So that our grandchildren will know what a fish is

The following is an opinion piece from United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Klaus Toepfer, on the need to enhance the protection of our marine environment.  The article speaks to issues which were discussed at the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa earlier this month.

In early September, delegates from across the globe will descend on the South African city of Durban to chart the way forward for the world’s national parks and protected areas.

This once in a decade event is both cause for celebration and cause for concern. It is well over 100 years since the creation of the first, modern, protected area —Yellowstone National Park in the United States. Over 10 percent of the Earth’s land surface has now been afforded protection and there are countless examples of success stories for both people and wildlife as a result. The same, however, cannot be said for the marine world. Indeed figures to be released at the IUCN’s fifth World Parks Congress by UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre, will show that less than one percent of the oceans and seas have been given the same kind of protection. It is not all doom and gloom. Australia, for example, has just unveiled proposals to create large swathes of so-called “no take areas” across Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. These “no take areas,” in which fishing and extractive industries such as mining and dredging will be banned, will cover roughly one third of the 350,000 square kilometre marine park up from just under five percent now.

The tourism industry, which generates nearly $3 billion annually for the local and national economy and which employs more than 47,000 people, is delighted. They believe the scheme will increase the number and size of fish for visitors to see, and improve and expand good snorkelling and diving sites. Norway has stepped up action to protect its Tisler and Fjellknausen deep cold water reefs. The six West African countries of Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Senegal have announced plans for a network of marine protected areas aimed at reducing over-fishing and possible threats from oil exploration. But we need to do far more to ensure that oceans and their rich and varied life-forms, upon which billions depend for food and livelihoods, are secured for current and future generations. There are many reasons for the existing unsatisfactory state of affairs. Much of the marine world lies hidden beneath the waves, and the movements and life-styles of its denizens have until recent decades remained a mystery. Unlike the land, where issues of ownership, of title deeds, of customary rights, of management are far more well-established, the oceans have been viewed as truly wilderness areas owned by no one and free- for-all. This was fine in a world of plenty, when explorers like Cabot encountered so much cod off the east coast of North America his vessels were slowed by the sheer density of the shoals. It was fine in a world where the summit of ocean-going technology was the sail and the dug-out canoe. It was fine in a world where a coastal megacity might once have been a few thousand rather than 10 million souls, and the relatively tiny levels of pollution could be diluted a billion-fold by the vastness of the seas.

However, the ability to hunt faster and further for ever greater quantities of marine-living resources, and the growth in the global population where more than 40 percent — more than the entire world population in the 1950s — now live by the coast, means the oceans can no longer be treated as an unmanaged free-for-all. The coming into force of the UN Law of the Sea Convention, the development of regional fisheries agreements and initiatives such as UNEP’s Regional Seas Programme are among some of the recent developments that are focusing attention on the marine world. Many fishermen’s organisations, appalled by the collapse of stocks and the devastation of livelihoods, are demanding action too. They also realise that the unfettered use of the drift net, the bottom trawl and the purse seine means there will be nothing of value left to catch in a few short years. Last year’s World Summit on Sustainable Development and its Plan of Implementation gives governments, in partnership with industry and civil society, a blueprint for action, including for oceans. Among its recommendations and targets and timetables are ones to, where possible, restore fish stocks to healthy levels by 2015 and to advance the implementation of the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities to reduce the threat of pollution. Significantly, it also urges the establishment of a global network of marine protected areas. Big questions remain, not least in areas of funding and enforcement especially in developing countries. But, there is growing evidence that well-managed marine protected areas not only cover their costs, but can generate substantial income for the benefit of local people and national economies.

Costa Rica’s tourist industry, based around a well-developed and well-managed network of both terrestrial and marine areas, is generating around $300 million a year. Far more than it costs to maintain these areas. There are still some who argue that marine protected areas do not work, that there is scant evidence that closing off waters leads to a renaissance of fish stocks and other life forms. But tell that to the people and fisher folk of St Lucia in the Caribbean. Since designating “no take zones” in 1995 the level of commercial fish stocks has doubled, generating valuable export revenues and boosting local supplies. The theme of this year’s Congress is “Benefits Beyond Boundaries.” It is time to wholeheartedly support the early stirrings of this world-wide marine protected area movement, so that there are no longer artificial boundaries between the land and the oceans. It can no longer be a question of whether we need marine parks, but how many and how big. There is no point in having token havens, tiny islands of conservation in a sea of over-exploitation. Otherwise our grandchildren will, as with the dodo, learn about the turtles, the dugongs and the coral reefs, at the knees of a history teacher, and we will have the tough job of explaining what a fish is.