research calls for inducing a fast phase-out of fossil fuels as one of the options for effective ocean acidification policies.

“The most effective mechanism for that is to define clear political steps to eliminate fossil fuels used for power, heating, fuels and industrial use (such as fertiliser) from the market by implementing a mechanism for quantity control.”

Gebru Jember Endalew, Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group, calls COP23 a vital step to set a clear rulebook for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. He bemoaned that LDCs and other developing countries cannot take ambitious actions to address climate change or protect themselves against its impacts unless all countries outdo the pledges on the table.

“As the 47 poorest countries in the world, the LDCs face the unique and unprecedented challenge of lifting our people out of poverty and achieving sustainable development without relying on fossil fuels,” Endalew said.

In the Turks and Caicos, the government is searching for new ways to manage the conch and lobster populations. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Apr 28 2017 (IPS)

Caribbean scientists say fishermen are already seeing the effects of climate change, so for a dozen or so years they’ve been designing systems and strategies to reduce the impacts on the industry.

While some work on reef gardens and strategies to repopulate over fished areas, others crunch the data and develop tools designed to prepare the region, raise awareness of climate change issues and provide the information to help leaders make decisions.As the oceans absorb more carbon, the region’s supply of conch and oysters, the mainstay of some communities, is expected to decline further.

In December 2017, the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) secretariat, with funding from the UK government, announced a Climate Report Card to help formulate strategies to lessen the impact of climate change on regional fisheries.

“The CRFM is trying to ensure that the issue of climate change as it relates to the fisheries sector comes to the fore… because the CARICOM Heads of Government have put fish and fishery products among the priority commodities for CARICOM. It means that things that affect that development are important to us and so climate change is of primary importance,” said Peter Murray, the CRFM’s Programme Manager for Fisheries and Development.

The grouping of small, developing states are ‘fortifying’ the sectors that rely on the marine environment, or the Blue Economy, to withstand the expected ravages of climate change which scientists say will increase the intensity of hurricanes, droughts, coastal sea level rise and coral bleaching.

In its last report AR5, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported: “Many terrestrial, freshwater and marine species have shifted their geographic ranges, seasonal activities, migration patterns, abundances and species interactions in response to ongoing climate change,” patterns that are already being noted by Caribbean fishers.

In an email to IPS, Murray outlined several initiatives across the Caribbean that ,he says are crucial to regional efforts. The Report Card, which has been available since March, will provide the in-depth data governments need to make critical decisions on mitigation and adaptation. It provides information covering ocean processes such as ocean acidification; extreme events like storms, surges and sea temperature; biodiversity and civil society including fisheries, tourism and settlements.

In addition, the 17-members of the CRFM agreed to incorporate the management of fisheries into their national disaster plans, and signed off on the Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy for the fisheries sector. 


“It means that anything looking at climate change and potential impacts is important to us,” Murray says.

The IPCC’s gloomy projections for world fisheries has been confirmed by a 2015 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report indicating that for the last 30 years, world fisheries have been in decline due to climate change. In the Caribbean, reduced catches are directly impacting the stability of entire communities and the diets and livelihoods of some of the region’s poorest. Further decline could devastate the economies of some islands.

But even as climate change is expected to intensify the effects of warming ocean waters, pelagic species could avoid the Caribbean altogether, bringing even more hardships. So the regional plan is centred on a Common Fisheries Policy that includes effective management, monitoring and enforcement systems and tools to improve risk planning.

In addition to the disaster plan and its other activities, the Community has over time installed a Coral Reef Early Warning System; new data collection protocols; improved computing capacity to crunch climate data; an insurance scheme to increase the resilience of fishing communities and stakeholders; as well as several tools to predict drought and excessive rainfall.

Worldwide, three billion people rely on fish as their major source of protein. The industry provides a livelihood for about 12 per cent of the world’s population and earns approximately 2.9 trillion dollars per year, the WWF reports. With regional production barely registering internationally, the Caribbean is putting all its efforts into preserving the Blue Economy, which the World Bank said earned the region 407 billion dollars in 2012.

In the coming weeks the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, known regionally as the 5Cs, has coordinated and implemented a raft of programmes aimed at building systems that will help the region cope the effects of climate change.

Through collaboration with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the 5Cs has been setting up an integrated network of climate and biological monitoring stations to strengthen the region’s early warning mechanism.

And as the oceans absorb more carbon, the region’s supply of conch and oysters, the mainstay of some communities, is expected to decline further. In addition, warming sea water is expected to shift migration routes for pelagic fish further north, reducing the supply of available deep sea fish even more. Added to that, competition for the dwindling resources could cause negative impacts of one industry over another.

But while scientists seek options, age-old traditions are sometimes still pitted against conservation projects. Take an incident that played out in the waters around St. Vincent and the Grenadines a few weeks ago when whale watchers witnessed the harpooning of two orcas by Vincentian fishermen.

The incident forced Prime Minister Ralph Gonsavles to announce the end of what was, until then, a thriving whaling industry in the village of Barouille. For years, government turned a blind eye as fishermen breached regional and international agreements on the preservation of marine species. The continued breaches are also against the Caribbean Community’s Common Fisheries Policy that legally binds countries to a series of actions to protect and preserve the marine environment and its creatures.

On April 2, five days after the incident, Gonsalves took to the airwaves to denounce the whaling caused by “greed” and announce pending regulations to end fishing for the mammals. The incident also tarnished the island’s otherwise excellent track record at climate proofing its fishing industry.

Murray’s email on regional activities outlines SVG activities including the incorporation of the regional strategy and action plan and its partnership with several regional and international agencies and organisations to build resilience in the marine sector.

Over in the northern Caribbean, traditions are also testing regulations and international agreements. In Jamaica, the Sandals Foundation in association with major supermarket chains has launched a campaign to stop the capture and sale of parrotfish for consumption.

Scientists say that protecting the parrot is synonymous with saving the reefs and mitigating the effects of climate change. And further north in the Turks and Caicos, the government is searching for new ways to manage the conch and lobster populations. While trade is regulated, household use of both, sea turtles, and some sharks remain unregulated; and residents are resistant to any restrictions.

And while many continue to puzzle about the reasons behind the region’s climate readiness, scientists caution that there is no time to ease up. This week they rolled out, among other things, a coastal adaptation project and a public education and awareness (PAE) programme launched on April 26 in Belize City.

The PAE project, named Feel the Change, is funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Project (J-CCCP) public awareness programme. Speaking at the launch, project development specialist at 5Cs Keith Nichols pointed to the extreme weather events from severe droughts to changes in crop cycles, which have cost the region billions.

“Climate change is not just sea level rise and global warming; climate change and climate variability is all around us,” he said.

Fishing boats crossing the Chacao Channel off the coast of the Greater Island of Chiloé in Chile’s southern Los Lagos region. Credit: Claudio Riquelme/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Aug 17 2015 (IPS)

Latin America should assume a position of global leadership by adopting effective measures to protect the oceans, which are threatened by illegal fishing, the impacts of climate change, and pollution caused by acidification and plastic waste.

“The whole world is lagging in terms of effective measures to protect the oceans, and Latin America is no exception,” Alex Muñoz, executive director of Oceana – the world’s largest international organisation dedicated solely to ocean conservation – in Chile, told Tierramérica.

But, he added, “We hope the region will take on a leadership role in this area, creating large protected marine areas, eliminating overfishing and creating better systems to combat illegal and unreported fishing.”

The perfect occasion for that, he said, would be the second international Our Ocean Conference, to be held Oct. 5-6 in Valparaiso, a port city 120 km northwest of Santiago, Chile.“We only have a few years to curb the deterioration of the ocean, especially of the fish stocks, and these conferences help us accelerate marine conservation policies with a global impact.” -- Alex Muñoz

In the conference, 400 government representatives, scientists, members of the business community and environmental activists from 90 countries should “commit to carrying out concrete actions to tackle the grave threats that affect the oceans,” Chile’s foreign minister, Heraldo Muñoz, told Tierramérica.

“The big global themes should be addressed from a broad, inclusive perspective,” the minister said.

The central pillar of the global system for governance of the oceans is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), adopted in 1982, to be completed with a treaty to govern the mostly lawless high seas beyond national jurisdiction, as the U.N. General Assembly decided in June.

But, the foreign minister argued, “as a complement, we see as indispensable initiatives making possible a more detailed and direct analysis of the efforts that governments are making to protect this valuable resource.”

The first edition of the international conference on oceans, held in 2014 in Washington, gave rise to alliances and voluntary initiatives for more than 800 million dollars, aimed at new commitments for the protection of more than three million square km of ocean.

In Valparaíso, meanwhile, the participating countries will report the progress they made over the last year and undertake new commitments.

“These meetings generate healthy competition between countries to make announcements that otherwise wouldn’t be made,” said Oceana’s Alex Muñoz.

“We only have a few years to curb the deterioration of the ocean, especially of the fish stocks, and these conferences help us accelerate marine conservation policies with a global impact,” he said.

He added that since the 2014 conference, “many governments have been motivated to create large marine parks or to sign accords to fight illegal fishing, like the New York United Nations accord, which hadn’t been ratified for a number of years.”

He was referring to the U.N. accord on the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, signed in 1995.

Chile, he pointed out, is one of the countries that signed the agreement after the first Our Ocean Conference.

In this year’s conference in Valparaíso “we hope important announcements will be made on the creation of large new protected marine areas,” said the Oceana director, who added that Chile, as host country, “should set an example with a large marine park in the Pacific ocean.”

Threatened riches

Oceans cover more than70 percent of the planet’s surface, but only one percent of the world’s oceans are protected. Between 50 and 80 percent of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface, and 97 percent of the planet’s water is salty, according to U.N. figures.

Phytoplankton generates about half of the oxygen in the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and the vast variety of highly nutritious products provided by the oceans contributes to global food security.

Fisherpersons in Duao cove in Chile’s central Maule region. The degradation of the world’s oceans is a threat to the livelihoods of the more than two million small-scale fishers in Latin America. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

A study published in April by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that the oceans conceal some 24 trillion dollars of untapped wealth.

Oceans are also an inspiration for artists and for poets like Chile’s 1971 Nobel Literature prize-winner Pablo Neruda (1904-1973).

In the poem “The Great Ocean” he wrote: “If, Ocean, you could grant, out of your gifts and dooms, some measure, fruit or ferment for my hands, I’d choose your distant rest, your brinks of steel, your furthest reaches watched by air and night, the energy of your white dialect downing and shattering its columns in its own demolished purity.”

But the WWF study warns that the resources in the high seas are rapidly eroding through over-exploitation, misuse and climate change.

Latin America, where five of the world’s 25 leading fishing nations are located – Peru, Chile, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, in that order – is not free from these dangers.

In Chile, 16 of the 33 main fisheries are in a critical situation due to over-exploitation, according to a government report.

Climate phenomena threaten large-scale anchovy fishing in Peru, the world’s second largest fishing nation after China.

Illegal fishing, meanwhile, is jeopardising some species of sharks, like the whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus), found along Central America’s Pacific coast, as well as the Patagonian toothfish or Chilean seabass (Dissostichus eleginoides), and sea cucumbers (Holothuroidea).

Foreign minister Muñoz said illegal fishing is a 23 billion dollar industry – “very close to the amount moved by drug trafficking.”

To this is added the severe problem of pollution from plastic waste faced by the world’s oceans. In 2010 an estimated eight million tons of plastic were dumped in the sea, killing millions of birds and marine animals.

Plastic represents 80 percent of the total marine debris in the world’s oceans.

Ocean acidification, meanwhile, is one of the consequences of climate change, and its effects could cause major changes to species and numbers of fish living in coastal areas over the next few years.

The foreign minister stressed that these conferences must continue to be held, due to “the urgent need to protect our seas and to follow up on government commitments and the progress they have made, while they pledge to carry out further actions.”

At this year’s conference, he said, the main focuses will include the role of local island communities and philanthropy at the service of marine protection and conservation, and there will be a segment on governance, exemplified in the system for the regulation of the high seas.

He also announced that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the creator of the initiative, confirmed a third edition of the Our Ocean Conference, to be held once again in Washington in 2016.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Fishermen use basic wooden canoes to set nets off the coast of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Economies that are dependent on fisheries will be hit hard by warming oceans. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Kitty Stapp
NEW YORK, Jul 3 2015 (IPS)

If global carbon dioxide emissions are not dramatically curbed, the world’s oceans – and the many services they provide humanity – will suffer “massive and mostly irreversible impacts,” researchers warned in Science magazine Friday.

The report said that impacts on key marine and coastal organisms and ecosystems are already detectable, and several will face high risk of impacts well before 2100, even under a low-emissions scenario of warming below two degrees C.

“These impacts will occur across all latitudes, making this a global concern beyond the north/south divide,” the report said.

Twenty-two leading marine scientists collaborated in the synthesis report . They stress that warming and acidification of surface ocean waters will increase proportionately as CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere. Warm-water corals have already been affected, as have mid-latitude seagrass, high-latitude pteropods and krill, mid-latitude bivalves, and fin fishes.

Ocean acidification is especially dire for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and people that rely on specific types of fisheries or organisms for their survival.

Ten years ago, only a handful of researchers were investigating the biological impacts of ocean acidification. Whilst their results gave cause for concern, it was clear that more measurements and experiments were needed.

Around a thousand published studies later, including this latest in Science magazine, it has now been established that most if not all marine species will suffer in a high CO2 world, with serious consequences for human society.

The world’s oceans have absorbed nearly a third of the CO2 produced by industrialisation since 1750 and over 90 percent of the additional heat.

As a result, the report says the chemistry of the seas is changing faster than at any time since a cataclysmic natural event known as the Great Dying 250 million years ago.

And as atmospheric CO2 increases, protection, adaptation, and repair options for the ocean become fewer and less effective.

“The ocean has been minimally considered at previous climate negotiations. Our study provides compelling arguments for a radical change at the U.N. conference (in Paris) on climate change,” said Jean-Pierre Gattuso, lead author of the study.

Scheduled for Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, COP21, also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, will, for the first time in over 20 years of U.N. negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below two degrees C.

It is expected to attract close to 50,000 participants including 25,000 official delegates from government, intergovernmental organisations, U.N. agencies, NGOs and civil society.

However, even under a scenario of less than two degrees of warming, many marine ecosystems would still suffer significantly, the report says, calling for immediate and substantial reduction of CO2 emissions.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Grenadian fishermen prepare to head out to sea. They say they have been catching less fish and their livelihoods are threatened by climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
PALMISTE, Grenada, Apr 27 2015 (IPS)

Henry Prince has lived in this fishing village for more than six decades. Prince, 67, who depends on the sea for his livelihood, said he has been catching fewer and fewer fish, and the decrease is taking a financial toll on him and other fisher folk throughout the island nation of Grenada.

I heard about the climate change but never paid too much attention towards it,” Prince told IPS, adding that “we don’t catch jacks as before.”

Jacks, a small fish widely used by the fishermen as bait, are also fried and eaten by poor families for whom they are an inexpensive source of protein.

Over the last few years, fisher folk have not been catching the jacks, which are usually found in abundance around the month of November. Due to the scarcity of jacks, fishermen have been forced to import sardines from the United States to use as bait.

Grenada’s Agriculture, Land, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Roland Bhola believes the dwindling numbers of fish in the country’s waters are a direct result of climate change.

“Our fishermen are reporting less and less catches in areas where there was once a thriving trade,” Bhola said.

“We have been able to associate that with the issues of climate change … the destruction of our coral reefs and other ecosystems like mangroves,” he said.

“The catch is one day good, one day bad as far as I am looking at it,” Ralph Crewney, another fisherman, told IPS.

“For the last few months we hardly catch anything. Last June, it was just at the last moment that we made big catches.”

Grenadian fishermen Henry Prince (right) and Ralph Crewney see beachfront living as a virtual birthright, despite the risks posed by climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Crewney, 68, has been living on the seashore for close to 20 years. He noted that in recent times the sea is getting a lot closer to his small shack. But he has no immediate plans to move.

“I feel comfortable here because I like to be away from the noise,” he explained.

Other families in the area are now thinking about relocating to communities in hilly areas but are reluctant to move too far from their source of livelihood.

Fishing families in the Caribbean see beachfront living as a virtual birthright, with an alarming 70 percent of Caribbean populations living in coastal settlements.While storms and beach erosion have long shaped the geography of coastal environments, rising sea levels and surge from more intense storms are expected to dramatically transform shorelines in coming decades, bringing enormous economic and social costs.

In the CARICOM region, the local population is highly dependent on fish for economic and social development. This resource also contributes significantly to food security, poverty alleviation, employment, foreign exchange earnings, development and stability of rural and coastal communities, culture, recreation and tourism.

The subsector provides direct employment for more than 120,000 fishers and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services.

Experts say that while storms and beach erosion have long shaped the geography of coastal environments, rising sea levels and surge from more intense storms are expected to dramatically transform shorelines in coming decades, bringing enormous economic and social costs.

Scientists and computer models estimate that global sea levels could rise by at least one metre (nearly 3.3 feet) by 2100, as warmer water expands and ice sheets melt in Greenland and Antarctica.

Global sea levels have risen an average of three centimetres (1.18 inches) a decade since 1993, according to many climate scientists, although the effect can be amplified in different areas by topography and other factors.

On Apr. 16, delegates attending a one-day National Stakeholder’s Consultation here urged the authorities to re-establish the National Climate Change Council as the island moves to strengthen measures to deal with the impact of climate change.

They said while Grenada had made progress on dealing with climate change and the environment, it still has some way to go to become climate resilient and to develop the capacity to implement climate resilience actions.

The one-day consultation was jointly organised by the World Bank and the Grenada government.

A government statement issued after the consultation said that the re-establishment of the Council will help “drive the climate change agenda of integrating climate change at the national planning level, the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation” as well as monitoring and reporting.

Grenada’s Environment Minister Roland Bhola says the small developing country has very high vulnerability to climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

The Climate Investment Fund (CIF) Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR) recently approved a 10.39-million-dollar grant funding for a Caribbean pilot programme for climate resilience.

Grenada along with St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Dominica, Jamaica and Haiti stand to directly benefit from this grant.

A 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the devastation wreaked on Grenada by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 “is a powerful illustration of the reality of small-island vulnerability.”

The hurricane killed 28 people, caused damage twice the nation’s gross domestic product, damaged 90 percent of the housing stock and hotel rooms and shrank an economy that had been growing nearly six percent a year.

Grenada and its tourism-dependent Caribbean neighbours are thought to be among the globe’s most vulnerable countries.

Scientists say the island has a high risk of being adversely impacted by climate change in several areas. These include coastal flooding due to natural disasters and storm surges. They also point to marine ecosystems being affected by increased ocean temperature, and increased freshwater run-off resulting in coral reef destruction and food chain interruption which affect fishing and tourism industries.

Over the last 25 years, the fragile Grenadian islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique have also been bombarded by storms, hurricanes, higher tides and sea surges.

This resulted in severe loss of mangrove vegetation along the coastline, beach erosion, damage to soil and serious threat to the local tourism industries which depend heavily on the pristine condition of the beaches and health of the marine life.

Meanwhile, as countries prepare to adopt a new international climate change agreement at the Paris climate conference in December, Bhola said Grenada is looking forward to the implementation with great anticipation.

“My country, Grenada, a small developing country, has very high vulnerability to climate change. A successful agreement for us therefore has to reduce the risks that we face from climate change and has to assist us in coping with the impacts on our country, our people and our livelihoods,” Bhola said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Coral reef ecosystem at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2015 (IPS)

The untapped riches in the world’s oceans are estimated at nearly 24 trillion dollars – the size of the world’s leading economies, according to a new report released Thursday by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Describing the oceans as economic powerhouses, the study warns that the resources in the high seas are rapidly eroding through over-exploitation, misuse and climate change.“The ocean feeds us, employs us, and supports our health and well-being, yet we are allowing it to collapse before our eyes. If everyday stories of the ocean’s failing health don’t inspire our leaders, perhaps a hard economic analysis will." -- Marco Lambertini of WWF

“The ocean rivals the wealth of the world’s richest countries, but it is being allowed to sink to the depths of a failed economy,” said Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International.

“As responsible shareholders, we cannot seriously expect to keep recklessly extracting the ocean’s valuable assets without investing in its future.”

If compared to the world’s top 10 economies, the ocean would rank seventh with an annual value of goods and services of 2.5 trillion dollars, according to the study,

Titled Reviving the Ocean Economy, the report was produced by WWF in association with The Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

After nine years of intense negotiations, a U.N. Working Group, comprising all 193 member states, agreed last January to convene an inter-governmental conference aimed at drafting a legally binding treaty to conserve marine life and genetic resources in what is now considered mostly lawless high seas.

Dr. Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s former Permanent Representative who co-chaired the Working Group, told IPS the oceans are the next frontier for exploitation by large corporations, especially those seeking to develop lucrative pharmaceuticals from living and non-living organisms which exist in large quantities in the high seas.

“The technically advanced countries, which are already deploying research vessels in the oceans and some of which are currently developing products, including valuable pharmaceuticals, based on biological material extracted from the high seas, were resistant to the idea of regulating the exploitation of such material and sharing the benefits,” he said.

According to the United Nations, the high seas is the ocean beyond any country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) – amounting to 64 percent of the ocean – and the ocean seabed that lies beyond the continental shelf of any country. 

These areas make up nearly 50 percent of the surface of the Earth and include some of the most environmentally important, critically threatened and least protected ecosystems on the planet.

The proposed international treaty, described as a High Seas Biodiversity Agreement, is expected to address “the inadequate, highly fragmented and poorly implemented legal and institutional framework that is currently failing to protect the high seas – and therefore the entire global ocean – from the multiple threats they face in the 21st century.”

According to the WWF report, more than two-thirds of the annual value of the ocean relies on healthy conditions to maintain its annual economic output.

Collapsing fisheries, mangrove deforestation as well as disappearing corals and seagrass are threatening the marine economic engine that secures lives and livelihoods around the world.

The report also warns that the ocean is changing more rapidly than at any other point in millions of years.

At the same time, growth in human population and reliance on the sea makes restoring the ocean economy and its core assets a matter of global urgency.

The study specifically singles out climate change as a leading cause of the ocean’s failing health.

At the current rate of global warming, coral reefs that provide food, jobs and storm protection to several hundred million people will disappear completely by 2050.

More than just warming waters, climate change is inducing increased ocean acidity that will take hundreds of human generations for the ocean to repair.

Over-exploitation is another major cause for the ocean’s decline, with 90 per cent of global fish stocks either over-exploited or fully exploited, according to the study.

The Pacific bluefin tuna population alone has dropped by 96 per cent from unfished levels, according to the WWF report.

“It is not too late to reverse the troubling trends and ensure a healthy ocean that benefits people, business and nature,” the report says, while proposing an eight-point action plan that would restore ocean resources to their full potential.

Among the most time-critical solutions presented in the report are embedding ocean recovery throughout the U.N.’s proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), taking global action on climate change and making good on strong commitments to protect coastal and marine areas.

“The ocean feeds us, employs us, and supports our health and well-being, yet we are allowing it to collapse before our eyes. If everyday stories of the ocean’s failing health don’t inspire our leaders, perhaps a hard economic analysis will. We have serious work to do to protect the ocean starting with real global commitments on climate and sustainable development,” said Lambertini.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Vendors at the fish market in Belize. Courtesy of the Fisheries Department Belize City, Belize.

By Zadie Neufville
KINGSTON, Mar 17 2015 (IPS)

Caribbean nations have begun work on a plan to ‘climate smart’ the region’s fisheries as part of overall efforts to secure food supplies.

The concept is in keeping with plans by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) to improve the “integration of agriculture and climate readiness” as the region prepares to deal with the impacts of climate change and the increasing demand for food.“With the projections, we're looking at almost total loss of our corals. For us in the Caribbean our reefs are important, not from the perspective of tourism, but from the perspective of livelihoods when you consider fisheries." -- Dr. Orville Grey

Olu Ajayi, CTA’s senior programme coordinator, told IPS in an email that climate-smarting the region’s aquatic resources will “enable the sector to continue to contribute to sustainable development, while reducing the vulnerability associated with the negative impacts of climate change”.

“Climate-smart fisheries require improving efficiency in the use of natural resources to produce fish, maintaining the resilience of aquatic systems and the communities that rely on them,” he noted.

The fisheries sector of the Caribbean Community is an important source of livelihoods and sustenance for the estimated 182,000 people who directly depend on these resources. In recent years, fishermen across the region have reported fewer and smaller fish in their nets and scientists believe these are signs of the times, not just the result of over-exploitation and habitat degradation.

“We believe the signs of climate change are already affecting our vital fisheries sector in the increase in seaweed events causing the loss of access to fishing grounds and increased frequency of coral bleaching events,” Peter A. Murray, Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) Secretariat’s Programme Manager, Fisheries Management and Development, told IPS.

Listing some of the predicted changes, including climatic variations that promote the spread of invasive species, as well as increased salination, Murray noted that climate change is also expected to impact traditional species and contribute to coastal erosion due to more frequent and devastating hurricanes.

In fact, the secretariat’s Deputy Executive Director Susan Singh Renton told reporters at the Caribbean Week of Agriculture last November that warmer seas could also push larger species to the north, making them less available to regional fishers. CRFM is the Caricom organisation charged with the promotion of responsible use of regional fisheries.

Two weeks after launching its Climate Smart Agriculture project at the 13th celebration of Caribbean Week of Agriculture in Paramaribo, Suriname in November 2014, the CTA began development of several initiatives. The programmes, they said would help the region to “tackle the impact of agriculture on small-scale producers” – among them small-scale fishers and fish farmers – in a way that will facilitate the construction of “resilient agricultural systems”.

The project came on the heels of the announcement of a Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy (CCCFP) and the CRFM Climate Change Action Plan. These are two of several proposals by Community organisations to monitor and regulate capture fisheries as well as implement common goals and rules on the adaptation, management, and conservation of the resources.

Ajayi pointed out that since 2010, the CTA has been working closely with regional agencies including the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (5Cs) and the CRFM to implement the Regional Framework for Achieving Development Resilience to Climate Change.

Timely, since some of the species most fished and traded by the region’s fishermen are already under pressure from over-exploitation, degraded habitats and pollution. The Queen Conch, the Caribbean Spiny Lobster, the Nassau Grouper and the Parrotfish are among a growing list of species under closer scrutiny for tougher regulations on their capture and trade. Climate change is expected to make the problems worse.

“The support is aimed at developing common regional policy platforms and advocating regional policy initiatives in regional and global forums; strengthening national capacities through training and other supports and conducting comparative analyses of issues on a regional and sub-regional basis,” Ajayi said.

Scientists agree that there is need for immediate action. Technical officer in Jamaica’s Climate Change Division, Dr. Orville Grey, told reporters recently at the Jamaica Observer’s weekly exchange: “If you look at what is happening with sea surface temperatures, you’ll see that we are losing our corals through the warming of the oceans.”

He continued, “With the projections, we’re looking at almost total loss of our corals. For us in the Caribbean our reefs are important, not from the perspective of tourism, but from the perspective of livelihoods when you consider fisheries”.

Murray pointed out that because the marine resources are shared, it is important that the Caribbean Community work together to implement supporting policies and agreements.

He noted, “The region has an action plan to address climate change in fisheries, but to be fully ready it has to be taken aboard by all stakeholders.”

There are also efforts to empower fisherfolk to access and share information that will enable them to participate in policy development at the local and regional levels. But fisherfolk are still not ready.

Mitchell Lay, coordinator of the Caribbean Network of Fisherfolk Organisations (CNFO), said, however, climate smarting is on the group’s agenda for 2015

Both governments and NGOs have upped their activities to protect the resources. But while the former has been slow to act at the national and regional levels, environmentalists are upping the ante by seeking protection for several species that are seen to be in need of protection.

Two years ago, U.S.-based WildEarth Guardian petitioned to have the Queen Conch listed as threatened or endangered under U.S. law. For Caribbean nations like the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Belize that depend on economically important species like conch and lobster, the ability to trade is critical to the local economies.

On Nov. 3, 2014 the NOAA denied the petition, but many believe regional trade of these species is on borrowed time, particularly as the effects of climate change grows.

“The CRFM Action Plan seeks to work towards a regional society and economy that is resilient to a changing climate and enhanced through comprehensive disaster management and sustainable use of aquatic resources,” Murray said.

He pointed to the five objectives of the plan, which among other things include actions to mainstream climate change adaptation into the sustainable development agendas of member states, and promoting actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and employing renewable and clean energy sources. Historically, however, the region has been slow to enact Community policies.

Key to successful climate smarting is the participation of the fisherfolk who have been the beneficiaries of several CTA-sponsored programmes to help them access information; assist them to become more efficient; and to enable them to engage in policy development at the local and regional levels.

The next steps are dependent on the implementation of relevant and necessary policies and the strengthening the legislation. Until then, fisherfolk and supporting institutions continue to wait.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The research team has been studying this relatively acidic coral reef in the Palauan archipelago. Seawater pH on this reef today represents acidification levels predicted for tropical western Pacific by the end of the 21st century. Credit: Tom DeCarlo, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

By Leila Lemghalef
NEW YORK, Feb 6 2015 (IPS)

A recent study suggests that one of the multiple threats to coral reefs contains both the problem and solution.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), based in Cape Cod, conducted a study highlighting multiple threats to coral reef ecosystems and also identifying a management strategy that could slow reef decline."Management of a local coral reef, in terms of limiting human nutrient supplies to that coral reef, can actually have real substantial effects over the next century." -- marine researcher Thomas DeCarlo

Coral reefs are animal organisms that are like sea castles, vibrant with algae and home to sponges, mollusks and creatures seeking shelter. In fact, 25 per cent of marine life relies on coral reefs as part of their habitat.

Coral reefs build their skeletons using limestone, or calcium carbonate. The increase of acid in the ocean due to excess carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere causes the carbonate ion to become less available. Coral reefs rely on carbonate to produce their well-cemented skeletons, which they are doing more slowly.

As a result, the natural equilibrium governing production–erosion of coral reefs has been disrupted in favour of erosion.

To add to the imbalance, the added component of ‘nutrients’ to water accelerates the rate of erosion 10 times.

The interaction between high levels of nutrients with acidity makes the effect of ocean acidification 10 times greater.

‘Nutrients’ refer here to pollution by humans on a local scale.

And herein lies the study’s seed of good news as it says in encouraging terms that “…people can take action to protect their local reefs. If people can limit runoff from septic tanks, sewers, roads, farm fertilizers and other sources of nutrient pollution to the coastal ocean, the bioeroders will not have such an upper hand, and the balance will tip much more slowly toward erosion and dissolution of coral reefs”.

Mark Eakin is coordinator of Coral Reef Watch, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Reducing erosion by tenfold is major,” he told IPS.

He also explained that coral reefs face both global and local threats, thereby requiring solutions at each level, regardless of whether the global stressors or the local factors, such as overfishing, are paramount (and in fact, both are severe).

“In addressing things like pollutant runoffs that contribute to the local issue of why ocean acidification can be so harmful, what you’re doing is you’re pointing to a local solution to a local problem,” said Eakin.

While the climate change remains a problem of planetary scale, requiring concerted efforts on a cross-national level, the plus-side of local problems is that they can be addressed on a local scale.

“And by doing that what you’re doing is making the reefs more resilient to climate change and ocean acidification. So that better helps them to survive, while we work on getting the global problems under control,” he said.

A good warning sign

Thomas DeCarlo is doing his PhD in the joint programme of oceanography between Massachusetts Institute of Technology and WHOI. He led the Woods Hole study.

In an interview with IPS, DeCarlo was asked the extent to which cleaning up waters locally could alleviate the overall strains on coral reef development.

He explained that local action could buffer or limit to some extent the global impact of ocean acidification, which is certain to continue over the next century.

“I guess the source of optimism is that whereas the CO2 ocean acidification problem is really truly global, and that’s a really big problem because reefs can’t really escape that, it’s such a global phenomenon that all coral reefs are going to be seeing this ocean acidification effect.

“But the nutrient problem from human nutrient addition is really a pretty local problem, in a lot of respects so, the optimism is that that can actually be limited and controlled on a local scale, so management of a local coral reef, in terms of limiting human nutrient supplies to that coral reef, can actually have real substantial effects over the next century,” he said.

There is an economic incentive that could help the political agenda bend to the needs of nature, with the total dollar value of coral reef services estimated in the billions annually in the U.S. alone.

Furthermore, coral reefs protect shorelines by absorbing storm energies and perform many other roles in the world as we know it.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The humble CREWS buoy hosts several instruments designed to measure conditions above and below the water, and keep track of these developing threats. Credit: Aaron Humes/IPS

By Aaron Humes
BELIZE CITY, Oct 20 2014 (IPS)

Home to the second longest barrier reef in the world and the largest in the Western Hemisphere, which provides jobs in fishing, tourism and other industries which feed the lifeblood of the economy, Belize has long been acutely aware of the need to protect its marine resources from both human and natural activities.

However, there has been a recent decline in the production and export of marine products including conch, lobster, and fish, even as tourism figures continue to increase.“What happens on the land will eventually reach the sea, via our rivers." -- Dr. Kenrick Leslie

The decline is not helped by overfishing and the harvest of immature conch and lobster outside of the standard fishing season. But the primary reason for less conch and lobster in Belize’s waters, according to local experts, is excess ocean acidity which is making it difficult for popular crustacean species such as conch and lobster, which depend on their hard, spiny shells to survive, to grow and mature.

According to the executive director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC), Dr. Kenrick Leslie, acidification is as important and as detrimental to the sustainability of the Barrier Reef and the ocean generally as warming of the atmosphere and other factors generally associated with climate change.

Carbon dioxide which is emitted in the atmosphere from greenhouse gases is absorbed into the ocean as carbonic acid, which interacts with the calcium present in the shells of conch and lobster to form calcium carbonate, dissolving those shells and reducing their numbers. Belize also faces continuous difficulties with coral bleaching, which has attacked several key sections of the reef in recent years.

Dr. Leslie told IPS that activities on Belize’s terrestrial land mass are also contributing to the problems under Belize’s waters. “What happens on the land will eventually reach the sea, via our rivers,” he noted.

To fight these new problems, there is need for more research and accurate, up to the minute data.

Last month, the European Union (EU), as part of its Global Climate Change Alliance Caribbean Support Project handed over to the government of Belize and specifically the Ministry of Forestry, Fisheries and Sustainable Development for its continued usage a Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) buoy based at South Water Caye off the Stann Creek District in southern Belize.

Developed by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it has been adopted by the CCCCC as a centrepiece of the effort to obtain reliable data as a basis for strategies for fighting climate change.

Dr. Leslie says the CREWS system represents a leap forward in research technology on climate change. The humble buoy hosts several instruments designed to measure conditions above and below the water, and keep track of these developing threats. The data collected on atmospheric and oceanic conditions such as oceanic turbidity, levels of carbon dioxide and other harmful elements and others are monitored from the Centre’s office in Belmopan and the data sent along to international scientists who can more concretely analyse it.

The South Water Caye CREWS station is one of two in Belize; the other is located at the University of Belize’s Environmental Research Institute (ERI) on Calabash Caye in the Turneffe Atoll range. Other stations are located in Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic, with more planned in other key areas.

According to the CEO of the Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute (CZMAI), Vincent Gillet, this is an example of the kind of work that needs to be done to keep the coastal zone healthy and safeguard resources for Belize’s future generations.

A report released at the start of Coastal Awareness Week in Belize City urges greater awareness of the effects of climate change and the participation of the local managers of the coastal zone in a policy to combat those effects. Several recommendations were made, including empowering the Authority with more legislative heft, revising the land distribution policy and bringing more people into the discussion.

“We need to be a little more…conscious of climate change and the impacts that it has,” Gillett said. He added further that the Authority expects and has the government’s support in terms of facilitation, if not necessarily in needed finance.

The report was the work of over 30 local and international scientists who contributed to and prepared it.

In receiving the CREWS equipment, the Ministry’s CEO, Dr. Adele Catzim-Sanchez, sought to remind that the problem of climate change is real and unless it is addressed, Belizeans may be contributing to their own demise.

The European Union’s Ambassador to Belize, Paola Amadei, reported that the Union may soon be able to offer even more help with the planned negotiations in Paris, France, in 2015 for a global initiative on climate change, with emphasis on smaller states. Belize already benefits from separate but concurrent projects, the latter of which aims to give Belize a sustainable development plan and specific strategy to address climate change.

In addition, Dr. Leslie is pushing for even more monitoring equipment, including current metres to study the effect of terrestrial activity such as mining and construction material gathering as well as deforestation on the sea, where the residue of such activities inevitably ends up.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The Caribbean's fishing industry provides direct employment for more than 120,000 people and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
PYEONGCHANG, Republic of Korea, Oct 9 2014 (IPS)

Scientists here are warning Caribbean countries, where the fisheries sector is an important source of livelihoods and sustenance, that they should pay close attention to a new international report released Wednesday on ocean acidification.

The report, published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), coincides with the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12) being held here from Oct. 6-17.We’re in a world where the ocean is acidifying very, very, very rapidly and so we need to move very, very quickly.” -- Dr. Carol Turley

“Ocean acidification can have quite specific impacts on certain fisheries, and so actually ocean acidification is especially important for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and people that rely on specific types of fishery or some type of organism,” Dr. S. J. Hennige, the lead editor of the report, told IPS.

“There are variable responses with organisms with regard to ocean acidification, but for the ones which are negatively affected by it, if you are reliant on just that one type of fish then it could have very large impacts and you may have to actually switch to a different organism or something like that.”

In the CARICOM region, the local population is highly dependent on fish for economic and social development. This resource also contributes significantly to food security, poverty alleviation, employment, foreign exchange earnings, development and stability of rural and coastal communities, culture, recreation and tourism.

The subsector provides direct employment for more than 120,000 fishers and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services.

In the report, an international team of 30 experts, led by UK scientists, has concluded that ocean acidification is already underway, and it is now nearly inevitable that it will worsen, causing widespread impacts, mostly deleterious, on marine organisms and ecosystems, and on the goods and services they provide.

David Obura, director of Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean, said food security, in the Caribbean and other regions of the world where there is heavy reliance on the fisheries sector, is threatened.

“Ocean acidification changes the chemistry of the sea water which means that how fish grow is affected and usually negatively,” Obura told IPS. “So productivity will go down or the certainty of knowing what the output is going to be, how much food is produced, is less certain so it undermines the production system.”

Ten years ago, only a handful of researchers were investigating the biological impacts of ocean acidification. Whilst their results gave cause for concern, it was clear that a lot more measurements and experiments were needed.

Around a thousand published studies later, it has now been established that many marine species will suffer in a high CO2 world, with consequences for human society.

Hennige said there are already examples, in the U.S., where an oyster fishery is being impacted by ocean acidification. He said the underlying cause of the problem is carbon dioxide.

“The more carbon dioxide is released from all our fossil fuels into the atmosphere, the more will dissolve in the ocean,” he explained.

“There are practices which can be put in place to offset it on a temporary basis, but the underlying problem is there is still more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and this problem is only going to get worse if we continue.

“It’s not a problem that is being caused by the Caribbean, this is a global problem and it’s a global solution that’s needed,” Hennige added.

Dr. Susan Singh-Renton, deputy executive director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), told IPS that everything in the report applies to the Caribbean situation.

“Ocean acidification is a worrying phenomenon because it means that seawater, as a supporting medium for life, is changing in a very fundamental manner. Since the ocean ecosystem is so complex, it is not possible to predict the impacts with certainty, but it is certain that the impacts will be significant for tropical islands, especially those which have built their economies based on the health and beauty of their local coral reef ecosystems,” she said.

“As coral reefs begin to decline, this will affect many traditional Caribbean fisheries targeting reef fishes, such as snapper, grouper, parrot fish, etc. that depend on the coral reefs for their food, shelter and survival.

“Also, there would likely be declines in the health and survival of animals that grow carbonate shells such as queen conch, which support very important multi-million-dollar commercial fisheries in the Caribbean. With so fundamental a change in seawater chemistry, it is also possible that other forms of ocean life, as we know them today, could be affected ultimately and irreversibly,” Singh-Renton noted.

The report’s authors said the exact magnitude of the ecological and financial costs is still uncertain, due to complex interactions with other human-driven environmental changes.

They said risks to coral reefs are highlighted in the CBD, due in part to the crucial role they have in helping support the livelihoods of around 400 million people.

Hennige said that the by the end of this century, the economic loss caused by ocean acidification would be “a trillion dollars”.

His colleague, Dr. Carol Turley, a contributing author to the report, said the downward spiral could be reversed but urgent action and funding are needed.

“Who can measure acidification? It’s really developed countries that can measure it so we need to start exporting that knowledge to countries like the Caribbean, to countries like the small island developing states,” she told IPS.

“And that’s where financing comes in because as scientists we can collaborate and give you knowledge but we need financing so that we can help you set up monitoring.

“I am worried that we are too slow. We’re in a world where the ocean is acidifying very, very, very rapidly and so we need to move very, very quickly.”

In 2013, experts warned that the acidity of the world’s oceans may increase by 170 percent by the end of the century, bringing significant economic losses. The scientists said then that marine ecosystems and biodiversity are likely to change as a result of ocean acidification, with far-reaching consequences for humans.

They also warned that economic losses from declines in shellfish aquaculture and the degradation of tropical coral reefs may be substantial owing to the sensitivity of molluscs and corals to ocean acidification.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at destinydlb@gmail.com

The administration of President Barack Obama pledged to massively expand U.S.-protected parts of the southern Pacific Ocean. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Michelle Tullo
WASHINGTON, Jun 19 2014 (IPS)

A first-time U.S.-hosted summit on protecting the oceans has resulted in pledges worth some 800 million dollars to be used for conservation efforts.

During the summit, held here in Washington, the administration of President Barack Obama pledged to massively expand U.S.-protected parts of the southern Pacific Ocean. In an effort to strengthen global food security, the president has also announced a major push against illegal fishing and to create a national strategic plan for aquaculture.

“If we drain our resources, we won’t just be squandering one of humanity’s greatest treasures, we’ll be cutting off one of the world’s leading sources of food and economic growth, including for the United States,” President Obama said via video Tuesday morning.

The “Our Ocean” conference, held Monday and Tuesday at the U.S. State Department, brought together ministers, heads of state, as well as civil society and private sector representatives from almost 90 countries. The summit, hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry, focused on overfishing, pollution and ocean acidification, all of which threaten global food security.

In his opening remarks, Kerry noted that ocean conservation constitutes a “great necessity” for food security. “More than three billion people, 50 percent of the people on this planet, in every corner of the world depend on fish as a significant source of protein,” he said.

Proponents hope that many of the solutions being used by U.S. scientists, policymakers and fishermen could serve to help international communities.

“There is increasing demand for seafood with diminished supply … We need to find ways to make seafood sustainable to rich and poor countries alike,” Danielle Nierenberg, the president of FoodTank, a Washington think tank, told IPS.

“For instance, oyster harvesters in the Gambia have really depleted the oyster population, but a U.S.-sponsored project has been able to re-establish the oyster beds – by leaving them alone for a while. The same strategy – to step back a bit – worked with lobster fishers in New England.”

Nierenberg predicted that with diminishing wild fish, the future of seafood will be in aquaculture.

“What aquaculture projects need to do now is learn from the mistakes made from crop and livestock agriculture,” she said. “It doesn’t always work – for instance, maize and soybeans create opportunities for pest and disease. Overcrowding animals creates manure.”

*Seafood fraud*

The Obama administration also hopes to jumpstart the United States’ own seafood production capabilities. According to a White House fact sheet, the United States today imports most of its seafood, though highly regulated U.S. aquaculture is widely seen as particularly safe.

Early on in his first administration, President Obama created a new national ocean stewardship policy which also sought to streamline more than 100 U.S. laws governing the oceans and coordinating the country’s approach to these resources.

This week’s actions will further simplify aquaculture production, while aiming to ensure that U.S. aquaculture does not exceed the population size an environment can naturally support.

“The U.S. is really good at innovating, but not at producing, largely because of the amount of regulatory hurdles,” Michael Tlusty, director of research at the New England Aquarium, told IPS. “Roughly 17 different agencies have roles in aquaculture regulation, so streamlining the process will put all of them together at the same table to efficiently provide permits.”

Tlusty also applauded the administration’s announcement to create a comprehensive programme to deter illegal fishing and seafood fraud.

“We can’t turn a switch and fix the ocean – we need lots of different strategies,” Tlusty said. “Cutting carbon dioxide emissions is very important … as is cutting illegal, underreported and underegistered fishing.”

Advocacy groups have likewise applauded the initiatives.

“President Obama’s announcement is a historic step forward in the fight against seafood fraud and illegal fishing worldwide. This initiative is a practical solution to an ugly problem and will forever change the way we think about our seafood,” Beth Lowell, campaign director for Oceana, a watchdog group, said Tuesday.

“Because our seafood travels through an increasingly long, complex and non-transparent supply chain, there are numerous opportunities for seafood fraud to occur and illegally caught fish to enter the U.S. market.”

Oceana points to recent research noting that nearly a third of wild-caught seafood coming into the United States comes from pirate fishing.

The World Wildlife Fund, a major conservation group, called Obama’s announcements “a turning point” for the world’s oceans.

*Breakneck acidification*

Ocean acidification constitutes a particularly broad and worrisome danger to marine life, shellfish production and ocean-based food security, and received prominent attention at this week’s summit. This process has come about particularly from carbon dioxide emissions resulting from air pollution, which changes the delicate acidity level of the oceans.

“The entire ocean is acidifying, and at an incredibly rapid pace … more in the last 15 years than it has in the whole last 50,000 years,” Catherine Novelli, under-secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment at the U.S State Department, told IPS.

“If you’ve ever had a fish tank, you’ll know that it is an incredibly delicate balance. And once it gets out of balance, things can’t survive.”

Novelli pointed to innovate projects such as one undertaken by the Prince of Monaco, which aims to determine where acidification is taking place and to offer early warning systems for fish farmers.

“It absolutely affects shellfish farmers, as shellfish are very sensitive to these acidity levels,” said Novelli.

“There’s been some pioneering work done off the coast of Oregon, where shellfish farmers have worked with the state government to monitor the acidification. If the acidity level is changing, they can shut off their water intake from the ocean and preserve their shellfish until waves pass and go in a different direction.”

While the conference looked at a variety of short- and medium-term possibilities for monitoring and adapting to such problems, the discussions also recognised that the issue will likely be subsumed under broader climate change negotiations.

Yellow fish swarm Australia's Ningaloo reef. Around 80 percent of the world's fisheries are fully exploited, over exploited or significantly depleted. Credit: Angelo DeSantis/cc by 2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 3 2014 (IPS)

At a political level, when the United Nations speaks of a “high seas alliance”, it is probably a coalition of countries battling modern piracy in the Indian Ocean.

But at the environmental level, the High Seas Alliance (HSA) is a partnership of more than 27 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), plus the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), fighting for the preservation of marine biodiversity.

As a U.N. working group discusses a proposed “international mechanism” for the protection of oceans, the HSA says high seas and the international seabed area, which make up about 45 percent of the surface of the planet, “are brimming with biodiveristy and vital resources.”

But they are under increasing pressure from threats such as overfishing, habitat destruction and the impacts of climate change.

The HSA has expressed its strong support for negotiations to develop a new agreement to establish a legal regime to safeguard biodiversity in the high seas.

Any such treaty or convention will be a new implementing agreement under the 1994 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The Working Group, which is expected to conclude its four-day meeting Friday, says it is at a critical juncture of its work, and discussions are expected to continue into the future.

“The next three meetings present a clear opportunity to try and overcome remaining differences and to crystallise the areas of convergence into concrete action,” U.N. Legal Counsel Miguel de Serpa Soares said in his opening remarks Monday.

Sofia Tsenikli, senior advisor on Oceans Policy at Greenpeace International, told IPS, “Our oceans are in peril and in need of urgent protection.”

Faced with multiple threats, including climate change, ocean acidification and overfishing, the oceans can only provide livelihoods in the future if governments establish a global network of ocean sanctuaries today, she added.

“It’s simply scandalous that still less than one percent of the high seas is protected,” Tsenikli said.

She said governments must listen to the call by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and act urgently to protect marine life in the oceans by setting up a U.N. high seas biodiversity agreement.

On Monday, Ban said, “If we are to fully benefit from the oceans, we must reverse the degradation of the marine environment due to pollution, overexploitation and acidification.”

He urged all nations to work towards that end, including by joining and implementing the existing UNCLOS.

As of last year, 165 of the 193 member states have joined UNCLOS.

Friedrich Wulf, international biodiversity campaigner at Friends of the Earth (FoE) Europe, told IPS, “I can say the open sea is an area of dispute and is a major obstacle for designating the 40 percent protected areas target” – called for by the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – “and that this area is not feasible under this convention.”

“The issue has now been moved to the rather old UNCLOS but was quite heavily debated and I am not sure UNCLOS covers it well,” he said.

“So I think a new effort to have a U.N. regulation is very helpful. I don’t think it will be possible to reach Aichi target 6 on marine biodiversity without it, as there is a legislative gap in the open sea,” he added.

Aichi targets were adopted at a conference in Aichi, Japan, back in 2010.

Target 6 reads: By 2020, all fish and invertebrate stocks and aquatic plants are managed and harvested sustainably, legally and applying ecosystem based approaches, so that overfishing is avoided, recovery plans and measures are in place for all depleted species, fisheries have no significant adverse impacts on threatened species and vulnerable ecosystems and the impacts of fisheries on stocks, species and ecosystems are within safe ecological limits.

At the June 2012 Rio+20 conference on the environment in Brazil, member states made a commitment to address the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction on an urgent basis.

“Healthy, productive and resilient oceans, rich in marine biodiversity, have a significant role to play in sustainable development as they contribute to the health, food security and livelihoods of millions of people around the world,” the meeting concluded.

The Working Group says it will present its recommendations on the scope, parametres and feasibility of the instrument to the General Assembly to enable it to make a decision before the end of its 69th session, in September 2015.

The meetings are being co-chaired by the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Ambassador Palitha T. B. Kohona, and the Legal Adviser of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Liesbeth Lijnzaad.

A vendor selling fish at a market in Grenada. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
WARSAW, Nov 15 2013 (IPS)

Eating fish has been an integral part of the Caribbean’s cultural traditions for centuries. Fish is also a major source of food and essential nutrients, especially in rural areas where there are scores of small coastal communities.

“That is the protein that they have to put in their pot, and sometimes it has to stretch for very many mouths,” Dr. Susan Singh-Renton, deputy executive director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), told IPS."Globally we have to be prepared for significant economic and ecosystem service losses." -- Ulf Riebesell

For people who rely on the ocean’s ecosystem services – often in developing countries like those of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) – a major new international report on the world’s oceans is particularly worrying.

Experts warn that the acidity of the world’s oceans may increase by 170 percent by the end of the century, bringing significant economic losses. People who rely on the ocean’s ecosystem services – often in developing countries – are especially vulnerable.

The group of experts has agreed on “levels of confidence” in relation to ocean acidification statements summarising the state of knowledge.

The summary was led by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and results from the world’s largest gathering of experts on ocean acidification ever convened. The Third Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World was held in Monterey, California in September 2012, and attended by 540 experts from 37 countries. For the benefit of policymakers, the summary will be launched on Nov. 18, at the U.N. climate negotiations known as COP19 under way here at the national stadium of Poland.

Scientists say that marine ecosystems and biodiversity are likely to change as a result of ocean acidification, with far-reaching consequences for humans. Economic losses from declines in shellfish aquaculture and the degradation of tropical coral reefs may be substantial owing to the sensitivity of molluscs and corals to ocean acidification.

“What we can now say with high levels of confidence about ocean acidification sends a clear message. Globally we have to be prepared for significant economic and ecosystem service losses,” said one of the lead authors of the summary and chair of the symposium, Ulf Riebesell of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research.

“But we also know that reducing the rate of carbon dioxide emissions will slow acidification. That has to be the major message for the COP19 meeting,” he said.

Singh-Renton told IPS that the socioeconomic impacts for the Caribbean region from this and other climate-related activities would be on two fronts – revenues and costs.

“In terms of revenues, this is linked of course to provision of incomes and livelihoods. It’s linked to food security at the consumer end,” she explained. “If you are normally taking 1,000 tonnes a year as a fisherman, you could be taking much less than that and that will decrease your catch rates and also your food supply to the local population and the revenues associated with that.”

Antiguans, for example, annually consume more fish per capita (46 kg) per year than any other nation or territory in the Caribbean.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade for Antigua and Barbuda, Ambassador Colin Murdoch, said a decrease in fish stocks could also see small island states missing out on significant amounts of potential foreign exchange from the fisheries sector.

“We are geographically close to some very large markets for fisheries products,” he said of his home country.

“If we look at, let’s say, Martinique and Guadeloupe, they are very large consumers of fisheries products and are the gateway into Europe, they are actually European territories, being part of France. And so that is the gateway into a market of 400 million people and once you meet the required standards you can export fisheries products into these markets.

“We are close to Puerto Rico. That’s a large market that consumes fisheries products and it’s also a gateway into the United States and they also consume large amounts of fisheries products and that’s a market of 300 million people,” Murdoch said.

The main fishing waters are near shore or between Antigua and Barbuda. The government has encouraged modern fishing methods and supported mechanisation and the building of new boats. Exports of fish commodities is valued at 1.5 million million dollars per year.

One outcome emphasised by experts in the report is that if society continues on the current high emissions trajectory, cold water coral reefs, located in the deep sea, may be unsustainable and tropical coral reef erosion is likely to outpace reef building this century. However, significant emissions reductions to meet the two-degree target by 2100 could ensure that half of surface waters presently occupied by tropical coral reefs remain favourable for their growth.

“Emissions reductions may protect some reefs and marine organisms but we know that the ocean is subject to many other stresses such as warming, deoxygenation, pollution and overfishing,” said author Wendy Broadgate, deputy director at the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme.

“Warming and deoxygenation are also caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions, underlining the importance of reducing fossil fuel emissions. Reducing other stressors such as pollution and overfishing, and the introduction of large scale marine protected areas, may help build some resilience to ocean acidification.”

The CFRM deputy executive director said storms and windy conditions have also been taking a toll on the vital fishing sector in the Caribbean and climate change impacts in other sectors have in the past caused increased dependence on the fishing sector.

“We have been seeing less fishing days so instead of being able to fish 200 days a year you might be able to fish for only 150 days in a year,” she told IPS.

“In terms of the impacts, Caribbean fishing boats and coastal infrastructure are vulnerable to storm damage hence it can disrupt industry operations. The rural poor are going to be directly affected by this [because] artisanal, small-scale fishing employ and feed much of the world’s rural poor.

“If we really care about poverty eradication and lifting the quality of livelihoods, we have to take care of what is accessible to the poor man in terms of food supply and quality, not just what he gets but the quality of it,” Singh-Renton added.

Because many deep-sea ecosystems are so stable, even small changes in temperature, oxygen, and pH may lower the resilience of deep-sea communities. Credit: Courtesy NOAA HURL Archives

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Oct 15 2013 (IPS)

Oil, gas and coal are contaminating the world’s oceans from top to bottom, threatening the lives of more than 800 million people, a new study warns Tuesday.

“It took a year to analyse and synthesise all of the studies on the impacts of climate change on ocean species,” Camilo Mora, an ecologist at University of Hawai‘i in Honolulu and lead author, told IPS."We are seeing greater changes, happening faster, and the effects are more imminent than previously anticipated." -- Alex Rogers of the University of Oxford

Mora is also lead author of ground-breaking climate study published in Nature last week.

“It was very sad to see all the responses were negative. We were hoping there might be some safe havens,” he said.

The study found that carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are overheating the oceans, turning them acidic and reducing the amount of oxygen in seawater. This is happening too fast for most marine species to adapt and ocean ecosystems around the world will collapse.

By 2100, no corner of the oceans that cover 70 percent of the Earth’s surface will be untouched.

“The impacts of climate change will be felt from the ocean surface to the seafloor. It is truly scary to consider how vast these impacts will be,” said Andrew Sweetman of the International Research Institute of Stavanger, Norway, co-author of the PLOS Biology study published Oct. 15.

This ambitious study examined all the available research on how current and future carbon emissions are fundamentally altering the oceans. It then looked at how this will impact fish, corals, marine animals, plants and other organisms. Finally the 29 authors from 10 countries analysed how this will affect the 1.4 to 2.0 billion people who live near the oceans or depend on them for their food and income.

Some 500 million to 870 million of the world’s poorest people are likely to be unable to feed themselves or earn incomes from oceans too contaminated by fossil fuel emissions, the “Biotic and Human Vulnerability to Projected Changes in Ocean Biogeochemistry over the 21st Century” study concludes.

“We are making a big mess of the oceans. Climate change is having a major impact illustrating the need for urgent action to reduce emissions,” said Mora.

The researchers used models of projected climate change developed for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to build their analysis. These models are validated using measurements from past decades.

Additionally the findings of the PLOS Biology study were verified using actual observations. There were some differences but not significant enough to alter the conclusions, said Mora.

More shocking is that the oceans will be dramatically altered even with reduced growth in use of fossil fuel in coming decades and major declines starting in 2050, he said.

Only an abrupt decline in consumption of oil, gas, and coal within the next 10 years will minimise the impacts on the oceans.

This study only looked at how climate change is impacting the oceans and did not look at other impacts such as overfishing, chemical and nutrient pollution or plastic trash.

However, the 2013 update to the Ocean Health Index also released Tuesday did look at all current impacts on oceans. It ranked the current overall health of the oceans as a 65 out of possible 100. The index was launched in 2012 and is annual international collaboration to assess health of oceans based on 10 measures such as biodiversity, coastal livelihoods and protection, food provision.

The oceans’ ability to provide food only scored 33 out of 100, showing that food security is already at risk. It also means fish and other foods from the oceans are being harvested far faster than nature can replace them, the index reports.

China, Taiwan, Russia, India and Japan had the worst scores indicating that their regional wild-caught fisheries are nearly depleted.

“The Ocean Health Index measures how well we are sustainably producing seafood,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Centre for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Fish are a vital source of protein for many but the index shows food security is at risk in some parts of the world, said Rosenberg in a release.

In regions subject to damaging storms and cyclones, the health of their coastal zones including mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass beds and coral reefs are a poor 57 out of 100, the index found. Tropical cyclones cause an estimated 26 billion dollars a year in lost property.

“Coastal habitats mitigate the damage that storms cause…. We must try to restore naturally protective coastal habitats,” Elizabeth Selig, director of Marine Science at Conservation International, said in a statement.

The Index “reveals the areas that must be improved in order to provide our children and their children a healthy thriving ocean,” said well-known oceanographer Sylvia Earle who is explorer-in-residence at National Geographic.

“This must be done as if it’s a matter of life and death – because it is,” Earle said in a statement.

Yet another independent assessment of ocean health reached a similar conclusion.

The world’s oceans are changing faster than previously thought with potentially dire consequences for both human and marine life, said the State of the Oceans report released last week by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Climate change combined with other impacts like chemical pollution and overfishing have put the oceans into a downward spiral.

“We are seeing greater change, happening faster, and the effects are more imminent than previously anticipated,” Alex Rogers of the University of Oxford and IPSO’s scientific director told IPS.

“What these latest reports make absolutely clear is that deferring action will increase costs in the future and lead to even greater, perhaps irreversible, losses,” said Dan Laffoley of the IUCN in a release.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 11 2013 (IPS)

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is convinced there is sufficient global capacity to produce enough food to adequately feed the world’s seven billion people.

Dr. Palitha Kohona. UN Photo/Mark Garten

But despite progress made over the last two decades, says FAO, some 870 million people still suffer from chronic hunger.

What if the earth’s finite agricultural resources run out as a result of drought, desertification, climate change and natural disasters?

There is always the high seas and ocean floors, says Ambassador Palitha Kohona, who co-chairs a U.N. Working Group on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity Beyond Areas of National Jurisdiction.

The seas and oceans, which cover 70 percent of the planet, are probably the last frontier on earth with vast areas still to be explored and life forms still to be discovered, he told IPS. And 65 percent of the oceans are beyond national jurisdiction, he added.

The mandate of the Working Group, co-chaired by the Legal Adviser to the Netherlands, covers the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction, and includes genetic resources, said Dr Kohona, who is also Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former chief of the U.N. Treaty Section.

In an interview with IPS, he said, “We have a better knowledge of outer space than of the oceans which provide sustenance to over a billion people, mostly in developing countries.”

But global fisheries are under serious threat of collapsing mainly due to industrialised fishing."We have a better knowledge of outer space than of the oceans, which provide sustenance to over a billion people." -- Dr. Palitha Kohona

For example, he said, stocks of cod, southern blue fin tuna and orange roughy are down to critical levels. And coral reefs are affected by ocean warming and acidification.

“Climate change will further negatively impact on life forms in the oceans,” Kohona said.

The new frontier opening up in the oceans is bio-prospecting and bio-harvesting, he added.

“It is now firmly believed that many new pharmaceuticals and other products can be developed from the genetic material available in the seas, especially in the deep seas, on the sea bed and in the sub surface of the sea bed,” Kohona noted.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: How far have we gone in exploiting these rich resources?

A: So far, only a handful of advanced countries possess the vessels capable of harvesting genetic material, especially from deep sea trenches and hydrothermal vents.

Even less have the ability to conduct research and analysis on this material and basic research is mainly funded by industrialised states.

Developing countries argue that the benefits arising from developments made from material obtained from areas beyond national jurisdiction should be shared equitably through a global convention since the source of this material was probably in the area recognised as the common heritage of mankind.

Q: What are the primary objectives of your Working Group?

A: The Working Group is required to make recommendations to the General Assembly with a view to ensuring that a future legal framework will address the complex issues raised.

In fact, it is the expectation of many delegations that a legal instrument will result from these discussions.

Q: In its report last month, the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons predicted that extreme hunger — and poverty — could be eradicated by 2030? If so, what role can the high seas and oceans play in alleviating the world’s food crisis?

A: With extreme hunger, globally a billion people go to sleep every night without eating dinner, and extreme poverty, 1.2 billion people live on less than 1.25 dollars a day, our resources need to be more efficiently and equitably distributed.

Nearly 30 percent of available food goes to waste in developed countries due to wasteful consumption patterns. Global fisheries employ and provide nutrition to, including proteins, over a billion people.

It is a worrying reality that 70 percent of fish stocks are in serious risk of collapsing due to over fishing. If fish stocks collapse, the consequences will be disastrous.

In addition, the warming and increasing acidification of the oceans, rising sea levels, and coral bleaching will affect fish stocks and other life forms in the seas, in some cases pushing stocks to new habitats, especially tropical fish stocks.

While we focus on protecting whales, which we must also do, economically relevant stocks are reaching extinction point. It is imperative that we properly manage, conserve and sustainably use what is an essential but rapidly diminishing resource.

Q: What progress has been achieved in the negotiations on marine biological diversity beyond national jurisdiction?

A: Progress has been slow. While developing countries have been actively advocating the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from research into genetic material derived from areas beyond national jurisdiction, the sharing of information and technology and capacity building, the countries that conduct the research are reluctant to concede these readily.

They argue that it costs over one billion dollars to develop and bring a single new product to the market. Many products never reach the market despite the millions spent to develop them.

In the meantime, 4,000 marine organisms have been identified in relation to 40,000 new patents filed. Sometimes it is difficult to determine the actual origin of such material. But I believe an equitable formula for benefit sharing can be developed.

Q: How interested are member states in exploiting marine resources?

A: The major maritime countries, including the United States, Japan, Russia, member states of the European Union, India, Argentina, Brazil and over 120 other states participated in the discussions, along with civil society and academics. Our next sessions will take place at the United Nations, Aug. 19 to 23 this year.

Excerpt:

Carnivorous crab preying on a Chilean sea snail (Concholepas concholepas). Credit: Courtesy of Patricio Manríquez

By Stephen Leahy
MONTEREY, California, Oct 2 2012 (IPS)

Climate change will ruin Chilean sea snails’ ability to sniff out and avoid their archenemy, a predatory crab, according to Chilean scientists who presented their findings at an international science symposium here.

Researchers from Australia also revealed that as the oceans become more and more acidic, some fish become hyperactive and confused, and move towards their predators instead of trying to escape.

“The conditions in oceans are changing 100 times faster than at any time in the past,” said Jean-Pierre Gattuso, a marine biologist with CNRS-INSU and the Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche in France.

Climate change is making oceans warmer and more acidic. “We are beginning to understand what will happen. I think we can expect the worst,” Gattuso told Tierramérica*.

Gattuso is one of nearly 600 scientists from around the world who presented their research on Sep. 24-27 at the Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World: Ocean Acidification in Monterey, California.

Researchers discovered only 10 years ago that burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas has made the oceans about 30 percent more acidic since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

One third of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from using fossil fuels has been absorbed by the oceans. When CO2 dissolves in seawater, carbonic acid is formed. This phenomenon, known as ocean acidification, reduces the availability of calcium carbonate, which interferes with the formation of the skeletons and shells of many marine organisms.

The combination of greater acidity and a lower concentration of calcium carbonate in the water also has consequences for the physiological functions of numerous living beings.

This is basic, undisputed ocean chemistry. And acidification will increase as more CO2 is emitted, said the scientists meeting in Monterey.

Increasing acidity is affecting coral reefs, shellfish and other shell-forming species, says Gattuso.

Pteropods, a very small free-swimming mollusk species, are becoming “naked” because they are losing their protective shell as acid levels increase. Pteropods are food for many species and a key element in the Southern Ocean and other oceans, he said.

More surprising are the sub-lethal effects, such as the recently documented changes in behavior.

In a sophisticated experiment, Chilean scientists exposed Chilean sea snails (Concholepas concholepas) to ocean acid levels expected before the end of the century.

“It is called the ‘Chilean abalone’ in English and is a very important food with high social and economic importance in Chile,” said researcher Patricio Manríquez of the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology at Austral University in Valdivia, Chile.

Its main predator is the Chilean intertidal carnivorous crab (Acanthocyclus hassleri). The snails can smell the crabs and move away to escape being eaten.

Manríquez and colleagues built special tanks where they could regulate the acidity of the seawater. They collected snail larvae from north, central and southern Chile and then reared them in labs for five to six months under various high-acid conditions, Manríquez told Tierramérica.

The researchers then put crabs in the tanks with the snails to study their predator-prey interactions under various levels of acidification.

At acidity levels expected when the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere rises from the current 390 parts per million (ppm) to 750 ppm, the snails immediately try to get as far away from the crabs as they can.

At higher levels of 1,000 to 1,200 ppm CO2, the snails seem confused and wander about aimlessly, often going right towards the crabs.

“Good for the crabs, not so good for the snails,” said Manríquez.

Those higher levels of CO2 could be reached by the end of the century unless major emission reductions are made.

“There was no change in the growth rates or size of the snails,” he said. However, at least 10 additional studies are underway regarding the impact on the snails’ shells, on snail larvae and other aspects.

There are 10 scientists and 35 students from different disciplines now investigating the impacts of ocean acidification in Chile. However, it still remains a challenge to have their findings published in scientific journals, said Manríquez.

“Our methods and expertise are often questioned,” he said, referring to the peer-review processes carried out before research studies are published. Manríquez maintains that this treatment for Chilean academic studies goes far beyond acceptable levels, and that he had not experienced it when presenting work in collaboration with a British research institute. .

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific, Australian researchers have learned that ocean acidity affects behavior in some tropical reef fish.

Ocean acidity acts to acidify the internal tissues of fish and other water breathers, and while they can deal with this, researchers have learned that there are sub-lethal effects, said Philip Munday, a researcher at the School of Marine and Tropical Biology at James Cook University.

Ocean acidity levels expected after the year 2050 disrupt some coral fishes’ central nervous systems, altering their sense of smell, hearing, vision and behavior, Munday told the Symposium.

“Their activity level, behavior and boldness increase. They become more active and adopt more risky behavior,” he said. As a result, they are twice as likely to be eaten by predators under higher acid conditions.

Predators are affected as well. They are not as efficient at catching their prey under these conditions, for example. “Predators also switched to different prey, which was something we did not expect,” he said. “It will be hard to predict all of the impacts from higher ocean acidity.”

Researchers here say that overfishing, including bottom trawling, is the biggest immediate threat to the oceans.

Ocean acidification and increasing ocean temperatures are the big concerns in the years to come. But those problems are more difficult and will take longer to deal with, says Gattuso.

There is enough scientific evidence to advise policymakers that action is needed now to reduce CO2 emissions to protect the oceans for the future, he said.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.

Excerpt:

Pristine coral reef situated in a Jordanian marine reserve wrapped by a drifting fishing net. Credit: Malik Naumann/Marine Photobank

By Stephen Leahy
CAIRNS, Australia, Jul 10 2012 (IPS)

Coral reef scientists urged local and national governments to take action to save the world’s coral reefs and said they’d be “on call 24/7” to assist politicians and officials.

Without global action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and greatly improve local protection, most of the world’s coral reefs will be devastated and the benefits they provide billions of people will be lost in the coming decades, scientists warned at the opening of 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Cairns, Australia.

The international coral reef science community is in 100 percent agreement on the urgent need for action to protect reefs and more than 2,500 marine scientists have signed a consensus statement to that effect, said Stephen Palumbi, director of Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University in California.

“It will take strong leadership by policy makers to make changes to protect reefs. We want them to know we are here to help, to provide the science to support those changes,” Palumbi told IPS.

Protecting reefs locally may mean reducing fishing, preventing pollution, constraining coastal development and other measures that may be seen as politically risky or difficult, he acknowledged. However, scientists stand ready to back up local and global efforts to save reefs.

“We have the science to defend those decisions. There is very good data on how to protect reefs and we know what works,” he said.

For more than 2.6 billion people, seafood is their main source of protein, said Jane Lubchenco, a marine scientist and head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Corals act as the nurseries and habitat for many fish species in addition to providing shoreline protection from storms.

“Corals are extraordinarily valuable to humanity,” Lubchenco said in her address to the more than 2,100 attendees from more than 80 countries.

“A study from Belize estimated that without reefs protecting the shoreline, storms would cause 240 million dollars in damages,” she said.

Over the past decade threats to reefs have gone from “worrisome to dire”, she said. Before mid-century, half of the remaining reefs will experience severe bleaching due to rising ocean temperatures. Healthy corals can recover if bleaching does not last too long.

Bleaching, overfishing, pollution and disease have largely wiped out the fabulous coral communities of the Caribbean. The region has lost 80 percent of its corals since the 1970s, said Jeremy Jackson, professor of oceanography emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

A few small well-protected areas like those around the island of Bonaire are doing okay, Jackson told IPS. Otherwise it is only “coral reefs that are too remote to be polluted or plundered that look great,” he said.

However, in future, bleaching and increasingly acidic oceans will impact even the remotest reefs.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from using fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas has made the oceans about 30 percent more acidic, researchers discovered less than 10 years ago. Oceans absorb one-third of this CO2, which has slowed the rate of global warming.

The bad news is oceans are now more acidic and it will get worse as more CO2 is emitted. This is basic, well-understood ocean chemistry.

There is no scientific disagreement on these points. The “Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs” states that: “CO2 emissions at the current rate will warm sea surface temperatures by at least 2-3°C, raise sea-level by as much as 1.7 meters, reduce ocean pH from 8.1 to less than 7.9, and increase storm frequency and/or intensity. This combined change in temperature and ocean chemistry has not occurred since the last reef crisis 55 million years ago.”

Without major reductions in CO2 emissions, climate change’s “evil twins” of hotter oceans and more acidic oceans will leave perhaps only 10 percent of world’s reefs alive by 2070, said Robert Richmond, president of the International Society for Reef Studies and a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Reefs have recovered from nuclear bomb testing in 1950s so they are tough, but the chronic impacts of pollution, overfishing, sedimentation and overfishing leave them weakened and incapable of withstanding disease outbreaks and the stresses of bleaching and acidification, he said.

“What we leave to our grandchildren will directly reflect what we do here and over the next few years.”