Oceans produce at least 50% of the Planet’s oxygen, while absorbing about 30% of carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming. Credit: Claudio Riquelme/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 7 2023 (IPS)

The good news: oceans cover three-quarters of the Earth’s surface, contain 97% of the world’s water, represent 99% of the living space on the Planet by volume, and are a major source of food and medicine. Much so that they are the main source of protein for more than a billion people around the world.

More: Oceans produce at least 50% of the Planet’s oxygen, while absorbing about 30% of carbon dioxide produced by humans, buffering the impacts of global warming.

And the bad news

The bad news is that, with 90% of big fish populations depleted, and 50% of coral reefs destroyed, human beings are taking more from the ocean than can be replenished.

Marine biodiversity is under attack from overfishing, over-exploitation and ocean acidification. Over one-third of fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels. And we are polluting our coastal waters with chemicals, plastics and human waste

Indeed, there is another ‘crime’ being committed as a consequence of the unrelenting business obsession with making more and more money. It is about illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, a practice that threatens marine biodiversity, livelihoods, exacerbates poverty, and augments food insecurity.

The ‘criminal’ depletion of the fish

Such illegal activities are responsible for the loss of 11–26 million tons of fish each year, which is estimated to have an economic value of 10–23 billion US dollars.”

Much so that if ‘business’ goes as usual –and all indicate that it will– there will be more tons of plastic than fish by the year 2050, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Moreover, there are issues of marine debris and marine litter involved in IUU fishing, which are not only related to the marine environment but also the safe navigation of ships, explains the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Who is the worst enemy?

Commenting on their exceptional importance for human beings, the United Nations chief, António Guterres warned on the occasion of the 2023 World Oceans Day (8 June) that “we should be the ocean’s best friend. But right now, humanity is its worst enemy.”

Guterres called oceans ‘the foundation of life’, as they supply the ‘air we breathe and the food we eat,’ while regulating climate and weather.

The greatest reservoir of biodiversity. And of litter

“Marine biodiversity is under attack from overfishing, over-exploitation and ocean acidification. Over one-third of fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels. And we are polluting our coastal waters with chemicals, plastics and human waste.”

According to reports, an estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing 269,000 tons, is distributed across the ocean.

The United Nations has long warned the international community of the damage ocean garbage does to the economy and the environment, as reported by the large energy company Iberdrola.

This waste decimates marine ecosystems by killing more than a million animals a year, it reports, adding that organisations like Greenpeace report that floating plastic accounts for only 15% of the total, while 85% remains hidden underwater — at depths of up to 11,000 metres, or even trapped in Arctic ice.

Marine pollution

Marine pollution accounts for at least 85% of marine waste, and plastic litter is the chief pollutant, reports the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Every minute, one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into our ocean. If nothing is done about it, by 2040, the equivalent of 50 kg of plastic per metre of coastline worldwide is projected to flow into the ocean yearly, the world leading environmental body informs.

It is estimated that by the year 2030, the world’s coastal populations will contribute three trillion dollars to the global economy in sectors as diverse as fisheries, and tourism, as well as emerging green and blue economies such as renewable energy and marine biotechnology.

More human ‘crimes’ against life

Another major body, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has also focused on the dangers of plastic pollution also to the world’s soils and crops.

On this, it reports that the qualities that make plastic useful are also the ones that make it hazardous: ‘designed to fool nature itself, most plastics are too resilient to biodegrade in a meaningful timeframe.’

The Convention further says that the world’s current efforts to recycle plastics have been inefficient so far: only 9% of plastic is recycled globally, and much of it is either thrown away or cannot be processed for recycling.

“One-third of all plastic waste ends up in soils or freshwater, endangering our food, our livestock and the health of the soil. Invisible to the eye, microplastics linger in the environment, the food chain, and our bodies.”

Soil is the foundation of our agricultural systems which support nearly all food-producing crops: about 95% of our food comes from the soil, UNCCD further explains.

“Fertile soil that produces food is a finite resource, and plastic pollution can have a long-lasting impact on soil health, biodiversity and productivity, all of which are essential to food security.”

Deadly contaminated food

Talking about food security, did you know that “every day, some 1.6 million people worldwide fall ill from eating contaminated food, which kills 420,000 people each year,” as reported by two UN agencies on the occasion of the 2023 World Food Safety Day, (7 June).

Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have in fact reported that “over 200 diseases are caused by eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances such as heavy metals.”

The staggering impacts of human activities against the oceans and everywhere else do not end here. There is still more, much more, to report on the deadly consequences for the world’s oceans, soils, and the whole cycle of life of the human addiction to fossil fuels.

Coastal communities across the globe are increasingly at risk to being “exposed to multiple climate-related hazards, including tropical cyclones, extreme sea levels and flooding, marine heatwaves, sea ice loss, and permafrost thaw”. Pictured here in this picture dated 2012 fishermen work in teams and use only basic wooden canoes to set nets off the coast of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Sep 26 2019 (IPS)

Warnings of strong winds, high waves and reduced visibility along the East African coastline are increasingly common.

But local fisher folk like Ali Sombo from Kwale County, situated along Kenya’s Indian Ocean Coastline, don’t always heed the warnings by the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) to stay clear of the open sea during rough waters.

“We believe that when the waters are rough and waves roaring, the belly of the ocean is hunting for a specific soul. Even if you stay away from the ocean, it will find you so there is no need to be afraid,” Sombo told IPS. “Our only problem is that most of our boats are not strong enough for the strong waves so they capsize and sometimes fishermen die,” he added.

In July, KMD warned, through local radio, of five days of unprecedented rough waters characterised by strong winds of 25 miles per hour and high waves of more than three metres. But Sombo and his group of fishermen said that it was still business as usual for them.

But coastal communities here in Africa and across the globe are increasingly at risk to being “exposed to multiple climate-related hazards, including tropical cyclones, extreme sea levels and flooding, marine heatwaves, sea ice loss, and permafrost thaw”.

These are some of the findings in the newly released Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Sept. 25, in Monaco.

The oceans are being rapidly transformed by climate change. Millions, and by 2050 over a billion people, living along the coast are most at risk, with additional “negative consequences for health and well-being” for all populations and “for Indigenous peoples and local communities dependent on fisheries”.

In Africa some 25 percent of the population lives within 100km of the coast — with the figure as high as 66 percent in Senegal, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

And according to the report:

• Around 4 million people live in the Arctic region, of whom 10 percent are Indigenous.
• The low-lying coastal zone is currently home to around 680 million people (nearly 10 percent of the 2010 global population), projected to reach more than one billion by 2050.
• Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are home to 65 million people.

For this report, more than 100 authors from 36 countries assessed the most recent scientific literature related to the oceans and cryosphere (frozen parts of the planet such as the ice caps, glaciers and snow) in a changing climate. Oceans are critical to “regulating the planet’s climate and weather patterns through the cycling of critical greenhouse gases such as CO₂”.

The oceans and cryosphere are interconnected, with evaporation from the oceans resulting in snow that “builds and sustains the ice sheets and glaciers that store large amounts of frozen water on land”, the report explains.

Making reference to an estimated 7,000 scientific publications, the outcome is the most detailed insight yet into how global warming will impact the future.

U.N. scientists now warn that consequences of inaction will become increasingly rapid and painful over this century and that immediate emission cuts could greatly reduce these risks.

The report reveals that to date, the oceans, which cover more than 71 percent of the earth, has taken up more than 90 percent of the excess heat in the climate system. It also notes that glaciers and ice sheets in polar and mountain regions are losing mass, contributing to an increasing rate of sea level rise.

It further predicts that by the end of this century the oceans will absorb up to two to four times more heat than between 1970 and the present if global warming is limited to 2°C, and up to five to seven times more at higher carbon emissions.

Last October the IPCC released a significant report on global warming, called Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, known as SR15, which projected that extreme weather events will only get worse if warming is not limited to below 1.5°C compared to 2°C as agreed by the international community in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The agreement is a landmark set goals for reducing carbon emissions and with countries committing to climate change adaption but the IPCC report showed that the agreed target of limiting global warming to 2°C and even the target of1.5°C was too high to avoid catastrophic weather events.

In the absence of a significant reduction in emissions, sea-levels will rise more than 10 times faster in this century than it did in the previous 20^th Century.

Populations in coastal cities and SIDS will be exposed to escalating flood risks, the report shows, noting that some island nations are likely to become uninhabitable due to climate-related oceans and cryosphere change.

Against this backdrop, the report emphasises an urgent need to prioritise timely, ambitious and coordinated action to efficiently and effectively address unprecedented and lasting changes in the oceans and cryosphere.

“We will only be able to keep global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels if we effect unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society, including energy, land and ecosystems, urban and infrastructure as well as industry,” said Debra Roberts, a South African scientist and co-chair of the IPCC working group II.

U.N. scientists have further detailed the benefits of ambitious and effective mitigation efforts for current and future generations.

The report particularly finds that communities along the East African coastline will be significantly impacted if carbon emissions are not reduced drastically as marine life is already being hit by oceans warming. CO₂ absorption has led to increasing acidity of the oceans, which threatens the survival of marine life. 

In the absence of significant emission cuts, maximum catch potential of fisheries could fall up to 24 percent by the end of the century. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

“When local fisher folk complain of a continued decline in the amounts of fish caught, they are only confirming that greenhouse gas emissions are adversely affecting ecosystems and livelihoods that depend on them,” Dr Kiragu Kibe, a lecturer in natural resources at the University of Nairobi, told IPS.

While fisher folk like Sombo attribute decline in fish catch to a lack of proper fishing equipment and boats that can withstand deeper waters, Kiragu says that it is really because “oceans that are warmer and marine life shifting in search of more conducive habitats”.

Statistics by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicate that income from fishing and aquaculture dropped from 385 million dollars in 2015 to 347 million dollars in 2017. Fish production contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined from 0.7 percent in 2014 to 0.4 percent in 2017.

“This is an alarming trend because of the country’s significant maritime economy potential based on its 600 kilometres long Indian Ocean Coastline,” said Hamisa Zaja who runs Green World Foundation, a non-governmental organisation based in Kenya’s  coastal region and dedicated to environmental conservation.

U.N. scientists now say that the worst is yet to come. Changes to the oceans are set to continue throughout the century and they include an increase in ocean acidity of about 150 percent.

Up to 80 percent of the upper oceans will lose oxygen by 2050 accompanied by significant changes in nutrient supplies for marine life.

The report further reveals that without emission cuts, the total mass of animals in the world’s oceans could decrease “15 percent and the maximum catch potential of fisheries could fall up to 24 percent by the end of the century – but by much less with lower emissions”.

Tropical oceans such as the central Pacific Ocean and most of the Indian Ocean are expected to continue losing grip on their fish catch potential.

“Coastal communities are going to experience a food crisis. Now more than ever, we need to work with communities to develop local solutions to fight climate change. Our best chance lies in scientists working hand in hand with local communities,” Zaja told IPS.

Indeed the report highlights the benefits of combining scientific with local and indigenous knowledge to develop “suitable options to manage climate change risks and enhance resilience”.

“The more decisively and the earlier we act, the more able we will be to address unavoidable changes, manage risks, improve our lives and achieve sustainability for ecosystems and people around the world – today and in the future,” Roberts said.

Until that time comes, local fisher folk like Sombo will continue to grapple with challenges that are unprecedented, beyond their capacity to overcome and if status quo continues, enduring. 

Volunteers from the Peruvian Institute for the Protection of the Environment Vida clean up the waste washed up by the sea on the coast near Lima. Half of the 6,000 tonnes of marine debris collected by the organisation since 1998, with the support of 200,000 volunteers, is disposable plastic. Credit: Courtesy of Vida

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 3 2018 (IPS)

Although Latin America produces just five percent of the world’s plastic, it imports billions of tons annually for the use of all kinds of products, some of which end up in the sea as garbage.

It thus contributes to this kind of artificial tsunami that threatens the biodiversity of the oceans, where 13 million tons of waste, mostly disposable plastics, are dumped each year at a global level, according to UN Environment – enough to wrap around the Earth four times.

The impact is such that it also affects human health, as this resistant waste enters the food chain, and has led the United Nations to declare “Beat Plastic Pollution” as the theme for this year’s World Environment Day, on Jun. 5."Plastic discarded improperly on beaches, rivers and the sewers ends up in the sea and causes the death of thousands of marine animals every year. Drinking straws, cigarette butts, caps, plastic bags, improperly discarded, represent the highest percentage of environmentally hazardous materials for marine wildlife." -- Marcelo Szpilman

Favoured by a 3,000-km coastline on the Pacific Ocean, with one of the world’s most nutrient-rich waters, Peru was one of the first Latin American countries to join the Clean Seas campaign, launched a year ago by UN Environment.

The global campaign aims to eliminate by 2022 the main sources of marine debris, which can remain in ecosystems for 500 years. There are five identified ‘islands’ of plastic rubbish in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, one of them between Chile and Peru.

“We have witnessed firsthand the serious impacts of different types of waste, including plastic in our seas,” said Ursula Carrascal, project coordinator for the Institute for the Protection of the Environment Vida in Peru.

For 20 years, the organisation has been leading a campaign to clean up beaches and coastlines in this Andean country, involving all sectors of society.

According to Carrascal, the problem is exacerbated when the country suffers additional damage caused by natural disasters, such as the “La Niña” phenomenon that in 2017 caused flooding and the shifting of tons of waste accumulated on river banks.

“Marquez Beach in Callao was literally covered in garbage for three km. Many beaches are now gone, fishing boats and artisanal fishermen are affected by the damage to their nets or engines caused by plastic,” she told IPS from Lima.

The country, according to the Environment Ministry, generates 6.8 million tons of solid waste. Lima and the neighbouring port city of Callao alone generate an estimated three million tons per year. Of that total, 53 percent is organic waste, and in second place comes plastic, accounting for 11 percent, a percentage in line with the world average.

In fact, half of the 6,000 tons of marine debris collected by Vida since 1998, with the support of 200,000 volunteers, is plastic.

“There is a strong concern about the risk in the field of food safety due to the plastic accidentally ingested by fish,” Carrascal said.

The governmental Marine Institute of Peru has been studying the impact of microplastic (less than five mm long) on Peruvian beaches and in the digestive tract of fish for years. A 2017 report found 473 plastic fragments per square metre on a beach in Callao.

The British Ellen MacArthur Foundation, dedicated to promoting the circular economy – based on the reduction of both new materials and waste, to create loops of recycling – warns that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans and reminds us that all marine life eats this waste.

One of the consequences, say scientists at Ghent University in Belgium, is that when you eat fish and seafood, you ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic, a material most commonly derived from petrochemicals, every year.

In Brazil, a country with more than 9,000 km of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, a marine aquarium was inaugurated in October 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. AquaRío, which promotes environmental education and scientific research for biodiversity conservation, is the institution with which the Clean Seas campaign was launched.

Guanabara bay, a symbol of Río de Janeiro, Brazil which until recently was surrounded by waste, mainly plastic, along its shores, has changed thanks to new awareness among groups like fisherpersons, who are helping to keep it clean. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

“Plastic discarded improperly on beaches, rivers and the sewers ends up in the sea and causes the death of thousands of marine animals every year. Drinking straws, cigarette butts, caps, plastic bags, improperly discarded, represent the highest percentage of environmentally hazardous materials for marine wildlife,” director Marcelo Szpilman told IPS.

“The remains of nets, fishing lines, ropes and plastic bags abandoned in the sea remain in the environment for many years due to their low biodegradability and end up injuring or killing countless animals that end up entangled and die by asphyxiation or starvation,” added the marine biologist.

To raise awareness among children about this silent killing at sea, the aquarium uses the image of mermaids dying from the ingestion of plastic.

This happens in reality in the oceans to fish, birds, seals, turtles and dolphins that confuse floating plastic waste with octopuses, squid, jellyfish and other species that they eat.

“Dolphins have been found with their stomachs full of city trash. Cigarette butts, the most widely collected item in all beach clean-up campaigns, have caused the death of animals that swallow them mistaking them for fish eggs,” Szpilman said.

In addition, he noted, “a plastic bag drifting at sea is easily mistaken for a jellyfish, which is a food for several species of sea turtles, which as a result can die from asphyxiation.

According to experts, in Brazil and other Latin American countries, the problem is combated with isolated initiatives, such as the banning of plastic bags in supermarkets, when what is needed is a broader change in the model of plastic production and consumption.

But some things have started to be done.

In Peru, for example, Vida has coordinated actions with the waste management industry to promote the circular economy model through recycling chains with the waste collected in coastal cleanups throughout the country.

This work has been carried out not only with large industry but also with small and medium-sized enterprises and the National Movement of Recyclers of Peru.

“Greater efforts and investment in recycling technology are needed to solve the plastic problem. In Peru, much of the plastic waste collected, although it could be 100 percent recycled, is not recycled because there are no recycling plants, due to lack of knowledge or lack of adequate technology,” Carrascal said.

In his opinion, “great progress is being made in the separation of waste from primary sources, but this cycle ends when the waste ends again in a landfill.”

The Peruvian model of waste management in the marine ecosystem has been used as a reference point in other countries of the Southeast Pacific, including Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Panama.

Excerpt:

Erik Solheim participates in the largest beach clean-up in history at Versova Beach Clean-Up in Mumbai, India, in October 2016. Photo courtesy of UNEP

By Manipadma Jena
NAIROBI/NEW DELHI, Dec 1 2017 (IPS)

“Political resolve is the key for succeeding in our fight against oceans pollution,” Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment, who is leading hands-on the organisation’s global campaign to clean up seas and oceans of plastic litter, agricultural run‑off and chemical dumping, told IPS.

“It’s about building capacity for strong environmental governance and bolstering political leadership on these issues,” said Solheim, who previously served as Norway’s Minister of the Environment and International Development.“If action is not taken today, we’re lining ourselves up for the ultimate cost – the destruction of our oceans – down the line."

“One of the big changes has been an understanding of the issue (of marine pollution) and a realization that we are facing an extremely serious problem. As a result, we’re starting to see a range of initiatives,” he said.

“On the community level, there are people like Afroz Shah and Mumbai’s Versova Beach clean-up team, for example. They’re really doing an amazing job of drawing attention to the problem.

“Then we’re seeing the “private sector begin to take serious action,” he said. “For example, Dell is changing its packaging. Certain big national and international chains are changing their practices – for example by using paper instead of plastic, or cutting out plastic straws.

“Then we have government action, which is crucial. Certain countries have banned microplastics, some have banned plastic bags. Kenya, Rwanda and Bangladesh, for example, are recognised global leaders on plastic pollution,” he added.

“This points to a growing understanding of the marine litter problem and a resolve to take concrete action. Ultimately, the problem of marine litter is upstream. We need industries to change. We need people to exercise their power as consumers,” Solheim said.

In what Joachim Spangenberg of Germany’s Helmholtz Centre for Environment Research called the “political economy” of pollution, where vested-interest lobbies profit by externalizing costs of production and discharging unwanted waste into the environment, anti-plastic law-makers are up against a global plastic industry worth 654 billion dollars by 2020. Dow Chemicals, Du Pont, BASF, ExxonMobil, and Bayer are key players invested in the sector.

But Spangenberg too says that heads of government have great power to address this “political economy” of pollution.

Oceans are the new economic frontier, but ill health eating into its potential

Between 2010 and 2030 on a business‑as‑usual scenario, the ocean economy could double its global value added to 3 trillion dollars and provide 40 million jobs, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) major 2016 study said.

Ocean is the new economic frontier, it said, its growth driven by traditional and emerging ocean-based industries, marine food, energy, transport, minerals, medicines, tourism and innovations.

But OECD warns the oceans’ undermined health would cut into its full growth potential.

“We need governments to make polluters pay, and to ensure we work harder on recycling, reuse and waste management. The solution is stopping the waste ending up in the ocean in the first place,” Solheim told Inter Press Service.

UN Environment chief Erik Solheim. Photo courtesy of UNEP

Pollution from plastic waste in oceans is costing 8 billion dollars

“Pollution from plastic waste being dumped in the ocean is costing the world at least 8 billion dollars every year, but this estimate is certain to be an underestimate when we factor in the cumulative, long-term consequences,” said the UNEP chief.

Between 4.8 million tonnes and 12.7 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the ocean every year, 80 percent of it from land sources due to inadequate waste management.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, plastic production is increasing 4-5 percent annually.

Plastic pollution is everywhere; even a tiny uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean far from human contact had 18 tonnes of plastic washed up on it. Plastic waste was found at 36,000 feet in depth – the deepest spot in the ocean in the Mariana trench, he points out.

Plastic aside, land-based sources pump in the maximum waste and pollutants into oceans and coastal waters, mostly through rivers. Farming, food and agro-industry, fisheries and aquaculture, oil and energy sector, waste, wastewater, packaging sector, extractives and pharmaceuticals are major sources.

In coastal regions where 37 percent of the global population lives, these pollutants can stunt neurological development, cause heart and kidney disease, cancer, sterility and hormonal disruption.

Among the little know impacts on marine creatures, ingestion of microplastics (size less than 5 mm) by fish can affect female fertility and grow reproductive tissue in male fish causing their feminization. Chemicals in plastic cause thyroid disorder in whales, physiological stress, liver cancer, and endocrine dysfunction, says UNEP’s 2017 pollution report.

“Then of course we have to look at waste to the economy of plastics being produced, used for a few seconds or minutes and then dumped,” Solheim said.

Why are many law-makers still dragging their feet on strong anti-plastic policies?

Environmental activists say regulating marine pollution needs bold and several restrictive, unpopular policies that on which elected law makers are seen to be dragging their feet.

“It’s a case of presenting environmental action in a positive, constructive way. We need to stop looking at it as a cost or sacrifice, but as an opportunity, a win for health, benefits for the economy and for the planet,” Solheim counters the critics.

The Kenyan government recently banned single-use plastic bags. “There were inevitably complaints from some manufacturers, but we have to consider what the benefits are from making the switch to more sustainable packaging.

“There are business opportunities. There are benefits to tourism, as nobody wants to go on a safari and see plastic bags blowing across the savannah, or spend a holiday on beaches littered with plastic. There are benefits to the food chain too. We’ve seen cows whose stomachs were filled with plastic,” he added.

Actions don’t need to be unpopular. For example, “does any country have a policy to throw rubbish into the sea?” “Certainly not! If that was a real policy, people would be justifiably furious.” he said. But that is what has happened, in the absence of strong policies.

“For too long, the relationship between prosperity and environment has been seen as a trade-off. Tackling pollution was considered an unwelcome cost on industry and a handicap to economic growth,” Solheim says in his ‘Vision for a Pollution-free Planet,’ in the run-up to the UN Environment Assembly. “(But) it’s now clear that sustainable development is the only form of development that makes sense, including in financial and economic terms,” he adds.

“If action is not taken today, we’re lining ourselves up for the ultimate cost – the destruction of our oceans – down the line. It’s cheaper to prevent pollution now than clean up in the future,” he told Inter Press Service.

“That’s the message we really need to get across, so that governments can feel inspired and emboldened to take action.

“After that, what price do we put on our oceans? They sustain human life in such a way that surely we need to look at the oceans as priceless,” Solheim said.

“We have to look at pollution as a factor alongside climate change and over-fishing. We have to look at oceans as interconnected,” Solheim said.

Keeping marine litter high on national environmental policy agendas of the 193 member nations, pollution is the focus of the 2017 UN Environment Assembly 4-6 December at the UN headquarters of Nairobi.

The UN Environment Assembly is attended by 193 member states, heads of state, environment ministers, CEOs of multinational companies, NASA scientists, NGOs, environmental activists, and celebrities to discuss and make global commitments to environmental protection.

Excerpt:

President of Mauritius Ameenah Gurib-Fakim. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

By Nasseem Ackbarally
PORT-LOUIS, Mauritius, Apr 19 2017 (IPS)

An internationally renowned scientist, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim became Mauritius’s sixth president on June 5, 2015 – and one of the few Muslim women heads of state in the world.

Her nomination constituted a major event in the island’s quest for greater gender parity and women’s empowerment, giving a higher profile to women in the public and democratic sphere of Mauritius.

Gurib-Fakim started her career in 1987 as a lecturer at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mauritius. She was one of the leading figures in local academia with a reputation far beyond the Indian Ocean before she accepted the post of president.

She has also served in different capacities in numerous local, regional and international organizations. Gurib-Fakim has lectured extensively and authored or co-edited 26 books and numerous academic articles on biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

In this exclusive interview with IPS, President Gurib-Fakim urged world leaders to save our oceans, noting that this critical ecosystem impacts millions of livelihoods, particularly for small island-states and coastal communities.

This June, the United Nations will convene a high-level Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development at U.N. Headquarters in New York.

Human activity has already left a huge footprint on the world’s oceans, Gurib-Fakim notes. “We have always assumed that the ocean is a dumping ground – which it is not.”

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: How would you rate the oceans in terms of importance in the context of sustainable development?

A: The ocean space occupies 70 percent of the world’s surface and it still remains unknown. There is no doubt that ocean space impacts livelihood, especially for islands and coastal communities. Several countries in the South-West Indian Ocean, for example, rely heavily on fishing to sustain livelihoods. In 2013, fish accounted for 17 percent of the world population’s intake of animal protein and 6.7 percent of all protein consumed. Coral-reef fish species also represent an important source of protein.

With more than 60 percent of the world’s economic output taking place near coastlines and in some African countries, the ocean economy contributes 25 percent of the revenues and over 30 percent of export revenues. It is becoming increasingly clear the enormous potential of our oceans.

Q: Do you think that the objectives of the World Ocean Summit can still reverse the decline in the health of our ocean for people, planet and prosperity?

A:  This Summit brings on board all the stakeholders involved with ocean issues. This summit is also a pledging conference as funding always remains a thorny issue and yet there is urgency in data collection on several areas of the ocean ecosystems. It provides the policymaker and the researcher a holistic picture of what the ocean stands for and will hopefully change the narrative on the need to reverse the decline of the health of our ocean space.

Climate change remains a big component as acidification of the waters as well as rise in temperatures will affect both the flora and fauna.

We must always be mindful to the fact that humans have had a huge footprint in the health of our oceans as we have always assumed that the ocean is dumping ground. It is NOT. There are within the ocean space, very fragile ecosystems that can be destroyed by small increases in acidity or temperatures.

Q: As an Ocean State, Mauritius does not seem to have given due consideration to the importance of our oceans in terms of an environmental asset. How would this Ocean Summit help to change our mindset?

A: Mauritius has a very small landmass, we have a very huge space of 2.2 million km and I think what the ocean summit helps us to do is to bring back to the fore these multiple challenges or opportunities that the ocean as an entity presents to the economy of Mauritius. As I said, one of the areas will be sustainable fishery, which can be flagged into the economy. Mauritius and in the South West Indian Ocean fisheries are threatened, with up to 30 percent of the fish stock over-exploited or depleted and 40 percent fully exploited. The poor management of this sector has amounted to an annual loss of about USD 225 million.

However, the ocean is not only fish, it is also sustainable tourism as well as renewable energy, including wave energy, amongst others.

Q:  The health of our oceans is critical for the survival of humanity. We have seen that despite all the international conferences and commitments, all the ecosystems of our planet are collapsing one after the other. How will this conference help to change things globally, but equally locally?

A:  For me, the ocean cannot and should not be taken as a dumping ground or a carbon sink. We should also take stock of effluents coming from the rivers as all the runoffs eventually end up in the sea.  Plastic pollution is also a very big issue because we know that a lot of damage is being done to wildlife because of un-recycled plastic. These conferences help us to see visually the impact of these polluting activities. They also bring live images, testimonies from people who have first-hand experiences. They help to change the mindset of people. They also try to bring people to think differently, sustainably.  We need to change the way people do business, the way people look at the ocean, we need to have a completely fresh look at these.

Q: Climate change is a major challenge for the survival of humanity, and we have seen that the United States of America has started to back-pedal on climate change agreements. How do you perceive this change of policy from a major carbon dioxide producer?

A:  To me, climate change is the biggest threat to humanity because it will impact not only on the ocean but also all the ecosystems on earth. It will impact the loss of many species; already 17,000 are threatened and when these species disappear, they reduce the resilience of our ecosystem. I always say biodiversity underpins life on earth and it also in the ocean as well. This balance in the oceans ecosystem is very very fragile.

So, any change, even half a degree increase in temperature of the water, is not sustained by the animals living out there and they will disappear and that is a thing that we do not want to envisage. Now, some countries want to backpedal on climate change agreements, it’s very unfortunate because many countries have fought very very hard to contain emissions. Large economies like India have started a global alliance on renewal energy, China has also made pledges, but it would be unfortunate that any country pulls out of this agreement because we are not talking about the short term but about the long term and for the larger good of humanity.

For those countries that feel that they still need fossil fuels to grow the economy, green technologies have shown that it is possible to sustain growth with same. It is proven and I don’t think people have to shy away from the fact that by disinvesting in fossil fuels their economy will still progress. Clean energy is the answer.

Q: What are your hopes and expectations for the ocean summit?

A: The hope is that those who made pledges deliver on them. We are not too far off the tipping point, but I think all is not lost. We need to act fast and deliver on results as well as on commitments. Our future depends on it.

Q: Nearly two years into your term as President of the Republic of Mauritius, how do you perceive the question of gender equality in Mauritius, and are things are improving?

A: Post-independence Mauritius had a very low per capita income of around 200 USD. Several decisions had been taken since then to ensure the well being of the people and one such decision was to make education free for all in 1976. Education is an enabler and ensures social mobility of people. At that moment in time, parents did not have to make choices of whether to educate their sons or daughters.

Over 40 years down the line we have seen the transformation that this decision has had. The percentage of women in many professional spheres has increased. The medical, judiciary, teaching professions have more than their fair share of women’s representation. We may be weak in terms of percentage at board levels or in politics but I think that it is work in progress. My message is very clear on this issue… any country that wants to make progress cannot afford to ignore 52 percent of its workforce and talents.

Excerpt:

A young boy stands near mangroves planted near his home in the village of Entale in Sri Lanka’s northwest Puttalam District. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 2017 (IPS)

Children growing up in the Seychelles think of the ocean as their backyard, says Ronald Jean Jumeau, Seychelles’ ambassador for climate change.

“Our ocean is the first and eternal playground of our children, they don’t go to parks they go to the ocean, they go to the beach, they go to the coral reefs, and all that is just collapsing around them,” Jumeau told IPS.

The tiny country off the East Coast of Africa is one of 39 UN member states known as small island states, or as Jumeau likes to call them: “large ocean states.”

Ambassadors and delegations from these 39 countries often speak at UN headquarters in New York steadfastly sounding the alarm about the changes to the world’s environment they are witnessing first hand. Jumeau sees these island states as sentinels or guardians of the oceans. He prefers these names to being called the canary in the gold mine because, he says: “the canaries usually end up dead.”

Yet while much is known about the threats rising oceans pose to the world’s small island states, much less is known about how these large ocean states help defend everyone against the worst impacts of climate change by storing “blue carbon.”

“We are not emitting that much carbon dioxide but we are taking everyone else’s carbon dioxide into our oceans,” says Jumeau.

Despite decades of research, the blue carbon value of oceans and coastal regions is only beginning to be fully appreciated for its importance in the fight against climate change.

“There’s proof that mangroves, seas salt marshes and sea grasses absorb more carbon (per acre) than forests, so if you’re saying then to people ‘don’t cut trees’ than we should also be saying ‘don’t cut the underwater forests’,” says Jumeau.

This is just one of the reasons why the Seychelles has banned the clearing of mangroves. The temptation to fill in mangrove forests is high, especially for a nation with so little land, but Jumeau says there are many benefits to sustaining them.

As well as absorbing carbon, mangroves guard against erosion and protect coral reefs. They also provide nurseries for fish.

Its not just coastal forests that take carbon out of the atmosphere. Oceans themselves also absorb carbon, although according to NASA their role is more like inhaling and exhaling.

The Seychelles, whose total ocean territory is 3000 times larger than its islands, is also thinking about how it can protect the ocean so it can continue to perform this vital function.

The nation plans to designate specific navigation zones within its territories to allow other parts of the ocean a chance to recover from the strains associated with shipping.

The navigation zones will “relieve the pressure on the ocean by strengthening the resilience of the oceans to absorb more carbon dioxide and ocean acidification,” says Jumeau. He acknowledges the plan will only work if all countries do the same but says you have to start somewhere.

Fortunately other countries are also, finally, beginning to recognise the importance of protecting the world’s oceans.

Isabella Lövin, Sweden’s deputy prime minister and climate minister told IPS that the world is going “in the totally wrong direction,” when it comes to achieving the goal of sustainable oceans and life below water.

“If you look at the trends right now, you see more and more overfishing, we are seeing more and more pollution, plastic litter coming into our oceans, and we’re also seeing all the stress that the ocean is under due to climate change, acidification of the water, but also the warming and sea level rises.

“All of this is putting a tremendous, tremendous pressure on our oceans,” said Lövin.

Together with Fiji, Sweden is convening a major UN Ocean Conference in June this year.

The conference aims to bring together not only governments but also the private sector and non-governmental organisations to create a more coordinated approach to sustaining oceans. It will look at the key role that oceans play in climate change but also other issues such as the alarming prospect that there will be more plastic in our seas than fish by the year 2050.

“There’s 3 billion people around the world that are primarily dependent on marine resources for their survival and so they depend on what the ocean can produce, so it’s about food security, it’s also about livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people that depend on small scale fisheries mostly in developing countries,” said Lövin.

Lövin also noted that rich countries need to work together with developing countries to address these issues, because the demand for fish in rich countries has put a strain on the global fish stocks that developing countries rely on.

“Rich countries … have been over-fishing with industrial methods for decades and now when they European oceans are being emptied more or less we have depleted our resources and then we import and we fish (over long distances in) developing countries’ waters.”

“We need to make sure that fish as a resource is conserved and protected for future generations.”

Excerpt:

200 million people worldwide rely on fishing and related industries for their livelihoods. Credit: Christopher Pala/IPS.

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 10 2017 (IPS)

UN member states hope to reach agreement on a diverse range of global issues in 2017, from managing the world’s oceans to banning killer robots to stopping tuberculosis, one of the world’s deadliest diseases.

In recent years the UN has tackled big issues including ebola, the global migration crisis, financing for development and climate change, with varying degrees of success.

Many pressing environmental, humanitarian and development issues continue to fill the UN’s agenda – even as incoming President of the United States has argued that things will be different at the UN after his inauguration on 20 January.

Trump has suggested that the UN “is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” However UN discussions have led the 71 year old organisation with 193 member states to create more than 560 international treaties.

Oceans and Life Below Water

One of the biggest meetings on the UN’s agenda this year is focused on the oceans or more specifically Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.

“The United Nations has the opportunity to drive profound change for the oceans in 2017,” Elizabeth Wilson, director, international ocean policy at the Pew Charitable Trusts told IPS.

“This event will provide UN member states an opportunity to assess progress on ocean conservation, make new commitments, and create meaningful partnerships,” she said.

The meeting – which will take place in New York from 5 to 9 June – is considered to be of global importance for many reasons. For example, according to a 2016 World Economic Forum report, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans by the year 2050. Declining fish stocks will effect the more than two billion people worldwide who rely on fish as a source of protein. The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation also estimates that 200 million people worldwide rely on fishing or related activities for their livelihoods, the vast majority of whom live in developing countries.

Another important related issue on the UN’s agenda in 2017 will be working towards creating a treaty to protect the high seas, the areas of the global oceans, which fall beyond any country’s sea borders, said Wilson.

Tuberculosis

The UN General Assembly has only ever convened special high-level meetings on two global health threats, HIV/AIDS and antimicrobial resistance. However in 2018, the General Assembly will meet to discuss Tuberculosis.

Although the decision to convene the special meeting has been welcomed, it will not come soon enough for the nearly two million people who will likely die of tuberculosis in 2017.

“The tuberculosis burden is much higher than we expected and the measures to be taken must be much more focused and serious than before,” Lucica Ditiu, Executive Director of the Stop TB Partnership told IPS.

A series of global meetings will be held in 2017, in preparation for the 2018 meeting however, said Ditiu who also noted that these global meetings should not be seen as a silver bullet.

Although tuberculosis is treatable, the emergence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in recent years is a major cause for concern. Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is just one example of antimicrobial resistance – a serious health problem which world leaders addressed at the UN General Assembly in 2016.

Banning Nuclear Weapons and Killer Robots

Possibly the most ambitious item on the UN’s agenda in 2017 will be an attempt to create an international treaty for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The first session of the UN conference to negotiate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination will take place in New York from 27 to 31 March.

The treaty will be a more ambitious iteration of the already existing Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

However proponents of total abolition of nuclear weapons will face an even more challenging political context in 2017, with US President-elect Donald Trump appearing to have unpredictable views on nuclear weapons potentially at odds with the existing non-proliferation treaty which bans new countries from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Another, more contemporary issue on the UN’s agenda in 2017 will be killer robots. UN member states have agreed to begin talks to ban killer robots this year. According to the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots the talks will “(bring) the world another step closer towards a prohibition on the weapons.” A similar agreement back in 1995, led to government agreeing to pre-emptively ban lasers that would permanently blind, according to the campaign.

Artisanal fisheries are being hit by subsidised, foreign vessels. Credit: Christopher Pala/IPS

By Christopher Pala
WASHINGTON, Jun 23 2016 (IPS)

In 2011, Dyhia Belhabib was a volunteer in the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver when she was asked to participate in the Sea Around Us’s project to determine how much fish had been taken out of the world’s oceans since 1950 in order to better avoid depleting the remaining populations of fish.

Belhabib had studied fisheries science in her native Algeria, so she was initially asked to oversee the Algeria component. She ended up leading the research in 24 countries. And though she was an expert and an African, over the next five years, the world of African fisheries took her from surprise to surprise, many of them disquieting, just like Voltaire’s Candide. And echoing Pangloss, who repeats “All is for the best in the best of possible worlds” to a Candide dismayed at the state of the world, the Food and Agriculture Organization insisted the world catch was “practically stable.”

“The most depressing thing for me was the realization that African countries got no benefit at all from all the foreign fleets,” she said. “In fact, the fishing communities suffered a lot, and in most places, the only people who made money were the government officials who sold the fishing licenses.”

The study found that the global catch was 40 percent higher than the FAO reported and is falling at three times the agency’s rate. But under this picture of decline, Belhabib uncovered a dazzling array of cheating methods that highlighted the low priority most governments place on fisheries management – and implicitly on the health of the people who depend on the sea for most of their animal protein.

When Belhabib started with Algeria, she was puzzled to see that the government reported to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) that between 2001 and 2006, it had fished 2,000 tons of bluefin tuna on average, and yet reported to the FAO that it had caught almost none. Belhabib discovered that for once, the FAO’s zero catch was not a metaphor for “We have no data,” as the study found in many countries. In fact, undeterred by the fact the Algerian fishermen didn’t know how to fish tuna with long-line vessels, the government had simply bought some boats and sold their quotas to countries that did, notably Japan and Italy.

The next country she tackled was Morocco, which took over the Western Sahara in 1975 over the objections of its nomadic people and the international community. The territory has unusually rich waters and two-thirds of Morocco’s catch comes from there. The study estimated the local value of the catch since 1950 at 100 billion dollars, but since it was almost entirely sold in Europe at twice the price, the real value of the catch was 200 billion dollars.

Had the Moroccan government insisted that foreign fleets pay 20 percent of that value, as the EU claims it does today in Morocco (in fact, the study found it pays 5 percent), it could have received a revenue stream of one billion dollars a year, which, had it gone entirely to the Western Sahara, would have doubled the GDP per capita of 2,500 dollars a year for its 500,000 people. Under the current agreement, the EU pays 180 million dollars for access to all of Morocco’s waters, or 120 million dollars for access to the Western Sahara’s waters. How much actually goes to the territory is unclear. Other nations pay far less.

Mauritania has a fleet of locally flagged Russian and Chinese large trawlers that haul in whole schools of small blue-water fish called sardinella. The coast is studded with idle processing plants built to turn them into fish meal, which is used as animal feed. Belhabib discovered that the ships were reporting to the government only a tiny fraction of their actual haul – some of it illegally taken from neighboring countries and selling the rest for higher prices in Europe. “The authorities had no idea,” she said. “They thought their fleet were landing and reporting their whole catch.”

In Senegal, which unlike Mauritania has a strong tradition of fishing, President Macky Sall expelled the Russians in 2012 because their ships had depleted the populations of sardinella, infuriating many Senegalese. “The Russians just got licenses in Guinea Bissau and went back to Senegal and continued to fish, though not as much,” Belhabib said.

The Senegal reconstruction also documented how the European bottom-trawlers severely depleted the country’s near-shore. As population pressure increased demand for cheap fish, the number of artisanal fishermen soared, and many went to work up the coast in Mauritania, where few people fish. But a conflict in 1989 with Mauritania resulted in the expulsion of thousands of Senegalese fishermen, even as the industrial fleets were increasing their catch off both countries, most of it stolen.

Out of desperation, hundreds of Senegalese fishermen and dozens of canoes over the past decade have been boarding Korean and Portuguese converted trawlers that drop them off near the coasts of other countries. There, they illegally drop baited hooks into underwater canyons out of the reach of bottom trawlers where large, high-value fish can still be taken. These spots, marine biologists say, have served as marine reserves, places where coveted, overfished species could reproduce unhindered – and are now being depleted too, pushing the stocks closer to collapse.

Belhabib’s team also discovered to her horror that subsidized European Union fleets had flocked to the waters of countries weakened by civil war, notably Sierra Leone and Liberia, increasing their stolen catch when the people needed cheap protein most.

They found that South Africa made no attempt to control or even report the extensive fishery in the rich waters off its Namibian colony; in 1969, for example, 4.8 million tons of fish worth 6.2 million dollars were caught, but only 13 tons were reported to the FAO. Today, Namibia has the best-managed fishery in Africa after effectively banning foreign-flagged fleets

Finally, examinations of illegal fishing determined that Spain, whose seafood consumption is double the European average, steals more fish than any other nation, followed by China and Japan.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addressing the second international Our Ocean conference, held in the Chilean port of Valparaíso. Sitting next to him are Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz and President Michelle Bachelet. Credit: Foreign Ministry of Chile

By Marianela Jarroud
VALPARAÍSO, Chile, Oct 8 2015 (IPS)

Seafood offers a large amount of animal protein in diets around the world, and the livelihoods of 12 percent of the global population depend directly or indirectly on fisheries and aquaculture.

However, the impacts of climate change, plastic waste pollution, illegal fishing, and acidification threaten the oceans and their biodiversity, said experts at the second international Our Ocean conference, held Oct. 5-6 in the Chilean port of Valparaíso, 120 km northwest of Santiago.

The more than 500 participants from 56 countries taking part in the gathering committed to some 80 marine conservation and protection initiatives for over 2.1 billion dollars, covering more than 1.9 billion km of ocean, said Chile’s foreign minister, Heraldo Muñoz.

Muñoz and his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry, hosted the conference, whose first edition took place in 2014 in Washington, D.C.

In one of the keynote speeches, the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, said keeping the oceans healthy and productive was key to eradicating hunger and reaching the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the international community during a Sept. 25-27 U.N. summit in New York.

“We cannot continue to use water resources as if they were infinite,” said Graziano da Silva, who pointed out that nearly one-third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.

The U.N. official said oceans do not have an infinite capacity to withstand the threats they face: over-exploitation of marine resources, climate change, pollution and loss of habitat.

“The health of our own planet and our food security depends on how we treat the blue world,” he stated.

FAO emphasises that fish is a highly nutritious complement to diets lacking in essential vitamins and minerals.

According to FAO, about one billion people – largely in developing countries – rely on fish as their primary source of animal protein. And in 2010, “fish provided more than 2.9 billion people with almost 20 percent of their intake of animal protein, and 4.3 billion people with about 15 percent of such protein.”

And in some countries, especially small island states, fish accounts for over 25 percent of animal protein intake, the U.N. agency reports.

Besides offering a staple element in diets worldwide, fishing and aquaculture provide jobs and incomes to millions of people across the planet.

“Fishing is part of the oldest, most remote history of the American continent,” social anthropologist Juan Carlos Skewes told IPS. “In the interior of the continent as well as along the coasts and rivers it provided sustenance for dozens of native peoples, especially groups whose nomadic way of life depended on the sea.”

And that is still true: 12 percent of the global population – or 875,000,000 people – depend directly or indirectly on fishing and aquaculture.

“The sea is so important for us because it not only feeds us, but gives us life,” said Petero Edmunds, mayor of Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island, located 3,700 km off the coast of Chile in the Pacific ocean.

Oceans cover over 70 percent of the planet’s surface and 97 percent of all water on earth is salty, but only one percent is protected. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

“For Polynesians, the sea is our source of life,” he said in an interview with IPS. “It is so important that in our mythology we have Tangaloa, the God of the Sea, and in Rapa Nui’s ancient traditions, when a baby is born, the first thing the father must do is dip it into the sea, to return it to its natural state.”

In Latin America and the Caribbean there are over two million small-scale fisherpersons who generate some three billion dollars a year in revenues, according to the Latin American Organisation for Fisheries Development (OLDEPESCA).

Three of the world’s large marine ecosystems are found along South America’s coasts.

The main one is the Humboldt Current, in the Pacific ocean. It flows north along the west coast of South America, from the southern tip of Chile, past Ecuador, to northern Peru, creating one of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems with approximately 20 percent of the world’s fish catch, according to FAO.

Other important ecosystems in the region, in the Atlantic ocean, are the Patagonian Shelf along the coasts of Argentina and Uruguay, and the South Brazil Shelf.

But these ecosystems are in serious danger: Around eight million tons of plastic bottles, bags, toys and other plastic waste is dumped into the oceans every year, killing innumerable marine animals and sea birds.

In addition, nearly one-third of global fish stocks are overfished.

Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved at the late September global summit in New York, number 14 is to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.”

But the interdependence of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the vital role played by oceans which, for example, absorb more than 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, mean the SDGs are impossible to achieve without healthy and resilient oceans.

“Today we know there is a much closer relationship between oceans and climate change,” EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Karmenu Vella told IPS.

He added that the protection of oceans should be a central focus of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.

Foreign Minister Muñoz, meanwhile, said the government leaders taking part in the conference in Chile, who will also attend COP21, “have promised that protection of the oceans will be included in the documents and commitments that emerge from the summit.”

Muñoz stressed the importance of the announcements made by a number of countries at the Valparaíso conference.

He emphasised Chile’s pledge to protect more than one million sq km of sea, which will be one of the largest protected marine areas in the world.

As part of that initiative, the country announced the creation of 720,000 sq km of protected areas in Rapa Nui, as demanded by the island’s slightly over 5,000 inhabitants, who are seeking to protect the biodiversity of the surrounding waters, which are home to 142 endemic species, 27 of which are endangered or threatened.

The measure will also make it possible for them to continue their ancestral practice of subsistence fishing in the island’s 50 nautical mile zone.

“Artisanal fishing is still practiced according to our ancestral traditions in Rapa Nui,” Edmunds said. “Rocks are used as weights for the hooks, so we can catch tuna or other big fish.”

He said the creation of the marine protected area, announced by President Michelle Bachelet at the opening of the conference, would help combat illegal fishing in the waters surrounding the island.

“For decades we have seen ‘ghost’ ships that appear in the early hours of morning as lights on the horizon, which take our fish,” the mayor said.

“With the help of NGOs (non-governmental organisations), it has been shown that an average of 20 illegal vessels a day fish in our waters, which are taking our resources, and we don’t want them to be exhausted,” he added.

Bachelet also announced the creation of the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park covering 297,518 sq km, which will be the biggest such protected area in the Americas.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

A new United Nations assessment has found the world’s oceans to be in dire shape. Credit: Shek Graham/CC-BY-2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 7 2015 (IPS)

The United Nations is posting a new environmental warning: the world is running out of time to prevent the gradual degradation of the world’s oceans and the widespread destruction of marine life.

In its first comprehensive assessment on the state of the oceans, the United Nations says delays in implementing solutions to the problems already identified as threatening to degrade the world’s oceans will lead, unnecessarily, to incurring greater environmental, social and economic costs.

“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.” -- Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International.
Comprising 55 chapters, the first World Ocean Assessment will be presented to the General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole at a meeting scheduled to take place Sep. 8-11.

The study found the sustainable use of the oceans cannot be achieved unless the management of all sectors of human activities affecting the oceans is coherent.

“Human impacts on the sea are no longer minor in relation to the overall scale of the ocean. A coherent overall approach is needed,” the report stated.

According to the United Nations, the Assessment marks the first time ever that scientific experts have assessed the current knowledge on the biological, chemical, economic, physical and social aspects from an integrated, overall perspective.

Steered by the 22-member Group of Experts, the scientists selected from the Pool of Experts, comprised of some 600 members worldwide, looked at the oceans, their flora and fauna and the ways in which humans are benefitting from, and impacting on the ocean.

The experts examined a wide range of issues that affect the oceans’ ecosystems and marine biodiversity, including the impacts of climate change, ice coverage, the frequency of storms, ocean acidification, land-based activities, unsustainable fishing practices, shipping activities, invasive non-native species, offshore hydrocarbon industries and marine debris.

“And they found that the world’s oceans are in dire shape,” according to the U.N.

John Tanzer, director of the Global Marine Programme at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) told IPS the U.N. report is “further substantive proof that the health of our ocean and its economic base are under serious threat and that we need to take immediate action.”

He said the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda and negotiation of a new climate deal present major opportunities for governments, businesses and communities to work together in support of the ocean and the people around the world that rely on the ocean for food security and livelihoods.

According to the United Nations, the oceans cover more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface.  More than 3.5 billion people depend on them for food, energy and income.

By protecting the ocean’s natural and cultural resources, marine protected areas play a central role in addressing some of the global development challenges of today, such as food and energy security, poverty and climate change.

Last June the 193-member General Assembly adopted a resolution aimed at drafting a legally binding international treaty for the conservation of marine biodiversity and to govern the mostly lawless high seas beyond national jurisdiction.

The resolution was the result of more than nine years of negotiations by an Ad Hoc Informal Working Group, which first met in 2006.

If and when the treaty is adopted, it will be the first global treaty to include conservation measures such as marine protected areas and reserves, environmental impact assessments, access to marine genetic resources and benefit sharing, capacity building and the transfer of marine technology.

The High Seas Alliance (HSA), a coalition of some 27 non-governmental organisations, played a significant role in pushing for negotiations on the proposed treaty and has been campaigning for this resolution since 2011.

Meanwhile, in a study released last April, WWF said the untapped riches in the world’s oceans are estimated at nearly 24 trillion dollars – the size of the world’s leading economies.

Describing the oceans as economic powerhouses, the study warned that the resources in the high seas are rapidly eroding through over-exploitation, misuse and climate change.

“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.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

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

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.

One of the walkways built by the community of Santa Rosa de Aguán to connect the local houses with the beach to preserve the sand dunes. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

By Thelma Mejía
SANTA ROSA DE AGUÁN, Honduras , Mar 26 2014 (IPS)

At the mouth of the Aguán river on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, a Garífuna community living in a natural paradise that was devastated 15 years ago by Hurricane Mitch has set an example of adaptation to climate change.

“We don’t want to make the sea angry again, we don’t want a repeat of what happened with Mitch, which destroyed so many houses in the town – nearly all of the ones along the seashore,” community leader Claudina Gamboa, 35, told IPS.

Around the coastal town of Santa Rosa de Aguán, the stunning landscape is almost as pristine as when the first Garífunas came to Honduras in the 18th century.

To reach Santa Rosa de Aguán, founded in 1886 and home to just over 3,000 people, IPS drove by car for 12 hours from Tegucigalpa through five of this Central American country’s 18 departments or provinces, until reaching the village of Dos Bocas, 567 km northeast of the capital.

From this village on the mainland, a small boat runs to Santa Rosa de Aguán, located on the sand in the delta of the Aguán river, whose name in the Garífuna language means “abundant waters.”

Half of the trip is on roads in terrible conditions, which become unnerving when it gets dark. But after crossing the river late at night, under a starry sky with a sea breeze caressing the skin, the journey finally comes to a peaceful end.

A three-year project to help the sand dunes recover, which was completed in 2013, was carried out by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) Small Grants Programme, with additional support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The project sought to generate conditions that would enable the local community to adapt to the risks of climate change and protect the natural ecosystem of the dunes.

The initiative enlisted 40 local volunteers, almost all of them women, who went door to door to raise awareness on the importance of protecting the environment and to educate people about the risks posed by climate change.

“They called them crazy, and thought the people working on that were stupid, but I asked them ‘don’t stop, just keep doing it.’ Now there is greater awareness and people have seen the winds aren’t hitting so hard,” Atanasia Ruíz, a former deputy mayor of the town (2008-2014) and a survivor of Hurricane Mitch, told IPS.

She and Gamboa said the women played an essential role in raising awareness on climate change, and added that thanks to their efforts, the project left an imprint on the white sand and the local inhabitants.

People in the community now understand the importance of protecting the coastal system and preserving the dunes, and have learned to organise behind that goal, Gamboa said. “It’s really touching to see the old women from our town picking up garbage for recycling,” she said.

The sand dunes act as natural protective barriers that keep the wind or waves from smashing into the town during storms.

“When the sea got mad, it made us pay. When Mitch hit, everything here was flattened, it was just horrible,” Gamboa said.

Some people left town, she said, “because we were told that we couldn’t live here, that it was too vulnerable and that the sea would always flood us because there was no way to keep it out.

“But many of us stayed, and with the knowledge they gave us, we know how to protect ourselves and our town,” she said, proudly pointing out how the vegetation has begun to grow in the dunes.

In late October 1998, Hurricane Mitch left 11,000 dead and 8,000 missing in Honduras, while causing enormous economic losses and damage to infrastructure.

Santa Rosa de Aguán was hit especially hard, with storm surges up to five metres high. The bodies of more than 40 people from the town were found, while others went missing.

The effort to recover the sand dunes along the coast included the construction of wide wooden walkways to protect the sand.

In addition, the remains of cinder block houses destroyed by Mitch were finally removed, to prevent them from inhibiting the natural formation of dunes.

The project also introduced recycling, to clear garbage from the beach and the sandy unpaved streets of this town, where visitors are greeted with “buiti achuluruni”, which means “welcome” in the Garífuna language.

Lícida Nicolasa Gómez is an 18-year-old member of the Garífuna community who prefers to be called “Alondra”, her nickname since childhood.

“I loved it when they invited me to the dunes and recycling project, because we were deforesting the dunes, hurting them, destroying the vegetation, but we’re not doing that anymore,” she said.

“We even made a mural on one of the walls of the community centre, to remember what kind of town we wanted,” she added, with a broad smile.

The mural of scraps of plastic and other recyclable materials made on the community centre wall by the people of Santa Rosa de Aguán to celebrate their way of life and the beauty of Garífuna women, and remind the town of the need to mitigate climate change. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

The mural includes scraps of plastic, metal, tiles and bottle tops. It reflects the beauty of the Garífunas, showing people fishing, crops of mandioc and plantain, and the sea and bright sun, while reflecting the desire to live in harmony with the environment.

The sand dunes are up to five metres high in this small town at the mouth of a river that runs through the country’s tropical rainforest.

Hugo Galeano, from GEF’s Small Grants Programme, told IPS that Santa Rosa de Aguán became even more vulnerable after Hurricane Mitch, which affected the local livelihoods based on fishing, farming and livestock.

For this community built between the river and the sea, flooding is one of the main threats to survival, said the representative of the GEF programme.

Ricardo Norales, 80, told IPS that, although the sand dunes and vegetation are growing, “the location of our community means we are still exposed to inclement weather.

“With the project, we saw how the wind and the sea don’t penetrate our homes as much anymore. But we need this kind of aid to be more sustainable,” he said.

The history of Santa Rosa de Aguán is marked by the impact of tropical storms and hurricanes, which have hit the town directly or indirectly many times since it was founded.

But the sand dunes are once again taking shape along the shoreline, where the community has built walkways to the sea.

Local inhabitants want their town to be seen as an example of adaptation to climate change and the construction of alternatives making survival possible. Several of them said they did not want an “ayó” – good-bye in Garífuna – for their community.

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.

At this Bonaire reef, the olive-green coral is alive, but the mottled-gray coral is dead. Credit: Living Oceans Foundation/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jul 9 2013 (IPS)

Environmentalists on Monday filed a petition with the U.S. government requesting regulatory safeguards for 81 particularly vulnerable marine wildlife species, from corals to sharks.

According to WildEarth Guardians, a conservation watchdog, U.S. officials have failed to protect ocean-dwelling species at anywhere near the rate received by animals that live on land, despite legislative and executive mandates to do so. More importantly, the group suggests, the relevant science does not support such a disparity."We’ve repeatedly seen action at the international level become stymied by politics." -- Bethany Cotton of WildEarth Guardians

For decades the United States has had federal legislation, known as the Endangered Species Act (ESA), in place to offer protections to those plants and animals officially deemed in danger of extinction. According to figures provided by WildEarth Guardians, the ESA has officially protected 2,097 species since its enactment in 1973.

Yet just 94 of these have lived in the oceans and seas. The petition’s list would thus nearly double the marine species receiving federal protection.

“To date the U.S. has largely failed to protect marine species under the ESA,” WildEarth Guardians stated Monday. “[This new petition] aims to begin righting this imbalance, which does not reflect the scientific reality of species at risk of extinction. The petition demonstrates that threats to marine species are no less dire or diverse than those jeopardising terrestrial species.”

The group says it wants to use the petition, listing only species that have been deemed endangered or critically endangered by widely recognised international scientific groups, to “jumpstart” the national discussion on this disparity and, more broadly, on the increasingly perilous state of marine wildlife and ecosystems.

“There’s been a clear historical imbalance in terms of offering federal protections to marine species, partially because for a long time the science was stronger for terrestrial species – it was just easier to tell when they were in bad shape,” Bethany Cotton, wildlife programme director for WildEarth Guardians, told IPS.

“But that science has now caught up for many of these [marine] species, and their imperilment is very clear. Yet to a certain extent, the public can still deal with the ocean as ‘out of sight, out of mind’, which makes it easier for large, charismatic animals like whales to receive attention but not for smaller or lesser-known species.”

She continues: “However, it is the government’s responsibility to focus on the science, and it hasn’t been doing that on its own.”

Cotton cites current “unprecedented threats” to marine ecosystems from ocean acidification, increased pollution levels and over-fishing, particularly in international waters. She also notes that marine species are particularly vulnerable to over-exploitation by international trade.

A spokesperson for the National Marine Fisheries Service, Connie Barclay, told IPS that the department’s endangered species team had not yet seen the WildEarth Guardians petition, and so could not comment on its content.

“The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to conserve threatened and endangered species and their ecosystems. It helps guide conservation efforts and ensures that a species does not go extinct,” Barclay said by e-mail, noting: “Our process for listing species under the ESA is transparent and offers opportunities for public comment.”

81 test cases

The petition comes in the aftermath of an executive order issued in 2010 by President Barack Obama expressing concern over the deterioration of ocean ecosystems and ordering all U.S. government agencies to “use the best available science and knowledge … [to] protect, maintain, and restore the health and biological diversity of ocean … ecosystems”.

That order built on recommendations by a national task force, which also led to the creation of a new comprehensive national marine policy. Three months ago, President Obama’s administration published a final plan for implementation of this new National Ocean Policy.

“The Obama administration has put more focus on creating a comprehensive framework for managing our oceans,” Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group, told IPS.

“That said, one of the pieces that fell short was using powerful existing laws to protect the oceans, and the Endangered Species Act is an example of legislation that was probably underutilised in the National Oceans Plan.”

Taking advantage of a provision within the Endangered Species Act that allows for science-based petitions from the public, the WildEarth Guardians request builds upon the assessments of two international wildlife observer groups, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a 1973 global agreement.

All 81 species included in the new petition have been deemed endangered or critically endangered by the IUCN and CITES. As such, environmentalists see the new petition as a way to test U.S. regulators’ seriousness following President Obama’s 2010 order.

“If [the government] won’t take action in situations as dire as those faced by these critically imperilled species,” Jay Tutchton, WildEarth Guardians’ general counsel, said Monday, “it signals the agency doesn’t really want to do anything but talk about declining ocean health.”

Problems of the commons

Importantly, the Endangered Species Act allows the U.S. government to offer protections to species not living within the country’s territory. Doing so can assist in, for instance, cutting down on U.S. demand for certain wildlife products and making available funding for overseas management activities.

“There is certainly increased awareness of the significance of the threats to marine health and ocean ecosystems, but we’ve repeatedly seen action at the international level become stymied by politics,” Bethany Cotton says.

“Just as the most politically volatile such discussions on terrestrial animals revolve around elephants, because of the money involved in the ivory trade, this is also true of the coral used in jewellery and the sharks killed for the lucrative fin trade. That’s why it’s particularly important that the United States, which has supported protection efforts on sharks and coral at the international level, to do whatever it can under domestic laws to protect those species.”

Once the National Marine Fisheries Service has officially received the WildEarth Guardians petition, officials will have three months to decide which, if any, of the requested species warrant investigation. Thereafter, the agency will have 12 months to decide whether protections are merited and to offer proposals for draft rules.

“Oceans are tricky, as they cross a lot of jurisdictions and encounter lots of problems of the commons,” the Center for Biological Diversity’s Sakashita says.

“But the United States can play a very important role in this regard, both elevating the importance of protecting a particular animal and establishing itself as a leader in protecting the oceans more generally.”

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:

Senegalese President Macky Sall, with Wendy Benchley. Credit: Christopher Pala/IPS

By Christopher Pala
WASHINGTON, Apr 15 2013 (IPS)

Hours after President Macky Sall of Senegal met in Washington with President Barack Obama late last month, he stepped into a brightly lit hotel meeting room to accept the Peter Benchley Award for National Stewardship of the Ocean, the only prize for ocean conservation given to heads of state.

As he had promised during his campaign, Sall, upon his election a year ago, voided a series of unpopular contracts his predecessor had signed with foreign industrial vessels that catch huge amounts of sardinella, a depleted seagoing fish that is now West Africa’s main source of animal protein, and turn it into fishmeal for foreign aquaculture."It’s very hard to tell local fishermen to stop fishing to feed their country when foreign industrial trawlers are allowed to take away a big catch" -- UBC's Daniel Pauly

“President Sall is now moving forward with plans to assure a sustainable domestic fishery free of foreign exploitation, creating a model for West Africa and the world,” said Wendy Benchley, widow of “Jaws” author Peter Benchley, before handing him the award as representatives from Greenpeace and the World Bank applauded.

But in an interview just before the ceremony, Sall said the ban was not permanent and he was planning to bring back the foreign sardinella trawlers in six months. “We’re giving the stock a year and a half to recover,” he told IPS. “Now we need to find a responsible approach to managing this fishery sustainably so that our fishermen can fish and foreign trawlers can also fish in strictly controlled conditions.”

“That would be suicide,” says Philippe Cury, who heads a fisheries research institute in Sète, France, and has studied West African fisheries. “There’s already not enough sardinella as it is.”

The foreign sardinella vessels have significantly depleted the population, which travels between Senegal and Mauritania, fishing more than twice as much as they can sustain without shrinking, according to a scientific report by the Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic, he said.

The report, which came out last month, a year after the Russian trawlers left, said that even Senegal’s fleet of dugout canoes was taking too much fish and should be restrained.

“It’s very hard to tell local fishermen to stop fishing to feed their country when foreign industrial trawlers are allowed to take away a big catch,” said Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia, Canada, who studies developing world fisheries. “Now that that’s been done, Senegal can try to reduce its own take so the sardinella populations can recover.”

Didier Gascuel of the European University of Brittany in Rennes, France, who is one of the authors of the report, said that, “Even if the artisanal catch stays at that level, the sardinella have a chance to recover.”

Noting that the populations of sardinella grow and shrink naturally based on differences in currents and weather, he added, “But if they bring back the industrial trawlers, all it would take is one bad year for the stock to be wiped out.”

Northern West Africa, where nutrient-rich currents well up from the deep, boasts one of the richest fishing grounds in the world, historically affording a bountiful catch to its coastal population and providing tens of thousands of jobs. Senegal’s fishermen are among Africa’s most accomplished and the national dish, the Thiéboudienne, is based on a succulent grouper called the thiof. Other valuable fish as well as lobster and shrimp were also abundant.

But starting in the 1960s, European and Soviet trawlers moved in, scraping rakes fitted with nets along the bottom and destroying the habitat that fish and crustaceans depend on. They sold the fish abroad after paying governments a tiny percentage of its value for the right to catch it.

“Up until the 1980s, the catch was 80 percent bottom fish and 20 percent sardinella, which was known as the fish of the poor,” said Cury, the French scientist. “Now the proportions are reversed.”

“There’s no more bottom fish,” said Abdou Karim Sall, head of the main association of fishermen and no relation to the president. “The sardinella is all we have left.”

Most of the sardinella is soaked in brine and dried, which allows it to keep its nutritional value for long periods without refrigeration. It is sold throughout the arid Sahel region, where the growing season lasts only three months. It’s the main source of animal protein for tens of millions of poor Africans, according to Birane Samb, a Senegalese fisheries scientist.

In 1994, public indignation in Europe and demonstrations in Senegal led to the non-renewal of fishing permits to foreign-flagged trawler fleets. Other countries in Africa followed suit and today, Mauritania and Morocco are the last to have agreements with the EU, and these may not be renewed.

The much-reduced catch eliminated the livelihood of many fishermen, said Sall of the fishermen’s association. “Most Senegalese immigrants to Europe are fishermen,” he said.

But in a move repeated throughout Africa, the owners of many foreign vessels – more than 100 in Senegal alone – simply created joint ventures with locals, took up the local flag, continued bottom-trawling and sent their best catch to Europe. Meanwhile, prices there have increased far beyond what Senegalese can pay, so nearly all of the shrimp, grouper and octopus that the artisanal fishermen can catch is sold right on the beach to middlemen who pack them in ice and put them on planes for Europe a few hours later.

“Sardinella has become rare on our markets, and we have not had any big fish for many years,” President Sall said in his acceptance speech. “And if you can’t even get sardinella for the Thiéboudienne, that’s a problem.”

Ahmed Diame, a Senegalese Greenpeace ocean campaigner, said Sall, a geological engineer, understands science. “If the scientific community can prove to him that bringing back the foreign trawlers will deplete the stocks and the catch, I think he’ll hold off,” he said. “He’s kept his promises so far. The problem is that this is a coalition government and the fisheries minister, who is pushing for foreign permits, is from another party.”

By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India, Oct 4 2012 (IPS)

The eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 11 CBD) approaches amidst a hailstorm of public protest against the ‘tragedy of the commons’ – the rapid loss of biodiversity in forests, oceans and indigenous community farmlands.

Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Credit: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Canada.

Ten thousand people are expected to attend the global event, which promotes the motto ‘Nature protects if she is protected’, scheduled to run from Oct. 8-19 in southern India’s information technology hub, Hyderabad.

During this time, 193 member countries will assess progress made in translating the Aichi Targets – adopted at the last COP CBD held in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010  – into revised National Biodiversity Strategies and Actions Plans, and discuss resource mobilisation strategies to implement them.

With so much at stake, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, executive secretary of the Montreal-headquartered Convention on Biological Diversity, has a lot on his plate.

With three decades of combined experience in scientific training and extensive negotiation experience on biodiversity issues, Dias spoke with IPS correspondent Manipadma Jena about which issues CBD will push for and what he hopes can be achieved at the COP 11.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What are some of the reasons for governments’ inability to meet their commitments on containing rapid biodiversity loss?

A: The third Global Biodiversity Outlook in 2010 assessed that we were making little progress implementing the biodiversity agenda, and the main drivers of biodiversity loss were still going strong.

Country policies are still promoting land conversions, degrading ecosystems to enhance food – including from oceans – and energy production, in unsustainable ways. Climate change and ocean acidification have exacerbated the situation.

Although we see an increase in commitment from governments and civil society on the need to protect nature and enhance biodiversity conservation, we still see a mismatch between these commitments and (real) action.

Q: The most exploited areas, and also those witnessing the maximum loss of biodiversity, are the community commons. How can this be rectified?

A: Overfishing is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons and loss of biodiversity in the oceans is increasingly becoming more evident. One of the targets we agreed to in Nagoya is for countries to reform their economic instruments that negatively impact biodiversity and ecosystems.

Unsustainable fishing receives subsidies in most countries for fishing vessel fuels and also for shipbuilding. We need to remove subsidies, utilise those funds (for promoting alternate livelihoods for fishers, for instance) and also create temporary no-go areas, for depleted fish species to restock.

We know what needs to be done to change the current situation. Unfortunately, policies and economic instruments globally are still promoting ‘business as usual’ models that do not enable sustainability.

Q: Is it possible to devise a legal system that can protect traditional indigenous practices from the crippling impacts of intellectual property rights in globalised markets?

A: That is what we hope. After many years of very hard negotiation, the CBD was instrumental in arriving at the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefits-sharing in 2010, which introduced the concept of economic benefits-sharing with those who are the custodians of biodiversity, who are mostly indigenous communities from developing countries.

Before this, India, Brazil and Australia had put in place national rules for access and benefits-sharing that were against bio-piracy. The fact is that most companies in developed countries did not feel obliged to meet these requirements because there was no global rule in place.

Q: Where does the CBD stand in getting the required number of countries to ratify the Nagoya Protocol?

A: We need at least 50 countries of the 193 Parties to the CBD to ratify the Nagoya Protocol in order to acquire legal status. We have 92 signatures but only five countries have completed all formalities required to ratify the protocol, while we have information that 12 more will probably ratify by the end of this year. This will, however, only make for a third of all ratifications needed. I hope by COP 12 in 2014 we will have the rest.

Our emphasis currently is to promote awareness, capacity building and consultations with different global sectors such as health, agriculture and biotech, so that governments have all the information they need to ratify the protocol and promote necessary domestic changes.

Q: In the meantime, what other mechanisms can governments immediately adopt to halt the alarming rate of biodiversity loss, and protect local communities?

A: Another potential mechanism is the protected area. In many countries these are established and (overseen) by national governments. The CBD recognises that we could also have community-governed protected areas that are fully recognised and financially supported by national governments.

This is a desirable participatory process advancing the issue of socio-economic equity and has the win-win outcome of enhancing biodiversity conservation and the livelihoods of local communities.

Namibia has already executed 70 such formal ‘conservancy’ agreements with local communities. Bolivia, Australia, Brazil and Mexico, too, have success stories. At COP 11, CBD will launch a study summarising these positive experiences over a full day of discussion, (in an effort to encourage) countries to adopt the mechanism.

Q: What role do you see for women globally in the preservation of biodiversity?

A: Women, especially in indigenous communities, provision food in families, rear children and are the custodians of a traditional relationship with nature and of collective knowledge about food production systems. It is very important to ensure we can count on this knowledge for better management of biodiversity conservation by recognising (women’s) role and encouraging participation in decision-making.

(END)

Excerpt:

By Stephen Leahy
Sep 4 2012 (IPS)

The 43rd Pacific Islands Forum was held in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, from 28 to 30 August 2012 involved leaders from the 16 member Pacific nations including Australia and New Zealand. This year’s theme: “Large Ocean Island States – the Pacific Challenge” with major topics including climate change, trade and fishing.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton along with more than 500 officials from nearly 60 countries including China, and European Union attended as observers and participated in other meetings in the Cook Islands, some 3000 km northeast of New Zealand.

In its efforts to protect and preserve the oceans, the Cook Islands will create a new marine park, which will allow only sustainable activities. Brian Scantlebury/CC by 2.0

By Stephen Leahy
RAROTONGA, Cook Islands, Aug 31 2012 (IPS)

The world’s smallest island nations wield more power than their sizes would suggest, with millions of square kilometres in their domains, said leaders of Pacific Island nations gathered at a special forum here in the Cook Islands.

“Our nations collectively span 40 million square kilometres of ocean, an area bigger than the surface of the moon,” said Tuiloma Neroni Slade at the opening of the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum, of which he is secretary-general.

Leaders from member countries including New Zealand and Australia, as well as more than 500 delegates from around the world, are participating in the forum, which ended Friday. The combined exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of forum members cover close to eight percent of the planet’s surface and 10 percent of its oceans.

“Yet we probably know more about the moon’s surface than the ocean that surrounds us,” Slade told delegates earlier this week. Their states’ links to the ocean constitute an ancient relationship “that lies deep in the character and culture of every Pacific community”, he said.

“We have a deep spiritual connection to the ocean,” Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna agreed. The Cook Islands, a South Pacific nation of less than 20,000 people across 15 islands and located 2,000 kilometres northeast of New Zealand, has an EEZ of 1.8 million square kilometres.

Puna said it was important for the region and the rest of the world to recognise that though their islands are small in size and populations few in numbers, Pacific Island nations are the stewards of a large part of the world’s oceans. He called on Pacific Island nations to identify themselves as “large ocean island states”.

“We need to change mindsets and have a more balanced view…(with) our islands fully integrated into an ocean of opportunity and value.”

Coping with climate change, fostering sustainable development and protecting their ocean territories are the region’s big challenges. To meet these challenges, the 16 nations agreed to a collaborative framework for the integrated conservation management of the Pacific Ocean and Islands, known as the Pacific Oceanscape.

The world’s largest government-endorsed ocean initiative, it covers ocean health and security, governance, and sustainable resource management, and it facilitates the partnerships and cooperation needed to support the conservation of this vast ecosystem.

The Cook Islands’ contribution to the Pacific Oceanscape, announced at the forum, is to create world’s largest marine park – nearly 1.1 million square kilometres, an area bigger than France and Germany.

The new Cook Island Marine Park will be zoned for multiple uses including tourism, fishing, and potentially deep-sea mineral extraction but only if these activities can be done sustainably. The precautionary principle will determine what activities can take place, Puna said.

Inspired by Kiribati’s creation of the 400,000-square-kilometre Phoenix Islands Protected Area in 2008 and by other island nations’ conservation efforts, New Caledonia, a French overseas territory in the south Pacific, also announced the creation of a new marine protected area (MPA) roughly half the size of India.

New Caledonia’s protected zone will include the world’s largest lagoon, about 24,000 square kilometres, a government representative said. The new MPA will be adjacent to Australia’s newly protected 1 million square kilometres in the Coral Sea.

“With care, (these regions) can be maintained as enduring sources of prosperity,” he said.

“This is a huge moment in history,” said Peter Seligman, chairman of Conservation International (CI),

There is a unique and positive atmosphere in the Pacific to conserve and protect the oceans for future generations and for all of humanity, Seligman told IPS, adding that the leader of Niue had just told him “they want to do something as well”. Niue is one small island with a population of 1,400, but its EEZ is 316,000 square kilometres.

CI has worked with governments and communities of the Pacific Ocean for more than 15 years, contributing to the design of several large-scale marine conservation efforts, including the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape, Kiribati’s Phoenix Islands Protected Area and the Pacific Oceanscape.

While there is a lot of pressure to exploit their oceans’ resources – the region has 60 percent of the world’s tuna stocks – these Pacific Island nations maintain a strong cultural connection to the oceans, Seligman said.

“They see themselves as part of the oceans,” he said. “I hope they can continue to exert their traditional wisdom and understanding.”

Lallmamode Mohamedally, a Mauritian fisher, points to a European vessel offloading its catch at the port near Les Salines, a fishing town close to the country’s capital Port Louis. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

By Nasseem Ackbarally
PORT LOUIS, Aug 9 2012 (IPS)

“Look out there, the blue one…. that is a European Union fishing vessel that is threatening our livelihood,” says Lallmamode Mohamedally, a Mauritian fisherman, as he points to a boat offloading its catch at the Les Salines port, close to the country’s capital Port Louis.

He is one of the fishers who have returned after a hard day at sea with their boats almost empty. Pollution and tourist activity have reduced the fish catch on the island’s lagoons over the past few years.

But local fishers say a February agreement between the EU and this Indian Ocean island nation, which allows European vessels to catch 5,500 tonnes of fish a year for three years at a cost of 660,000 euros annually, has made the situation worse.

While there are no official figures to confirm this, the 3,500 local fishers, who now have to compete with modern industrialised fishing boats, say that their catch has gone down by 50 to 60 percent.

And the Les Salines fishers believe that the 86 vessels from companies based in the EU, which are fishing in the area, are stealing their livelihoods.

“These big vessels are scratching the sea around Mauritius and taking away all the fish,” says Mohamedally.

While most fishers want the EU vessels to leave, Mohamedally says he would not mind them operating in Mauritian waters “only if they fish like everybody else, like the Taiwanese and the Japanese.”

“Only longliners please. No seines. Those vessels catch all types of fish, small and big alike,” he says.

Long line fishing is a commercial technique that uses hundreds or sometimes thousands of baited hooks, which hang from a single line. This type of fishing commonly targets swordfish, tuna, halibut, and sablefish. Seines use surrounding nets.

However, Mauritian authorities believe that this is the only way to exploit its vast exclusive economic zone or EEZ of 2.3 million square kilometres.

Local fishing companies here are small and do not have the ability to fish on such a large scale. The 5,500 tonnes of fish that Mauritius has allowed the EU to catch each year is in stark contrast to the few tonnes the 34 fishermen of Les Salines catch in a year.

Currently the fisheries sector in Mauritius represents only one percent of the country’s GDP, and the local fish production is only 5,100 tonnes.

Mohamedally says that in the past fish were abundant three to four nautical miles from the coast. Today, the fishers travel almost 15 nautical miles out to sea, but many still come back without a catch.

“What will happen in five years time to our jobs? They are giving us an egg and taking an ox out of our sea,” adds Mohamedally, referring to the 660,000 euros annually that Mauritius has agreed in payment by the EU in exchange for fishing rights in its EEZ.

Judex Rampol, chairman of the Syndicat des Pêcheurs, a fishers’ association, is furious about this. “This is peanuts,” he tells IPS. If local fisherfolk had the capacity to fish so far out at sea, they would earn about 15 million euros for the 5,500 tonnes of fish the EU is now allowed to catch.

However, Minister of Fisheries Nicolas Von-Mally believes Mauritius needs help to exploit its vast EEZ.

“We have no fishing vessels. Should we depend on locals, many fishes would have long died of old age,” he says.

Von-Mally adds that canning factories on the island process the tuna caught by the EU vessels. However, it is sold mainly on the European market.

He adds that tuna is migratory, and if it is not caught in the Mauritian EEZ, it will swim to the zones of the neighbouring Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles and Maldives. “We’ll thus lose revenue,” he says.

Bahim Khan Taher, manager of Taher Seafoods, a small local fishing company, tells IPS that he would like to exploit Mauritius’ fish stock, but he needs modern vessels, equipment and financial incentives to fish in the EEZ.

“If we get some help from the government in terms of fiscal incentives, we could also go out fishing there. This would boost our seafood hub exports,” Taher says.

Meanwhile, environmentalists are concerned that overfishing may deplete tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean. Mauritian oceanographer and environmental engineer Vassen Kauppaymoothoo is one of them.

“The EU vessels are here because the stocks in the other oceans have collapsed. They have been overfished by vessels from Portugal, France and Spain. The only ocean where there is still some fish is the Indian Ocean,” he tells IPS, adding that 5,500 tonnes a year was overfishing and would deplete resources.

He adds that while Mauritius does not have the capacity to fish its EEZ, this does not mean that they should allow foreigners to do so. He says Morocco decided to close its EEZ to foreigners in a decision to solely keep its fish stock for its local population.

“There is no reason to loot my house because I do not have the means to exploit its wealth,” Kauppaymoothoo argues.

But the head of the EU Delegation in Port Louis, Alessandro Mariani, tells IPS that they are helping to create jobs, not take them away.

“In Mauritius alone, 5,500 jobs benefit from the tuna that is disembarked by the EU vessels,” he says.

Mariani claims that there is no competition between the EU fleet and the local fishers because they operates very far away from each other. The EU vessels fish 15 nautical miles from the coast, and the locals at three nautical miles.

“We are also targeting different fish species,” he says.

Mariani says the EU is very sensitive about the tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean.

“Our fishing efforts are guided by scientific research. The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission Scientific Committee said in October 2011 that there is no overfishing in this region,” he says.

Von Mally adds: “We are not shooting at our own feet. We want fish to be always available in our seas for future generations.”

They both deny that the EU placed pressure on the Mauritian government to sign the agreement. “This is simply not true. Mauritius and the EU are partners and we always discuss things about the interest of both the EU and Mauritius,” says Mariani.

Gazing over the ocean somehow puts a human being at peace with the world. To build a home with a view of the sea is the dream of many. The expanse of water, the beach, and tide magically draw us to them.

Courtesy of Sam Koo.

One hundred years ago a stroll along the shoreline almost anywhere in the world would have been a pure experience, clean and invigorating whether the ocean was calm or crashing with waves. Today, the same cannot be said.

The world’s coasts, oceans and the creatures that inhabit them are suffering, and man is the irresponsible culprit. A beachcomber today is less likely to discover seashells washed up on the shore than he will shards of plastic.

Pollution, whether from enormous oil spills or the casual dumping of garbage, has spoiled the ocean bottom and formerly pristine regions where the sea meets the land.

Vast stretches of coastline have been dredged and reengineered to create arable land, destroying the habitats of birds, shellfish and other coastal life in the process. Industrial fishing fleets with nets laid for kilometres scoop up fish, driving them to the point of extinction.

The list of how the oceans are exploited goes on and on. It’s not too much to say that we face a fundamental ecological crisis that threatens our very lives.

And while we crave a quiet walk along the life-giving sea and the moment for reflection it offers, how much thought do we give to what is at risk?

The Korean government, along with 104 countries and the United Nations, are confronting this great question and much more at a three-month-long world’s fair in Yeosu on the south coast of the Korea peninsula.

You would be hard pressed to find a better place to hold an international exposition on the importance of the ocean. Yeosu, once an unheralded port city of 300,000, unfolds from a small harbor.

Along the waterfront sprouts a futuristic Disney-like park that has been welcoming millions of visitors from around the world to explore exhibitions pointing up the delights of the oceans and the dangers they face.

The United Nations has been playing a central role at Yeosu Expo 2012 sponsoring an array of educational programmes to highlight crucial issues such as climate change, the rising sea levels and marine pollution among many others.

Rising sea levels will challenge the very life of coastal communities – rich and poor – across the globe. Before long, small island countries may simply disappear into the water.

Without adequate research and education about the nature of tsunamis, thousands of people will continue to perish as they did following the powerful undersea earthquakes in the Indian Ocean basin and off the east coast of Japan last year.

And security on the seas affects all nations that are dependent on the free passage of trading vessels. International cooperation, with the U.N. as a facilitator, is critical if countries are to safeguard oceans today from criminals on the high seas.

In addition to the exhibits from many countries, the Expo is an “edutainment” site for young and old. The grounds are expansive and fun-filled.

At the heart of the complex is a 12-story-high structure in the shape of an “O,” which spews water, laser lights and beams. It can emit a thin sheet of water upon which videos can be reflected. “O” of course stands for oceans, but also zero, symbolising a beginning in a collective effort to restore the health of the seas.

In the nearly two months since the Expo opened, the “Big O” has become the most popular destination of the visitors.

This centrepiece at Yeosu grounds stands above a massive 60-million-dollar fountain that can be raised and submerged in the surrounding water, all orchestrated by computers. In the public thoroughfare leading from the main entrance, a canopy of digital lights develops the themes of the Expo: ocean conservation and recognition of the perils of climate change.

Whales appear to swim overhead. Two large industrial silos on the grounds, which once stored cement, have been “recycled” and turned into what organisers call the world’s largest pipe organ. Another popular attraction is an enormous aquarium, which will survive after the Expo ends.

Korea’s best-known companies – Hyundai, Samsung, LG, Daewoo and steelmaker POSCO – have invested heavily to promote the ideals of the Expo and to showcase their products, and their advanced design and gadgets have turned out to be very popular too.

The range of activities taking place at the fair is startling: lectures to raise public awareness on the importance the oceans are nearly continuous, singing and dancing groups perform daily, from ballet to symphonic concerts to daily K-pop shows.

The United Nations itself holds a permanent exhibition as well as changing exhibitions involving 24 U.N. agencies and international organisations. It also has fielded attractive stars including Seohyun of the Girls’ Generation.

Achim Steiner, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, states the overall goal of the Yeosu Expo well: “Managing and protecting the ecosystem services of our blue world are part of the transition towards a global Green Economy that will ultimately ensure jobs, eradicate poverty, help us adapt to climate change and maintain the health of our oceans.”

And informal surveys show the Expo, helped by the blanket media coverage, has successfully managed to instil in many the important messages of protecing the oceans and furthering the knowledge of the marine ecosystem.

On the other hand, despite the strenuous efforts to stage an environment-friendly Expo, the result seems mixed at best.

Thousands of plastic water bottles and lunch boxes, and the heaps of promotional brochures, leaflets and souvenirs get thrown into trash bins daily, prompting some to question the wisdom of staging a massive modern-day expo like Yeosu.

At end of the Expo on Aug. 12, dignitaries from around the world, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, will gather to proclaim the Yeosu Declaration, spelling out concrete action plans to safeguard our seas for posterity.

We know the path of neglect we are on leads to further ruin and the destruction of one of our most important relationships with the planet. Preserving the oceans ranks with the fight to insure there is clean water for all and preserving the rainforests.

Mr. Ban observed recently that the Yeosu Expo highlights “the invaluable services provided by oceans and coasts – from the food we eat to the oxygen we breathe. I hope all who visit the UN Pavilion will come to feel more connected with these indispensable ecosystems – and with the United Nations, too. Let us work together – in Yeosu and around the world – to build the future we want.”

*Samuel Koo, a former international journalist, UN official and cultural diplomat, has spent a career fostering humanitarian ventures in music and the art as well. He serves as United Nations Commissioner-General for Yeosu Expo 2012

At this Bonaire reef, the olive-green coral is alive, but the mottled-gray coral is dead. Credit: Living Oceans Foundation/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2012 (IPS)

When South Korea, one of Asia’s rising economic powerhouses, decided to host the international exhibition Expo 2012 in the coastal town of Yeosu, it picked a theme high on the agenda of the just-concluded Rio+20 summit on sustainable development: the living ocean.

The entire focus of Expo 2012, which completes its three month run Aug. 21, is on the protection of the world’s maritime resources, including overfishing, chemical pollution and warming oceans.

And by accident or by design, the protection of the world’s oceans was one of the few key success stories to come out of the Rio+20 summit in its final plan of action titled “The Future We Want” adopted by world leaders last month.

Nathalie Rey, political advisor on oceans at Greenpeace International, told IPS one of the few concrete things on the table at Rio that went beyond business-as-usual was an agreement to launch an “Oceans Rescue Plan” to protect the high seas.

“Despite the alarm bells ringing by scientists on the need to protect the oceans, Rio pressed the snooze button on agreeing to initiate a new agreement under the United Nations that would protect high seas marine life,” she said.

However, the overwhelming support from the majority of countries – including Brazil (the host country), South Africa, Argentina, the Pacific Islands and members of the European Union (EU) – to give the green light for action was not enough to throw off the opposition from a handful of countries, she added.

With the United States leading the charge, and closely backed by Canada, Russia, Japan and Venezuela, these countries successfully blocked progress, Rey told IPS.

Instead of launching the agreement in Rio, governments postponed a decision for another two and a half years, booting the issue back to the U.N. General Assembly.

“Every day that we delay an oceans rescue plan, we bring our oceans ever closer to tipping points, jeopardising the health of the oceans and the future of the millions of people that depend on them for food and jobs,” Rey said.

Those countries that stood in the way of progress at Rio must stop defending short-term economic interests and join the rest of the world in supporting high seas protection to benefit future generations, Rey added.

At the Expo 2012 U.N. Pavilion in Yeosu, about 20 U.N. agencies and international organisations are showcasing their collective work in helping to protect the world’s oceans and maritime resources.

Under the theme “Oceans and Coasts: Connecting Our Lives, Ensuring Our Future”, the United Nations is highlighting the various contributions made by marine life to humans, including biodiversity, food security and renewable energy.

“What we know is that oceans are fragile and that there are many signs that marine ecosystems are experiencing unprecedented environmental change driven by human activities and climate change,” warns the United Nations.

A visit to the U.N. Pavilion ends up at a virtual “Pledge Wall” where visitors make a commitment to protect the world’s oceans and coasts.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued at the end of the three-day summit in Rio Jun. 22, members of the High Seas Alliance (HSA) said the ocean received “an unprecedented level of attention during the Rio+20 Conference becoming one of the most high visibility issues and the last piece of text to be resolved”.

In contrast to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, attention on the ocean was significant and led to protracted and heated debate within the negotiations.

“Some of the ocean outcomes were positive, while others fell a long way short of what marine scientists and campaigners had hoped and worked for, it was, nonetheless, a breakthrough year for the cause of conservation of 70 percent of our planet,” HSA said.

Although much of the text is a re-affirmation of existing promises and commitments, Susanna Fuller, coordinator of the HSA said, “If Rio+20 achieves nothing else, it should mark the end of empty promises and the beginning of strong ocean action.”

If it catalyses actual change, along with implementation of and compliance with the measures already promised, she said, then it will have achieved something.

The HSA identified six clear areas for international and national action:

Fulfillment of the U.N. resolution to end deep sea bottom fishing; an end to overfishing, including the suspension of fishing in some cases until stocks have recovered; requirement that regional fisheries management bodies be accountable to the United Nations; national action to eliminate harmful fisheries subsidies; closure of ports to illegally obtained fish; and the establishment of national and high seas marine protected areas, including reserves.

Professor Alex Rogers of the marine science body, International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), said: “There will never be the future we want without the ocean we need.”

“We have to use Rio+20 to draw a line under the talking and start the doing. These decisions are all urgent, important and game changing measures which should be immediately implemented by governments as a direct response to the oceans text,” he added.

The high seas, crucial regions of the world’s oceans that are beyond national jurisdiction, account for 45 percent of the planet, but are today under severe threat from overfishing and pollution.

“The next big global environmental crisis that is looming upon us is the meltdown of the oceans,” warns Rémi Parmentier, spokesperson for the High Seas Alliance, a group of NGOs striving for the conservation of the high seas.

Ocean conservation is one of the seven key points of Rio+20. Credit: Sean O'Flaherty/CC By 2.5

The High Seas Alliance is preparing actively for Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development taking place Jun. 20-22 in Brazil.

The Alliance is hoping to convince governments of the importance of marine biodiversity, and the need to take decisive action in Rio.

“States wrongfully think that they have other priorities – the financial crisis, for example,” Parmentier told IPS. “But giving priority to artificial wealth, such as money and financial services, while putting aside natural wealth, that is to say all that we get from our ecosystem, is a big mistake.

“Nature, climate, biodiversity… Those are elements without which we cannot develop in a fair and sustainable way,” he said.

Among these urgent actions is the elimination of Environmentally Harmful Subsidies (EHS), through which governments keep funding polluting activities such as fossil fuel energy, overfishing and industrial agriculture, while disadvantaging green sectors, activists say.

“I’m thinking about subsidies that fund fossil energy with several billion dollars every year, or also about the one billion euro that the EU (European Union) gives to fishing every year, thus fuelling its overcapacity,” Parmentier said.

Those issues were raised at the first Earth Summit in 1992, but not enough has been done since to address them, critics say.

“It is unbelievable to think that 20 years after Rio and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, we keep funding polluting energy sources and reducing in many countries the subsidies given to renewable energy, which is actually part of the solution,” Parmentier said.

Earlier this month, Parmentier held a press conference at U.N. headquarters in New York alongside spokespersons from the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and International Partners for Sustainable Agriculture.

The three speakers focused on the future launch of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which would set targets and enable progress to be measured. These SDGs would include ocean conservation, one of the seven key points of Rio+20.

“Unless there is an implementing agreement on high seas conservation, we and our governments cannot have a say on what is happening on almost half of the planet,” Parmentier said.

This “other half of the planet” is increasingly suffering from heavy pollution and overfishing, leading to the near extinction of many species: for example, 90 percent of the biggest predators, such as tuna, cod and sharks, have already disappeared or are greatly endangered, according to Ocean Sentry, a Spanish environmental NGO.

For Parmentier, the long-waited conference in Rio will be the moment to finally take urgent decisions and set mandatory deadlines.

“States have reiterated many times within the G20, the EU and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) their will to put an end to these Environmentally Harmful Subsidies, but the truth is that we’re still waiting. This summit on green energy will definitely be a chance to decide on deadlines.”

But phasing out some sectors should be accompanied by expansion of others. The High Seas Alliance strongly encourages research and growth in renewable energy.

“We shouldn’t only talk about ‘degrowth’. Yes, true, we should aim at the ‘degrowth’ of our ecological footprint and of our impact on resources, but it would be in order to attain the sustainable growth of resources that humanity and ecosystems need to survive,” Parmentier told IPS.

Environmental NGOs are hoping that Canada, Japan, the Russian Federation and the United States, four countries which are currently rejecting the Rio negotiating draft on oceans, will waive their financial interests in favour of the common good.

“The United States is under pressure of pharmaceutical lobbies at the Congress. They don’t want to share the profits they get from the exploitation of genetic resources. They balk at accepting this proposition that could be a milestone of Rio,” Parmentier said.

Protecting the high seas is not only about the oceans – it is about the rest of the world’s life-sustaining ecosystems as well.

“The next big environmental crisis will be that of the oceans, and it will lead to a food crisis for a majority of humanity. Whether or not we live close to a sea, we all depend on oceans in order to survive,” Parmentier said.

A bird's eye view of the Expo site. Credit:Courtesy of 2012 Expo

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 7 2012 (IPS)

When the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) takes place in Brazil next week, it will be closely shadowed by another event thousands of kilometres away in the South Korean coastal town of Yeosu: Expo 2012.

The theme of Expo – the protection of the world’s oceans and its marine ecosystem – will be a subtext at UNCSD where world leaders will approve a plan of action for a greener economy and a sustainable future, including a new U.N. agreement to protect high seas marine life.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month singled out “the protection of our oceans” as one of the key priorities of UNCSD, also known as Rio+20, scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro Jun. 20-22.

“Oceans cover almost three-quarters of the surface area of the globe. They are home to the largest animal known to have lived on the planet – the blue whale – as well as billions upon billions of the tiniest of microorganisms,” Ban said.

Still, he lamented, marine biodiversity, despite its importance, has not fared well at human hands.

But there is hope, he added, because a scientific review conducted in 2011 showed that, notwithstanding all the damage inflicted on marine wildlife and habitats over the past centuries, between 10 and 50 percent of populations and ecosystems have shown some recovery when human threats were reduced or removed.

“However, compared to land – where nearly 15 percent of surface areas is under some kind of protection – little more than one percent of marine environments are protected,” he added.

Ambassador Samuel Koo, U.N. commissioner-general Expo 2012, told IPS that participants in the three-month Yeosu Expo, dedicated to oceans and coasts, are determined to give the theme a full airing, with Rio+20 very much in mind.

“There is a widespread recognition that without healthy oceans and coasts, sustainable development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be possible,” he warned.

“Our hope is that by raising awareness on these issues through creativity and popular appeal that make up the Expo, we can help generate a momentum going into Rio.”

Koo said serious efforts by government officials and experts are underway to produce a set of “action plans” with which the Expo will close on Aug. 12 in the presence of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former foreign minister of South Korea.

Natalie Rey, Greenpeace International’s political adviser on oceans, told IPS that after last week’s negotiations, “We are one step closer to making a giant leap forward on stopping the Wild West on our oceans.”

Following tough discussions in New York, she said, a large number of developing countries and the European Union (EU) were successful in ensuring that a new U.N. agreement to protect high seas marine life is still on the table as a key outcome on oceans at Rio.

And this, Rey pointed out, despite strong opposition from a handful of countries such as the United States, Canada and Japan.

“Given the crisis that is facing our oceans, business-as-usual is not an option,” she added.

It is critical that those governments blocking progress stand aside next week and ensure that Rio becomes a critical milestone in safeguarding our oceans for now and future generations, said Rey.

At a press conference last month focusing on oceans, the United Nations said that overfishing and conservation of marine biodiversity are among key issues to be tackled in Rio next week.

About 85 percent of the world’s fish stocks are “overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion”.

And according to U.N. estimates, the world economy can gain up to 50 billion dollars annually by restoring fish stocks and reducing capacity to an optimal level.

Andrew Hudson, head of the Water and Ocean Governance Programme at the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), told reporters that fisheries are a major piece of the global economy and a major source of jobs for people both in the developed and the developing world.

“We have to pay close attention to this issue if we want to maintain healthy and productive oceans going forward,” he added.

Last year, four U.N. agencies – UNDP, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) – released a plan to limit the degradation of oceans. The plan, titled “Blueprint for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability”, focused on several issues related to the oceans, including overfishing, pollution and declining biodiversity.

Calling on member states to set up more effective institutional mechanisms to protect the oceans and coastal areas, the report said that oceans also absorb close to 26 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, increasing acidification, which affects plankton.

These, in turn, affect the entire food chain, significantly increasing the impact oceans have on all ecosystems.

As schools of whales move to music undersea at image definitions of 6.54 million pixels on the giant ceiling mounted LED screen, 218 X 30 metres in length and width, expectations run high from the International Exposition Yeosu Korea 2012 at harbour town. The expo showcases 104 participating countries’ visions and achievements on the Expo theme: ‘The Living Ocean and Coast: Diversity of Resources and Sustainable Activities’.

The Expo is a modern marketplace where unlikely bedfellows are meeting – the private sector, usually demonised as the exploiter of natural resources for profit, and conservationists.

“The marine realm is facing multiple challenges – from over-fishing and climate change to pollution from hazardous materials. The Expo and the UN Pavilion can inspire people, business and governments to greater awareness and more decisive action,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, through UN press briefings.

Expo 2012 which opened May 11, aims to enhance the international community’s understanding of the function and value of oceans and coasts, share knowledge on sustainable use of marine environment and enhance cooperation in the sector.

An estimated 11 million and targeted 8.3 million footfalls are expected over the three months that the Expo runs.

The Expo’s second largest pavilion is a telling example of the many layers of interaction between conservationists, the public and the business sector.

“The message of One UN – a group of 24 UN organizations – is one of edu-entertainment, more on the lines of imparting information on not commonly known or ignored facts about the oceans, and the resources it provides humans,” UN Commissioner-General, 2012 Yeosu Expo, Samuel Koo told IPS.

The UN Pavilion pitches its conservationist message through the Expo theme expanded to ‘Oceans and Coasts: Connecting our Lives, Ensuring our Future, the Choice is Yours.’

The UN pavilion offers information-packed quizzes, simulated digital coasts that visitors help clean up and other exhibits that depict the wonders of marine ecosystems and the challenges of climate change and pollution.

“Like the Shanghai Expo in 2010, the Korean government has chipped in with a 50 percent or 1.5 million dollar funding partnership,” Koo tells IPS. Part of the private contributions comes from Korean Green Fund, a national level non-governmental organisation which has a track record in building environmental cooperative networks between the government, corporations, civic organizations, and individuals

“The Expo is a happening of many different actors, a stage to present national and corporate development to an international community. It is the conversation that people will begin to have when they go around and when they go home, that will be change-making,” says Achim Steiner, Executive Director UN Environment Programme (UNEP) that is co-ordinating the UN Pavilion.

“It is the informed people’s demand and their choice of new entrepreneur with an environment friendly product or technology that will ultimately drive change,” Amina Mohamed, UNEP Deputy Executive Director told IPS. “For instance the State of California in the United States is investing heavily in renewable energy infrastructure, not waiting the federal government to take the lead,” Mohamed added.

According to a UNEP report, ‘Green Economy in a Blue World’, released January 2012, there is huge potential for economic growth and poverty eradication from well-managed marine sectors.

“We have all the policies and technologies we need to sustainably manage these extraordinary assets. Yeosu 2012 can contribute towards a positive outcome at Rio+20 in June and help us build the future we want,” said Ban Ki-moon.

“We have only tapped into 5 percent of marine resources,” said Steiner. “After land, marine resources may hold the potential to sustain human kind,” said Yeosu’s Member of Korea national assembly, Kim Sung- gon at the UN Pavilion opening on May 12th.

“Ocean is the destination of everything and has enough to provide our needs if we understand its fragile nature,” said Lee Bae-yong, Chair of the Korean Presidential Council of Nation Branding.

According to information from the UN Pavilion, fish products supply over 4.2 billion people with 15 percent of average protein intake. However in 2009, fisheries supported livelihoods of 540 million or eight percent of the world population. Over 30 percent of world fish stocks are overexploited or depleted and 50 percent are fully exploited.

“While one cannot generalise among all businesses, it is undeniable that there are business concerns that are taking the long view”, Raphael P.M. Lotilla, the Executive director of Partnerships in Environmental Management for Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA), told IPS, adding that this coastal country is serious about sustainable management of its marine resources.

Underscoring his point that management of some businesses are taking on greener hues, Lotilla cites an example in the Philippines where 19 corporations led by Petron Corporation have organised the Bataan Coastal Care Foundation, Inc. which provides financial and other support to the Bataan Provincial Government’s Integrated Coastal Management Programme and oversees Bataan’s Land and Sea-Use Zoning Plan.

Another example is Thailand’s Chonburi province’s Oil Industry Environment Group, which is working to formulate an oil spill contingency plan with the national and local government, Rotilla said.

“Business is not some homogenous interest group; there are companies here at the Expo with hi-tech solutions to environmental problems and the fact that Korea chose this theme of oceans, has in fact brought all the exhibitors here, with at least a need to express, what is their contribution to the challenge of sustainable use and management of oceans. And this is as high you should put the threshold, beyond that is expecting too much,” Steiner told IPS. (END)