Monitoring The UN > The UN and Sustainable Development

Oceans

• What is the Challenge?
• UN Activities in the Area of Marine Issues
• Links

The Challenge

In short, the oceans are the earth's life support system, essential for living organisms to survive. Covering about 70% of the earth's surface, the oceans are a highly productive system which continuously recycles chemicals, nutrients and water through the "hydrological cycle", which powers climate and weather, and which regulates global temperature by acting as a giant heat reservoir from the sun. Some of the most diverse, productive and fragile ecosystems are found where the land meets the sea.

From a human point of view, oceans are also a major source of food and employment, and provide natural routes for communication, transportation and trade. Seventy percent of people in the world live within 80 kilometres of a coast, and almost half of the world's cities with populations of over one million people are sited in and around the tide-washed river mouths known as estuaries.

Despite the importance of oceans to human existence there are a number of indicators pointing to a possible marine crisis. These major symptoms of impending marine crisis include:

• Increasing and escalating degradation of the marine environment
  
• Destruction of coastal ecosystems, including wetlands, coral reefs, salt marches etc.;
  
• Increased eutrophication and toxic algal blooms in coastal waters, and especially in enclosed seas (e.g. Black Sea) and semi-enclosed seas (e.g. Mediterranean Sea);
  
• Loss of marine diversity, including fish stocks, marine mammals, crustaceans etc. as well as land-based animals and birds which depend on marine species for sustenance.

Indeed, several enclosed seas are already classified as "dead" or dying, and many semi-enclosed seas and are also dying.

Human development is threatening the oceans and other seas in numerous ways. Man-made pressures on the oceans, and in particular on the coastal zones and the enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, include:

• Over-exploitation of marine species: Since World War II, the expansion of world fisheries and the refinement of harvesting techniques have resulted in the extraction of huge quantities of wildlife, threatening almost every marine species, including fish stocks, marine mammals, crustaceans (lobster, crab, krill etc.) and others such as seahorses, jellies etc. Indeed, several of the largest fisheries -- the North Atlantic cod, several North Atlantic herring stocks, the Peruvian anchoveta -- have collapsed;
  
• Pollution from land: Human activities on land, even hundreds of miles inland, ultimately effect the oceans. Airborne pollutants, industrial wastes and municipal sewage discharged into rivers, agricultural pesticides and fertilizers, soil erosion due to deforestation and farming, automobile oil, roadway salt -- they all ultimately reach and pollute the ocean;
  
• High seas human activities: Shipping creates many stresses on the oceans, including operational and accidental discharges of fuel, toxic chemicals, sewage and garbage. These stresses increase closer to shore, especially in ports that do not have facilities to collect and dispose of shipping wastes. As well, offshore drilling and mineral exploration, dredging, dumping of industrial wastes, and past (now-illegal) dumping of toxic and nuclear wastes -- all result in degradation of the marine environment;
  
• Climate change: As more and more evidence shows that the earth is undergoing global warming (largely fueled by human activities such as large-scale greenhouse gases emissions and deforestation), the effects on the oceans, and in particular on coastal zones, will be considerable. Ice caps will melt and the sea level will rise, flooding coastal zones including coastal human settlements. Indeed, small island states could even be totally submerged. As well, if the sea level rise happens quickly, coastal ecosystems may not be able to adapt quick enough and may be destroyed;
  
• Tourism industry: The oceans are a natural tourism attraction and a multi-billion-dollar industry. However, tourism puts immense pressures on the marine environment, and in particular, on coastal regions (beaches, coral reefs etc.);
  
• War: The environment is rarely considered during war. Armed conflicts and testing of weapons result in highly increased, and sometimes introduce new types of, pollutant levels. Conventional, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons all ultimately effect the oceans.

UN Activities in the Area of Marine Issues

Over the years, an impressive body of international agreements of various kinds has been concluded to deal with one or another of the varied threats which endanger the oceans and marine life. These include a series of agreements relating to oil pollution, the London Dumping Convention of 1972 to control large-scale dumping of industrial waste and sewage in the oceans, the December 1995 agreement on the conservation and management of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks, as well as numerous UN conventions on issues such as the prevention of marine pollution from land-based sources and the safety of marine transportation.

The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides a comprehensive framework of international law to protect the oceans and seas, including the establishment of rules governing all uses of the oceans and their resources. UNCLOS also provides a framework for further development of specific areas of the law of the sea -- indeed, many of the agreements mentioned above are linked to UNCLOS, further elaborating on issues discussed within the Convention. While it was used as a framework for discussion and activity for over a decade, the Convention did not become legally binding until it came into force on November 16, 1994 after the requisite number of countries (as outlined in the Convention) ratified it. Since 1994, as per provisions outlined in the Convention, three new international institutions have been created dealing with specific areas of UNCLOS:

• International Seabed Authority www.isa.org.jm/ (ISA), Jamaica -- organizes and controls activities on the seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction;
  
• International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Germany -- settles disputes by peaceful means;
  
• Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), New York -- makes recommendations to a coastal State when it intends to establish the outer limits of its continental shelf beyond the standard 200 nautical miles.

The UN system also provides coverage of most environmental issues relating to oceans and seas and an extensive network of coordinating mechanisms such as periodic inter-agency meetings.

As well, there are many UN agencies with marine-related programmes ranging from a global focus to regional foci, and from a broad maritime theme to a specific marine issue. For example, the International Maritime Organization has been responsible for the development and adoption of approximately 40 legally-binding conventions and protocols as well as several hundred principal recommendations and codes which, while not legally binding, provide guidance in framing national regulations and requirements. The Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from land-Based Activities (GPA), adopted in November 1995 in Washington D.C., is an example of the how UN agencies share expertise and resources around specific issues. Hosted by United Nations Environment Programme www.unep.org/ in partnership with the UN Development Programme www.undp.org/indexalt.html, World Health Organization, the World Bank and other UN agencies, this programme, adopted by over 100 governments, provides conceptual and practical guidance for authorities to aid in devising and implementing action to prevent, reduce, control and/or eliminate degradation from land-based activities.

Despite the amount of work accomplished to date on marine issues, many problems and considerable discrepancies remain. For example, compliance with internationally agreed rules to prevent marine pollution from ships is hampered by a lack of monitoring to measure compliance, as well as effective enforcement and education. Negotiations must continue to be pursued to ensure that existing fishery stocks are equitably distributed among competing interests, so that overfishing is curbed and depleted stocks rebuilt. Gaps in the present legal framework pertaining to the oceans and seas must also be identified -- a painstaking task in itself because of the wide variety of conventions and agreements in place which cover different geographic areas and different subject matter. As well, monitoring the status of the marine environment, development of information data bases and international cooperation in setting and enforcing standards will be essential. These issues, and others, continue to be discussed through the UN as it tries to a) strengthen and update past conventions, protocols and agreements through formal negotiations; b) develop new agreements on new or inadequately covered issues; c) find ways to encourage and support facilitation of such agreements and d) educate policy-makers and the public. In 1998 and 1999, the UN will be focusing even more attention on marine issues. In 1998, the UN is recognizing and promoting the importance of the earth's oceans and the marine environment by designating 1998 as International Year of the Ocean www.unac.org/unfaq/oceans.html, the first time an environmental issue has been selected as an international year theme. And 1999 will be the year in which the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd.htm (the central forum for reviewing progress and generating momentum for the implementation of commitments made at the Earth Summit in 1992) will be reviewing oceans and seas.

As more and more people expect to live off the resources of the sea and mariculture, the future of our ocean resources, indeed the survival of the earth's life-support system -- the ocean -- will depend on appropriate controls, appropriate management and coordination and cooperation amongst the nations of the world. The UN provides an essential and neutral forum where policy-makers and experts can meet, discuss and agree on global action to protect and manage our shared global resource -- the oceans.

Links

There are two key sites for the 1995 agreement on the conservation and management of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks -- coverage by IISD's Earth Negotiations Bulletin, and the official UN site on the agreement which includes the final text.

The UN Dept of Public Information also has a good backgrounder on the Agreement.

The main website for UNCLOS information is at the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea Secretariat for UNCLOS, which includes the final Convention text and information on the three new UNCLOS-related institutions.

Texts for international marine-related conventions and treaties since the 1940's can be found at the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network. Note that some of these documents are massive -- sometimes over 100 pages in length.

Text for the section on protection of the oceans (chapter 17) from the UN Earth Summit's "Agenda 21: Global Programme of Action for Sustainable Development" .

Several UN bodies either focus entirely, or partially, on marine issues. These include the International Marine Organization (IMO);

The International Seabed Authority (ISA);

The UN Division of Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS);

Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO;

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO);

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA);

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP);

and the World Health Organization

"Protecting the Oceans", UNA-Canada's Issue Paper No. 3, "On the Road to Brazil" series

Informative background papers on fishing and whaling are located in Greenpeace's Website