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Turning the Tide to Save Earth's Oceans As pollution, overfishing and other human activities threaten to overwhelm life in the seas, growing numbers of businesses and governments are trying to reverse the negative trends. Start Date: 3/25/99 [This is an edited version of a public press release from the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute, dated March 25, 1999.] From coastal zones to the high seas, a growing wave of citizen groups, businesses, and governments is mobilizing to save the oceans before human activities destroy them, reports researcher Anne Platt McGinn in a new study, "Safeguarding the Health of Oceans." McGinn cites a host of efforts already underway to protect the seas: -- Unilever, which controls 20 percent of the whitefish market in Europe and the U.S., has agreed to buy only fish caught and produced in an environmentally sustainable manner. -- Volunteers in the Philippines, Thailand, India, and Ecuador are replanting mangrove areas to repair earlier damage from shrimp farming. -- In northern Sulawesi, citizens have cleared coral reefs of harmful invasive species. -- The United States and Canada have each banned oil drilling on large portions of their continental shelves. "We need to devote far greater resources to protecting oceans," McGinn said. A tax of just one-tenth of one percent on industrial and recreational ocean activities would generate $500 million a year, more than 5 times the annual budgets of two important ocean agencies, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Fisheries Department of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "Saving the oceans will take these efforts and more," said McGinn, "because we've already pushed the world's oceans close to -- and in some cases past -- their natural limits." Seven out of 10 commercial fish species are fully or overexploited. Moreover, many of their spawning grounds have been cleared to make room for shrimp ponds, golf courses, and beach resorts. As a result of habitat degradation, insured coastal property damages in the U.S. soared to $50 billion in the 1990s. The number of poisonous algal species identified by scientists has nearly tripled since 1984, increasing fish kills, beach closures, and economic losses. "Bad news for oceans is bad news for the economy and ultimately for humanity too," said McGinn. People obtain an average of 16 percent of their animal protein from fish. About 2 billion people -- one third of humanity -- live within 100 kilometers of a coastline. Clean beaches and coastlines attract millions of visitors each year and provide billions of dollars in tourism revenue. Toothpaste, salad dressing, ice cream, and first aid products all depend on the gel-forming properties of brown algae. McGinn cites a number of problems facing those concerned about the fate of oceans: -- The marine conservation community is fragmented. -- Bans on destructive activities are routinely ignored. -- Too many regulatory organizations have a development-first mindset. -- Enforcement and oversight are lacking. Because the most productive areas of the ocean are under national jurisdiction and 80 percent of oceanic pollution originates on land, addressing global marine issues requires strong national and local policies. A number of countries have adopted coastal and marine zoning laws and management plans, bans on oil drilling and other destructive practices, trade measures, taxes and fees. To pay for some of the costs of management, New Zealand and Iceland charge fishers user fees and Mozambique and Bonaire charge tourists diving fees. The U.K., Norway, and Denmark all tax offshore oil and gas production in their waters. Several international institutions that were set up to develop marine resources 50 years ago, including FAO, IMO, and the International Whaling Commission, are today adopting policies that emphasize more stewardship and conservation. The IMO, for example, has overseen the tightening of regulations on oil transportation. Since 1981, the occurrence of oil spills has been reduced by 60 percent, even though the volume of oil transported has doubled. The IMO is now trying to extend this success story to deal with threats from ship paints and ballast water discharge. But a great deal of work remains to be done at the international level. Five years after the Law of the Sea entered into force, the number of countries that have ratified it has doubled to 130. Known as the "Constitution of the Oceans", the Law of the Sea provides a comprehensive framework for ocean protection. The United States is one of only eight countries worldwide that still has not ratified it. Also, the international convention addressing fish that swim across political boundaries is not yet in force as it lacks support from key fishing nations. After nearly a decade of political wrangling, voluntary guidelines to address land-based pollution still have not won the support of national leaders. And while a global ban on a dozen long-lived synthetic chemicals that threaten ocean life is close to becoming reality, industry introduces hundreds of new ones that quickly become part of marine food chains each year. The ongoing explosion of new technologies for exploring and monitoring oceans presents new opportunities and new challenges. On the one hand, these technologies are rapidly expanding our understanding of the complexity and fragility of oceans, especially in the previously unknown reaches of the deep. Scientists have found entirely new forms of life clustered around thermal vents discharging warm plumes of mineral-rich water. One such organism, Pyrococcus, is the key to polymer chain reactions (PCR), a process that has advanced genetic research. In the Atlantic, tuna are tagged with pop-up transmitters to track their movement and record their origin, producing data that will help end disputes over the conservation of western and eastern Atlantic stocks. The Philippines and several European countries are hoping to harness new forms of energy from ocean tides, currents, and wind. In the North Sea, Shell Oil company is planning to build wind power stations offshore. A sea moss (Bugula) may soon yield an effective treatment for melanomas and lymphomas, two fast-growing cancers. But these new discoveries also expose the deep sea to many of the environmentally destructive practices that have plagued the coasts and open ocean for centuries. The challenge now is to use the momentum of local and international progress in science, law, and technology to move quickly to a new era of ocean management and protect these irreplaceable resources. [Interested readers can order and download the full text of this paper as a PDF file at: http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/145.html, or subscribe to the State of the World Library and receive all of this year's papers plus State of the World 1999 at: http://www.worldwatch.org/titles/wwlibsub.html. The Worldwatch Institute is a nonprofit research organization that analyzes global environmental and development issues]
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