Turning the corner on degrading oceans health in 2012

The environmental status of the world’s oceans is currently changing at rates and scales not seen since the rise of modern civilization, due largely to human action (overfishing, pollution and habitat loss/conversion are the main pressures). This is perhaps not surprising. The global population has doubled since 1950 to an estimated seven billion in 2011, and is forecast to reach over nine billion by 2050. About 40 percent of this population now lives for good reason within 100 kilometers of the coast and most of the world’s megacities like Jakarta, Mumbai or Los Angeles are on the coast. As a result of this, the ability of the ocean to provide benefits to nature and to people, now and in the future, has been greatly reduced; this is a massive loss for the global economy, even as seafood demand is expected to increase by 50 percent by 2030.

American sand lance (Ammodytes americanus) in Atlantic waters, St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia. © Gilbert Van Ryckevorsel / WWF-Canada

However, enhancing the health of the oceans globally (and in Canada) represents an even bigger opportunity for humans through sustainably delivering a range of benefits for people. The oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth’s surface, and are both an engine for global economic growth (an estimated 61 percent of the world’s total Gross National Product comes from the areas within 100 kilometers of the coastline) and a key source for food security (the oceans provide 10 percent of animal protein for the entire population). Within the ocean economy, many benefits depend on a healthy ‘living’ ocean. Certainly, goods can still be transported across lifeless seas, and oil and gas can be extracted from polluted oceans as well. However, only a healthy ocean can provide abundant seafood (oceans fisheries and aquaculture alone support some 250 million livelihoods around the world and produce seafood with a sale value of > US$ 190 billion), attractive sites for tourism (marine and coastal tourism was estimated to be worth some US$ 161 billion in 1995), new natural products for medicinal use, barriers against flooding and storm damage (e.g. mangroves at the edge of the sea protect landward sites in their lee), carbon storage (e.g. sea grass beds and mangrove forests sequester vast amounts of carbon, an important climate change mitigation strategy) and a vast number of non-market benefits (existence value of biodiversity; sense of place etc.).
To capture this opportunity, significant governance reforms are needed. While the overall governance framework for the use of the oceans is in place through UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty of 1982), countries such as Canada have consistently failed to effectively govern the use of oceans services within their jurisdictions (e.g. to this day Canada does not have rebuilding strategies in place for all collapsed or overfished fish stocks including its much lamented Newfoundland cod stocks), leaving behind an ocean that could be generating significant economic returns. Indeed adopted policies have eroded this natural capital, which is on track towards bankruptcy.
To reform governance and support healthier oceans that can make a greater and more sustainable contribution to the global economy, much more financing is needed, notably by reducing subsidies for unsustainable oceans uses and greater investment. In 2012, a number of initiatives around the world recognized the need for finance and have been supporting efforts to rebuild the natural capital of healthy oceans. In January, The Prince of Wales’ new program on global sustainable fisheries identified the lack of financial capital as one of the biggest barriers to change; in February, The Economist magazine organized the first World Ocean’s Summit in Singapore and the World Bank announced the formation of a Global Partnership for Oceans with the goal of establishing a trust fund to finance the implementation of reform measures. And as the Rio+20 Summit approaches in June, there is broad consensus on the need to scale up the pace of ocean conservation around the world. 1912 marked the Titanic’s sinking and 2012, perhaps, James Cameron’s descent to the oceans deepest point. I’d argue that a few years down the road, 2012 may well be remembered as a turning point for recognizing the value that healthy oceans have to people.