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see also
- see also
- earth+land
- eco crisis- biodiversity
- eco crisis – climate
- food+farming
- FISHING
- natural resources fossil fuels
- pollution
- this page
- oceans
- coastal
insideclimatenews.orgs 7-2022
scientificamerican.com 29-4-2022 Scientists Warn of Looming Mass Ocean Extinction – If greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed, temperature spikes could bring the first such mass extinction in 250 million years – By Chelsea Harvey
euronews.com 4-2022 meet-the-young-pirates-protecting-the-ocean-from-plastic-pollution
newscientist.com 20-4-2022 How the ‘blue acceleration’ is supercharging ocean exploitation by Graham Lawton
From deep-sea mining to industrial-scale fishing, human activities in the oceans are expanding massively in a realm where few rules apply. Only now are we grappling with how to regulate the rush to plunder the seas. This “blue acceleration” has many people worried. Our record on sustainable development on land is hardly good. With the power to profit from remote ocean resources growing rapidly, and the laws that govern their exploitation less than clear, we risk a free-for-all in the deep. “Our society has been based on the degradation of nature, destruction of nature,” says marine ecologist Enric Sala, a National Geographic Explorer in Residence. “It is very important to …”…
newscientist.com/how-four-big-industries-are-driving-the-exploitation-of-our-oceans/
newscientist.com – this-year-we-need-to-start-taking-our-impact-on-the-oceans-seriously/
theguardian.com/ 1-4-2022 Seabed regulator accused of deciding deep sea’s future ‘behind closed doors’ by Karen McVeigh
The ISA, obliged to frame industry rules by 2023, drops reporting service and is accused of lacking transparency in plans for mining …The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is meeting this week at its council headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, to develop regulations for the fledgling industry. But it emerged this week that Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), a division of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), which has covered previous ISA negotiations, had not had its contract renewed. …
Scientists have warned that the damage to ecosystems from mining nickel, cobalt and other metals on the deep-seabed would be “dangerous”, “reckless” and “irreversible”. One estimate suggests that 90% of the deep-sea species that researchers encounter are new to science.
As opposition to deep-sea mining grows, the ISA is facing resistance over its rush to develop a roadmap to be adopted before 9 July 2023. The plan was prompted in June last year, when the island of Nauru informed the ISA of its intention to start mining the seabed in two years’ time, via a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, The Metals Company (TMC, until recently known as DeepGreen Metals). This invoked an obscure clause of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which said the ISA must finalise regulations within two years of such an announcement. …Duncan Currie, an international lawyer with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, which is tracking the negotiations, said he was “very concerned” by the various failures of transparency. …”…
- Podcast: The race to mine the deep sea
- Deep-sea mining
- Seascape: the state of our oceans
- Marine life
- Oceans
- Wildlife
- Conservation
- Mining (Environment)
- Mining (Business)
theguardian.com 3-2022 UN ocean treaty is ‘once in a lifetime’ chance to protect the high seas – Negotiators aim to agree on legal framework for protecting international waters that are key to ‘life as we know it’ – Karen McVeigh
wired.co.uk 11/2021 Humans Have Broken a Fundamental Law of the Ocean – The size of undersea creatures seemed to follow a strange but stable pattern—until industrial fishing came along. by Matt Reynolds
ocean.org/blog/ 6-2021 langdon-hall-a-decade-and-counting-of-protecting-our-oceans-with-creativity-compassion-and-commitment
weforum.org 10/2020 The oceans are absorbing more carbon than previously thought by Jamie Shutler, Andy Watson
The oceans play a critical role in capturing CO2 from the atmosphere – Around 25% of all CO2 emissions are absorbed by the ocean, making it one of the world’s largest ‘carbon sinks’ – However, new evidence suggests this figure could be even higher – The oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface and play a crucial role in taking up CO2 from the atmosphere – Estimates suggest that around a quarter of CO2 emissions that human activity generates each year is absorbed by the oceans.
chemistryworld.com/ 6/2021 Deepest ocean trenches hold vast amounts of mercury by Katrina Krämer
he first-ever analysis of mercury in sediments recovered from the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean has revealed them to be hotspots for the toxic element, containing up to 56 times more mercury than other deep sea areas.
Since 2017, the Minamata Convention on Mercury has been working on reducing anthropogenic mercury emissions by phasing out mercury-containing products and regulating the metal’s use in gold mining. But whether released by human activity or from natural sources, the often toxic metal ultimately ends up in soils and ocean sediments in the form of inorganic salts, organic compounds or even particle-bound and free elemental metal. … Overall, ocean trenches make up only 1% of all deep sea areas but may accumulate 12% to 30% of all marine mercury. … The study’s lead researcher, Hamed Sanei from Aarhus University in Denmark, called his team’s results ‘alarming’.
dailymaverick.co.za/ 5/2021 SHADES OF THE BIG BLUE (1) Seaspiracy and the environmental impact of fishing By Catherine Del Monte
While the 2021 Netflix documentary ‘Seaspiracy’ spotlighted imperative discussions the world needs to be having around issues with the ocean, some experts say the film might have missed a more balanced, representative and empowering, solutions-based view. While the 2021 Netflix documentary ‘Seaspiracy’ spotlighted imperative discussions the world needs to be having around issues with the ocean, some experts say the film might have missed a more balanced, representative and empowering, solutions-based view. If Ali Tabrizi’s documentary Seaspiracy, released in March, left you tutting at the fish section in the supermarket, ready to enlist in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society or just plain paralysed with panic at the depth and vastness of the problems the world’s oceans are currently facing, you are not alone.
dailymaverick.co.za 5/2021 SHADES OF THE BIG BLUE (2) Defenders of the deep: protecting our oceans – “Overfishing and plastic pollution are big threats to ocean health, but climate change and ocean warming are drastically changing our marine ecosystems.By Catherine Del Monte “As mentioned in our first story, Seaspiracy and the environmental impact of fishing, Ali Tabrizi’s documentary Seaspiracy, released in March, is an in-depth, albeit controversial, exposé of the vastness of the problems the world’s oceans are currently facing. But what is the situation in South Africa and what are some of the solutions being implemented to help solve some of the issues?..”…
bbc.com/future 3/2021 Chinese-run factories are turning huge amounts of The Gambia’s fish stocks into fishmeal for aquaculture. But are they taking too much, too quickly? By Ian Urbina “… In 2017, China cancelled $14m (£10m) in Gambian debt and invested $33m (£23.8m) to develop agriculture and fisheries, including Golden Lead and two other fish-processing plants along the 50-mile (80km) Gambian coast. The residents of Gunjur were told that Golden Lead would bring jobs, a fish market, and a newly paved, three-mile road through the heart of town. … For the area’s local fishermen, most of whom toss their nets by hand from pirogues powered by small outboard motors, the rise of aquaculture has transformed their daily working conditions: hundreds of legal and illegal foreign fishing boats, including industrial trawlers and purse seiners, criss-cross the waters off the The Gambian coast, decimating the region’s fish stocks and jeopardising local livelihoods. …
After Golden Lead was fined, in 2019, it stopped releasing its toxic effluent directly into the lagoon. Instead, a long wastewater pipe was installed under a nearby public beach. Locals claimed it has been dumping waste directly into the sea. In March 2018, about a hundred and fifty local shopkeepers, youth and fishermen, wielding shovels and pickaxes, gathered on the beach to dig up the pipe and destroy it but two months later a new one was installed with the government’s approval. ….
Jojo Huang, the director of the plant, has said publicly that the facility follows all regulations and does not pump chemicals into the sea. The plant has benefitted the town, Golden Lead told Reuters, by helping fund a school and making donations for Ramadan celebrations. …
Manjang contacted environmentalists and journalists, along with Gambian lawmakers, but was soon warned by the Gambian trade minister that pushing the issue would only jeopardise foreign investment. Bamba Banja, the head of the Ministry of Fisheries and Water Resources, was dismissive, telling a local reporter that the awful stench was just “the smell of money”. …
Global demand for seafood has doubled since the 1960s. Our appetite for fish has outpaced what we can sustainably catch: more than 80% of the world’s wild fish stocks have collapsed or are unable to withstand more fishing. Aquaculture has emerged as an alternative – a shift, as the industry likes to say, from capture to culture. …
The fastest-growing segment of global food production, the aquaculture industry is worth $160bn (£116bn) and accounts for roughly half of the world’s fish consumption. The US imports 90% of its seafood, more than half of which is farmed. The bulk of that comes from China, by far the world’s largest producer, where fish are grown in sprawling landlocked pools or in pens offshore spanning several square miles. … Manneh obtained secret recordings in which Bamba Banja, of the Ministry of Fisheries, discussed bribes in exchange for allowing factories to operate during the lockdown.” …. “ read whole article at bbc.com – you might also like:
weforum.org 10/2020 The oceans are absorbing more carbon than previously thought by Jamie Shutler, Andy Watson
The oceans play a critical role in capturing CO2 from the atmosphere – Around 25% of all CO2 emissions are absorbed by the ocean, making it one of the world’s largest ‘carbon sinks’ – However, new evidence suggests this figure could be even higher – The oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface and play a crucial role in taking up CO2 from the atmosphere – Estimates suggest that around a quarter of CO2 emissions that human activity generates each year is absorbed by the oceans.
nst.com 8/2020 Insist on strictly sustainable development of ocean resources – By Zakri Abdul Hamid
theoutlawocean.com 2020 THE OUTLAW OCEAN PROJECT by Ian_Urbina etal
There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world’s oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways — drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil and shipping industries, and on which the world’s economies rely.
nature.com 2021 Enabling conditions for an equitable and sustainable blue economy
Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor, Marcia Moreno-Báez, Gabriel Reygondeau, William W. L. Cheung, Katherine M. Crosman, Pedro C. González-Espinosa, Vicky W. Y. Lam, Muhammed A. Oyinlola, Gerald G. Singh, Wilf Swartz, Chong-wei Zheng & Yoshitaka Ota
Abstract : The future of the global ocean economy is currently envisioned as advancing towards a ‘blue economy’—socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically viable ocean industries1,2. However, tensions exist within sustainable development approaches, arising from differing perspectives framed around natural capital or social equity. Here we show that there are stark differences in outlook on the capacity for establishing a blue economy, and on its potential outcomes, when social conditions and governance capacity—not just resource availability—are considered, and we highlight limits to establishing multiple overlapping industries. This is reflected by an analysis using a fuzzy logic model to integrate indicators from multiple disciplines and to evaluate their current capacity to contribute to establishing equitable, sustainable and viable ocean sectors consistent with a blue economy approach. We find that the key differences in the capacity of regions to achieve a blue economy are not due to available natural resources, but include factors such as national stability, corruption and infrastructure, which can be improved through targeted investments and cross-scale cooperation. Knowledge gaps can be addressed by integrating historical natural and social science information on the drivers and outcomes of resource use and management, thus identifying equitable pathways to establishing or transforming ocean sectors1,3,4. Our results suggest that policymakers must engage researchers and stakeholders to promote evidence-based, collaborative planning that ensures that sectors are chosen carefully, that local benefits are prioritized, and that the blue economy delivers on its social, environmental and economic goals.
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coastal
ft.com 11/2021
