Who is responsible for the health of the oceans? Is it fishermen, fish farmers, shipping magnates, oil and gas companies, renewable energy concerns, carbon capture and storage operations, dredging, cable and pipeline businesses? Where does the public fit into the scenario and who cares?
The answer is that we are all responsible, and we should all care, for without a healthy, productive, biodiverse ocean, seafood as part of the solution for global food security would be a non-starter.
The Sustainable Ocean Summit 2015, organized by the World Ocean Council in Singapore from 9 to 10 November 2015, will tackle the issue of how to ensure the health, productivity and sustainable development of the ocean over the next 50 years, and includes representations from fisheries and aquaculture, as well as the wider, diverse ocean business community.
Some of the biggest issues affecting marine life, which after all, is the lifeblood of the seafood industry, are plastic and microplastic pollution, marine litter, and ghost fishing.
According to Ocean Cleanup, which is developing some exciting technologies to extract, prevent, and intercept plastic pollution, at least 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals die each year as a direct result and the survival of at least 100 species could be jeopardized. Plastic pollution is also a carrier of invasive species, threatening native ecosystems, with potential consequential detrimental effects on fisheries and aquaculture.
Toxic chemicals such as PCBs, which were widely used in the past in electrical equipment but are now generally banned, and DDTs, organochloride insecticides, are both widely available in the oceans, where they are adsorbed by the plastic, increasing their concentration up to a million times. These persistent organic pollutants bio-accumulate in the food chain, meaning that concentrations will be greater in shellfish than in the plankton on which they feed, and even greater in large predatory fish and mammals. These are subsequently eaten by humans, for whom some of the health effects linked to the chemicals are cancer, malformation and impaired reproductive ability.
It is estimated that around 8 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean each year, a great deal of which accumulates in five gyres, the most famous (or infamous) of which is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In these gyres, there is on average six times more plastic than zooplankton by dry weight.
The Global Partnership on Marine Litter (GPML), launched at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, acts as a coordinating forum for stakeholders working in the area of marine litter prevention and management, in line with the Honolulu Strategy.
The GPML has three goals: A) to reduce levels and impacts of land-based litter and solid waste introduced into the aquatic environment, B) to reduce levels and impact of sea-based sources of marine debris such as solid waste, lost cargo, abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) and abandoned vessels, and C) to reduce levels and impacts of accumulated marine debris on shorelines, aquatic habitats, and biodiversity.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the Global Program of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities (GPA) are focusing on land-based sources, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is focusing on sea-based sources, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is focusing on ALDFG.
Progress is being made on all fronts and is slowly gaining momentum. For instance, the Global Ghost Gear Initiative was launched in September 2015 with the aim of tackling the problem on a global scale, and its participants include the fishing industry, private sector, academia, governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.
Andrew Hudson, who heads up the Water and Ocean Governance program at UNDP, spoke about the many threats to the ocean, at a recent conference organized by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership. He warned that more urgent action is needed to find solutions for such threats, any one of which can have serious consequences for seafood production, as well as a detrimental effect on jobs and coastal communities.
“There is a growing body of evidence to show that restoring the oceans is a powerful engine for sustainable economic development, creating new jobs and helping to reduce poverty,” he said.
Finding an effective way to educate people that marine litter is an environmental, human health and socio-economic problem that is a symptom of a highly disposable society has been tackled by numerous organizations, most notably at local level, getting the public involved in beach cleaning operations.
Now, UNEP in cooperation with the Open University of the Netherlands, has taken an entirely new approach, and has just launched a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Marine Litter.
Its creators believe that it will benefit policymakers, practitioners and managers who wish to connect with other professionals in order to enhance their knowledge of marine litter issues.
The MOOC is available in two parts: a leadership track and an expert track. The first has already started, but anyone signing up straight away will be able to catch up. Students wishing to remain in the course will continue to the Expert Track, which will be completed by mid-December 2015.
