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Oceans in deep trouble as damage mounts

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DAMAGE to the once pristine habitats of the deep oceans by pollution, litter and overfishing is running out of control, the United Nations warns.

In a report that indicates time is running out to save them, the UN said yesterday that exploitation of the deep seas and oceans was "rapidly passing the point of no return".

About 85 million tonnes of fish were taken from the oceans, 100 million sharks and related species were butchered for their fins, some 250,000 turtles became tangled in fishing gear and 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses, were killed by illegal long-line fishing.

Into the water went 3 billion pieces of litter — about 8 million a day — joining the 46,000 pieces of discarded plastic that float on every square mile of ocean and kill another million seabirds a year.

The water temperature rose and its alkalinity fell because of climate change. Coral barriers off Australia and Belize are dying and bottom-trawling has destroyed newly discovered reefs in the Atlantic.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN's environment program, said: "Humankind's ability to exploit the deep oceans and high seas has accelerated rapidly over recent years. It is a pace of change that has outstripped our institutions and conservation efforts."

Mining, for example, could for the first time soon spread to the sea floor. Canadian company Nautilus Minerals plans to dig for gold and copper off Papua New Guinea.

More than 90 per cent of the world's organisms are found in the oceans, but the UN report says researchers are only now beginning to understand the nature of their ecosystems.

"Today, these environments are considered to have been the very cradle for life on Earth," it says.

Yesterday's warning from the UN came as officials and experts met in New York to discuss ways the international community could better police activities in international waters.

Mr Steiner said: "Well over 60 per cent of the marine world and its rich biodiversity is found beyond the limits of national jurisdiction and is vulnerable and at increasing risk.

"Governments must urgently develop guidelines, rules and actions needed to bridge this gulf."

The UN says countries need to manage oceans along ecological boundaries rather than political borders.

It says most of the oceans remain unexplored — 90 per cent — and more research is needed. It also calls for greater protection for vulnerable species such as cod, marlin and swordfish, which have lost 90 per cent of their global stocks over the past century.

Kristina Gjerde, high seas policy adviser with the International Conservation Union's global marine program, who wrote the report, said: "Once limited largely to shipping and open-ocean fishing, commercial activities at sea are expanding rapidly and plunging ever deeper."

She said the effects of climate change made conservation efforts more important.

The new study, ‘Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Deep Waters and High Seas’, which was issued jointly by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), argues that the many lessons learnt on conserving coastal waters should be adapted and applied right across the marine world, including in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

“Humankind’s ability to exploit the deep oceans and high seas has accelerated rapidly over recent years. It is a pace of change that has outstripped our institutions and conservation efforts whose primary focus have been coastal waters where, until recently, most human activity like fishing and industrial exploration took place,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP’s Executive Director.

“We now most urgently need to look beyond the horizon and bring the lessons learnt in coastal water to the wider marine world,” he added at the report’s launch in New York, which took place as countries and experts are holding talks on the law of the sea.

With more than 90 per cent of the planet’s living biomass – the weight of life – found in the oceans, the report underlines the value of the deep seas and open oceans and highlights how science is only now just getting to grips with the wealth of life, natural resources and ecosystems existing in the marine world.

“Well over 60 per cent of the marine world and its rich biodiversity, found beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, is vulnerable and at increasing risk,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, Acting Director General of IUCN.

“Governments must urgently develop the guidelines, rules and actions needed to bridge this gulf. Otherwise we stand to lose and to irrevocably damage unique wildlife and critical ecosystems many of which moderate our very existence on the planet.”

The report, launched at the UN Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (UNICPOLOS) which feeds into the UN General Assembly, also highlights the way fisheries, pollution and other stresses such as those arising from global climate change are impacting and affecting the marine world.

Less than 10 per cent of the oceans have been explored with only one millionth of the deep sea floor having been subject to biological investigations but the report states that over half – 52 per cent – of the global fish stocks are fully exploited. Overexploited and depleted species have also increased from about 10 per cent in the mid 1970s to 24 per cent in 2002.

“Once limited largely to shipping and open ocean fishing, commercial activities at sea are expanding rapidly and plunging ever deeper. Deep sea fishing, bioprospecting, energy development and marine scientific research are already taking place at depths of 2,000 m or more,” says the report’s author, Kristina M. Gjerde, High Seas Policy Advisor to IUCN’s Global Marine Program.

Taking into account the discussions in various international meetings, she also outlines several options aimed at the conservation and sustainable management of the deep seas and open oceans. These include among other things, actions and measures that reflect an integrated approach to oceans management based on ‘ecological boundaries’ rather than just political ones and giving higher levels of protection to vulnerable species like deep sea fish.

Other steps include the creation of a “precautionary system of marine protected areas” along with improved impact assessments that reflect the full range of possible human activities across the total marine environment.

Electronic versions of the report are available on the home pages of the UNEP Regional Seas Programme and the IUCN Marine Programme).

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=18887&Cr=UNEP&Cr1=

World seas under threat
Conservationists for the United Nations Environment Programme, say urgent actionmust be taken to save the world's oceans from overfishing, pollution, climate change and shipping.

It says there are more than 46-thousand pieces of plastic litter floating in every square mile of ocean and populations of large fish have declined by as much as 90 per cent in the last century.

The director of the Programme, Achim Steiner says the full scale of the problem may not yet be fully understood.

"We assume roughly that less than 10 percent of the oceans have been explored so far and in fact only one millionth of the deep sea floor has been subjected to biological investigations."

"We are with our activities in the oceans affecting a great deal of biodiversity that we may lose before we even got to know it and in part that is the intention of the world community, we're trying to draw to with this report."

ABC Asia Pacific TV / Radio Australia