"Ocean, who is the source of all."
-Homer, c. 700 B.C.
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Seas Under Siege
Seeking Solutions
Taking Community Action
The Dying Oceans
The Eco-Volunteer Movement
The oceans, though they cover more than 70 per cent of the Earth's surface, are often taken for granted. More than 3.5 billion people depend on the ocean for their primary source of food, and more than half the world's population lives within 60 kilometres of the shoreline, a figure which could rise to three quarters by the year 2020. As important as the oceans are coastal areas, which contain diverse and productive habitats important for human settlements, development and local subsistence. Coastal resources are vital for many local communities and indigenous people. The exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which extends 320 kilometres out to sea, is an important marine area where countries are responsible for managing the development and conservation of natural resources for the benefit of their people.
The oceans also have become a network of shipping lanes and a supplier of energy, minerals and medicines. These contributions will grow as technology advances and the resources of the land become more scarce.
Since they cover most of the Earth's surface, oceans have a great influence on climate, and contribute significantly to the habitability of our planet. There are more than 120 species of mammals in the oceans, as well as numerous types of other forms of life. Oceans also attract tourists to their shores, thus providing a vital source of income to many countries.
Recognizing that the oceans, and the communities that depend on
them, are under threat, the world's governments declared through
Agenda 21 that the world needs "new approaches to marine
and coastal area management and development, at the national,
subregional and global levels."
Once thought to be so vast and resilient that no level of human insult could damage them, ocean and especially coastal resources are now under threat of ecological collapse due to mismanagement and abuse, according to significant and growing evidence. With increasing frequency, ocean disasters are commanding world attention. Medical waste has washed ashore, causing many beaches to be closed in the eastern United States. Hundreds of beaches along the Italian Adriatic were once off limits due to the infestation of algae. In Alaska, a supertanker hit a reef and dumped a quarter million barrels of oil into one of the world's richest fishing grounds.
Though such catastrophes are definitely worthy of international attention, other less sensational but no less harmful dangers are wreaking havoc on oceans and coastal areas. Most wastes created on land end up in the sea. Oceans and coastlines around the world-from the coasts of West Africa to the pristine Arctic-are littered by plastics and debris. Both buoyant and persistent, plastic fishing nets and lines, packing bands and bags choke or strangle marine organisms through ingestion or entanglement.
Humans are treating the ocean like a giant trash receptacle. Organic chemicals, such as DDT and PCBs, are now common contaminants in marine waters and are responsible for reproductive defects in marine organisms. Because of high concentrations of organic chemicals and heavy metals, fisheries have been closed over health concerns. The discharge of largely untreated municipal sewage, containing both human and industrial waste, is one of the largest sources of contamination in coastal waters and will probably increase as populations in coastal regions continue to grow.
Oil spills are devastating marine habitats and killing fish, mammals and birds. Although the large spills attract spectacular media attention for a few days, far more oil silently finds its way into the oceans from street runoff, ships flushing their tanks and effluent from industrial facilities. An estimated 21 million barrels of oil annually enters the seas this way, many times more than the 600,000 barrels accidentally spilled on average each year over the last decade.
Coastal habitats are being destroyed around the world to make room for urban development or to build agricultural fields and aquaculture ponds. More than one-third of Ecuador's mangroves have been converted to ponds for a rapidly growing shrimp-farm industry, and Philippine mangroves have been nearly completely wiped out to make room for aquaculture expansion.
Overfishing also is threatening the living creatures of the sea, an important resource that has long supplied humanity with food, oils and useful materials. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 70 per cent of the world's commercial fishing grounds are depleted, fully exploited or recovering from previous overfishing. Marine mammals
Marine mammals worldwide are suffering from heavy pressure from incidental catches in coastal small-scale fisheries and on the high seas driftnet fisheries. Other factors of concern are pollution, habitat loss and degradation, especially in coastal areas.
Coral reefs, home to an estimated one million species of life, are being choked by rivers that are laden with sediment from deforested lands or eroded agricultural fields. Reefs also are mined for jewelry or construction material. Voracious fisherfolk, seeking an easy way to net a large catch, sometimes throw dynamite into the water to kill fish. The result, besides devastating entire schools of fish, is the destruction of their habitat.
The world's living marine resources also are subject to extreme pressures from increasingly sophisticated fishing technologies and the expanding scope of large-scale, industrialized fishing activities.
Aside from these problems, the future of the planet's oceans are
confronted with other challenges, including the protection of
Antarctica and sea-level rise. Because of Antarctica's unique
nature, an international effort will be required to protect its
vast resources. The fragile marine ecosystems of the Antarctic
are currently threatened by overfishing, waste disposal and minerals
development.
The world's oceans are a vast commons that all nations must strive to protect. The World Commission on Environment and Development concluded in Our Common Future that "sustainable development, if not survival itself, depends on significant advances in the management of the oceans."
UNEP, in its State of the Marine Environment report for 1990, declared that "If coastal development and habitat degradation continue at their current rates, there will be global deterioration in the quality and productivity of the marine environment."
Furthermore, according to United Nations reports, the marine environment could deteriorate significantly in the next decade unless strong, coordinated national and international action is taken now. The efforts will be great and the costs high, but nothing less will ensure the continued health of the sea and the maintenance of its resources.
Today, the United Nations, through UNEP, is addressing the challenge
of the oceans in more than 160 countries with 12 "Regional
Seas Programmes." These programmes monitor conditions and
recommend government action in the Mediterranean, the Kuwait region,
the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the wider Caribbean, the Atlantic
coast of West and Central Africa, the Eastern African seaboard,
the Pacific coast of South America, the islands of the South Pacific,
the Northwest Pacific, the Black Sea, the East Asian region and
the South Asian Sea.
While there is much that can be done at the governmental level
to prevent the further deterioration of ocean and coastal ecosystems,
it is at the community level that sustainable change needs to
occur. Through an effective mobilization of your community, and
the direct action of your organization, ocean and coastal regions
can be preserved. This section introduces some suggestions that
your community could consider when drawing up its action plan
to help preserve the sustainability of oceans and coastal resources.
However, it will be the creative and motivated activity of your
own particular community that will determine the long-term success
of your efforts.
As the situation worsens, the life of the oceans is dying en masse.
Following are a few statistics:
| Species | Past Population | Recent Population |
| Declines | ||
| Blue Whale | 200,000 | 2,000 |
| Right Whale | 200,000 | 3,000 |
| Bowhead Whale | 120,000 | 6,000 |
| Humpback Whale | 125,000 | 10,000 |
| Sei Whale | 200,000 | 25,000 |
| Fin Whale | 470,000 | 110,000 |
| Northern Sea Lion | 154,000 | 66,000 |
| Juan Fernandez Fur Seal | 4,000,000 | 600 |
| Recoveries | ||
| Pacific Gray Whale | 10,000 | 21,000 |
| Dugong | 30,000 | 55,000 |
| Walrus | 50,000 | 280,000 |
| Galapagos Fur Seal | near extinction | 30,000 |
| Antarctic Fur Seal | near extinction | 1,530,000 |
| Extinctions | ||
| Atlantic Gray Whale | extinct,
c. 1730 | |
| Steller's Sea Cow | extinct, c. 1768 | |
| Sea Mink | extinct, c. 1880 |
Past population refers to mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century.
Recent population refers to the late 1980s to present. Source:
Trends from Ed Ayres, "Many Marine Mammal Populations Declining,"
in Lester R. Brown, Hal Kane, and Ed Ayres, Vital Signs 1993
(New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1993); extinctions from David
Day, The Doomsday Book of Animals: A Natural History of Vanished
Species (New York: Viking Press, 1981).
The Eco-Volunteer Movement
A Success Story
The concept of eco-volunteers first surfaced among delegates to the United Nations Earth Summit in 1992, who sought to locate and empower the hundreds of volunteers already working in every country to improve the environment and welfare of their communities.
The programme to emerge from this vision was first funded as a pilot project through the United Nations Volunteers and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). It is managed by the Nairobi-based Environmental Liaison Centre International (ELCI), a network of more than 800 environmental groups in nearly 100 countries. ELCI delegates responsibility to a single member NGO in each country which then selects the eco-volunteers. The NGO coordinates the programme in its country, making good use of local knowledge.
Many of these volunteers working in the programme are involved in concerns related to the oceans and coastal resources. Isabel Butler of Nova Scotia, Canada, is one of them. A long-time community and environmental activist, she has been involved in numerous projects and initiatives to keep her coastline clean. Many of these efforts have spread far beyond her own Atlantic coast community and serve as a model for people around the world.
The Ship to Shore Trash Campaign, started by the Maritime Fishermen's
Union, has focused on encouraging fisherfolk and others to bag
their trash and bring it back to land for disposal, rather than
simply tossing it over the side into the ocean. The campaign has
spread through the Atlantic coast of Canada to four provinces
and has changed the habits of hundreds of inshore fisherfolk.
Butler, who was instrumental in organizing the campaign, said
she stressed the need for environmentalists and fisherfolk to
work together rather than opposing each other. A far-reaching
result of her efforts is a continuing liaison between the Maritime
Fishermen's Union and the Oceans Caucus of the Canadian Environmental
Network.
Contact:
References
Global Marine Biological Diversity: A Strategy for Building
Conservation into Decision Making, Elliot A. Norse, ed., Island
Press, Washington, DC 1993 - Marine Environment, UNEP Profile,
United Nations Environment Programme - Our Common Future;
The World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987 - Our
Living Oceans: The First Annual Report on the Status of U.S. Living
Marine Resources, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), Washington, DC, 1991 - Safeguarding Oceans and Water
Resources, Background Paper for the Interparliamentary Conference
on the Global Environment, May 1990 - World Resources, 1994-95:
A Guide to the Global Environment, a report by the World Resources
Institute in collaboration with UNEP and the United Nations Development
Programme, Oxford University Press, 1994.