Hoovering the seabed

We'd heard about seabed mining plans and operations in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Namibia, the Arctic and elsewhere before. We also heard this week that Japan was developping technology to trap methane hydrate near its coast. And now it looks like the deepsea mining race will soon become a reality. Lookheed Martin UK and the UK Government want a licence to hoover the seabed of a large area in the Pacific Ocean to grab valuable minerals. Russia, China and other countries are also on the go for what the British Prime Minister David Cameron describes as the new "global race".

We need a strong watchdog in place before it starts and irreversible damage could begin. 

Look at the social and environmental damage the mining industry has done on land. Do you think they will "behave" under the sea if no-one's watching and if there's no proper monitoring and accountability?

Maybe someone should raise the issue (raise questions or raise hell?) in Sydney in the month of May when the Extractiive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) holds its Global Conference? I'm sure a lot of "reasonable" people will say "it's not on the agenda". Well, let's take over and set the agenda, then! [Ill send the link to this post to a few Sydney-based friends and colleagues -- like a bottle in the ocean which they might or might not pick up] 

I've just been confirmed as a "special guest" at the French Government conference The Hgh Seas, Our Future on 11 April in Paris. Another opportunity to bring up this issue maybe, don't you think?

Global Ocean Commission: Sexy and exciting?

I’m writing from London where I’m attending today the launch of the Global Ocean Commission, a project I’ve been working with in an advisory capacity since its inception more than two years ago.

Co-chaired by the former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the former South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and the former President of Costa Rica José María Figueres, the Global Ocean Commission is made up of about a dozen former leaders from the five continents, augmented by business giants. Many are still active in national politics or branches of the UN system. At first sight it may not look like the most sexy international environmental initiative. It’s not the first commission to be set up when the international community faces obstacles in addressing an issue - one of the most pressing here being the sustainable use and conservation of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. And the recommendations these commissions come up with are too often ignored, albeit politely. So, what’s the big deal here? What’s the added value?

Focused mandate:

We’ve seen that one weakness of many past international commissions was a mandate that was too broad, resulting in a message that’s hard to get. For example, some commissions come up with over a hundred recommendations, so it’s hard for a key message to come across (apples and oranges). In contrast, the mandate of the Global Ocean Commission is straightforward: the conservation and governance of biodiversity and a remedy for overfishing on the high seas. The high seas is a very large area (nearly 50% of the surface of the planet), but there are commonalities that impact and concern every single one of us on this planet. The international community can do something there if it wants, because the high seas do not belong to anyone. It’s a question of political will. Overfishing and food security; illegal fishing, piracy and other security issues; human trafficking and other forms of social and labour abuse; unsustainable exploitation of fisheries, mineral and genetic resources and the unfair repartition of the benefits... Hopefully the sharp mandate can lead to sharp recommendations, easy for all to understand and sufficiently practical to make a difference. 

Not the usual suspects:

Environmental activists like me, lawyers, marine biologists and climatologists have been drawing attention for years to the fate of the high seas. For example, a decade ago I helped to create the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), and more recently I worked with the High Seas Alliance at the Rio+20 Earth Summit of June 2012. All that time (let alone previously in my 25 years in leadership positions within Greenpeace) we’ve done great work, and it’s true the state of the ocean and the rest of the planet would be much worse if we hadn’t taken action. But I think it’s meaningful that people such as Ratan Tata of India, Yoriko Kawaguchi of Japan and Pascal Lamy from France are willing to acknowledge the importance of the issues and lead an initiative to tackle them. These and the rest of the Global Ocean Commissioners are people who’ve had to deal with extremely complex issues throughout their careers, so it will be interesting to see what their collective expertise brings. People such as me who’ve  been “in that tunnel” since unmemorable times should be interested to see if and how the Global Ocean Commissioners  come up with new ideas that can bring a bit of fresh air to the debate. At the time of writing, the Commission hasn’t even been formally launched yet (it will take place at 1830 GMT on Tuesday), but already a glance at Google and Twitter indicates that that people are intrigued.

Independent and relevant:

As former leaders, all the members of the Global Ocean Commission have agreed to join in an independent capacity, regardless of other responsibilities they may hold within their government, parliament, party, organisation or corporation. This is important, because one lesson learned from past commissions and UN high level panels is that it’s important to be clear as to whether participants are there on their own behalf, as truly independent minds, or whether they’re just messengers. But even though many of the Commissioners are described as former, they’re still relevant: they’re people likely to continue to be active and influential in the future, which is important.

Time-bound:

The Global Ocean Commission and its Secretariat, established at Somerville College, University of Oxford, have been set up for a short period of time. The Commission will meet four times between now and March/April 2014 when it is scheduled to issue its final report. In other words it’s a biodegradable commission. Thus, if the recommendations are good, it can empower governments, academics, civil society and private sector organisations to get in motion and come to grips with key high seas governance issues, both existing and emerging. As the Co-chairs are already acknowledging, the Commission will need the input of all these sectors if it is to make balanced, pragmatic recommendations, and the support of all these sectors to turn them into reality.

Right timing:

At the Rio+20 Summit last year, governments already agreed that the session of the UN General Assembly that will begin in September 2014 will consider the issues the Global Ocean Commission is set to address. As a result, the timing of the Commission’s final report is optimum, six months before the UN General Assembly. It can be the curtain-raiser that all important debates need, to help governments get the right focus. So, there’s a good chance that the Global Ocean Commission report doesn’t end up buried under a thick layer of dust.

All the ingredients are there, it seems.

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUÍ) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE.

Poster Child

Mediterranean Bluefin tuna ranchers are believed to be at the origin of the publication by the Spanish newspaper El País two weeks ago of a draft report of the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS) of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The SCRS report, the tuna ranchers said in a nutshell, shows that environmentalists had it all wrong: there are plenty of Bluefin tunas in the Mediterranean; so many that restrictions ought to be reviewed and fishing quotas increased at ICCAT’s annual meeting next month in Agadir, Morocco.

I’ve been following the work of ICCAT’s SCRS quite closely in the last few weeks, and I was at the experts meeting where the report leaked by the Bluefin tuna industry was drafted at the beginning of September, so maybe I can help throw some light on what’s actually going on.

Until 2009, the 48 member governments of ICCAT used to ignore the advice of their own scientists when setting Bluefin catch limits and quotas for the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea. This led to the severe depletion of the species’ Eastern Atlantic stock which spawns in the Mediterranean Sea. That’s why the Mediterranean Bluefin tuna became the poster child of marine biological diversity loss. Bluefin tuna had become in the 1980s a high value commodity worth over one billion dollars annually on the international market, and a large network of tuna ranchers with tentacles in many Mediterranean countries (France, Spain, Libya, Turkey, Croatia, Malta, Tunisia, Greece, etc. and of course with links in Japan and other consumer countries) routinely extracted and towed millions of juveniles and adults from their spawning grounds into large cages to fatten and ship them to Japan and other countries.

As a regional fisheries organization set up to secure “conservation” of the species, ICCAT was put on the spot and – recognizing that the situation was out of control – in 2006 it said it would enact regulations to seek the recovery of the species by 2022. A reporting scheme known as the Bluefin Catch Document System (BCD) was set up by ICCAT after 2007 to track down how many fish are caught, and in 2010 quotas were set to 12,900 metric tons for the Eastern Atlantic (including the Mediterranean). As a result, there’s an overcapacity of the fleet of large purse seiners catching the fish in the Mediterranean spawning grounds; in only two to three weeks they normally fulfill their quotas. The Bluefin tuna purse seine fishing season every year in May looks like the gold rush, and there’s a strong industry lobby in Brussels and elsewhere to increase the catch limits.

It’s true that the SCRS believes that Bluefins in the Mediterranean are likely to be on their way to recovery. But what they’re recommending unanimously now is that the catch restrictions stay where they are – at least for now. Do not increase the quotas is the key message from the governments’ experts.

I’ve read this experts’ final report; in the Executive Summary alone (8 pages) I found the word “uncertainty” mentioned 18 times. We’re talking of very big fish but nevertheless it’s impossible to count them one by one even with spotter planes, photo or satellite tracking, so the experts are working with complex computer models fed with data which include assumptions which policy-makers need to take into consideration. In its conclusions the report says that there’s “at least a 60% chance” that the species is on its way to recovery.  This is why they’re calling for precaution and are asking governments not to increase the quotas, at least until a more complete assessment can be made in 2015. It would be wrong to relax the efforts now, just when they appear to start bearing fruits.

A key issue is whether the industry is actually respecting the catch limits. It’s widely known that the current manual Bluefin Catch Documentation system (BCD) adopted in 2007 is insufficient (there can be mistakes and errors, deliberate or not); in 2010 it was agreed to replace it by an electronic system (EBCD) that would allow ICCAT to track down in real time what’s going on. But this electronic system is not yet in place.

ICCAT has received in the last couple of years at least four studies comparing the reported catch data with international trade records, and there’s always a big difference that remains unexplained. According to these studies, quite a lot more fish is traded than officially caught. At the meeting I went to at the beginning of September, the SCRS formed a small working group to look at these reports in detail, and their recommendation calls for an independent review of the trade data. Under these circumstances, it’s no surprise that the SCRS unanimously believes that there should be no quota increase.

After years of being the poster child of marine biodiversity loss, I really hope that the Mediterranean Bluefin can become the poster child of marine biodiversity recovery. That we can soon say that when we all pull up our sleeves and take environmental issues seriously, we can change the course of History. That’s particularly important because the environment needs victories. But we’re not quite there yet.

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUÍ) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE. And also, en français on WIKIOCEAN.

Software update

As I was flying from Madrid to New York yesterday, I noticed that airline companies need to update their software: there isn't much of that Arctic ice left in summer now. Watch out for big trouble dead ahead.

Fourth of July Quiz

Here's a Fourth of July Quiz for you.

The following international instruments all have something in common. What is it?

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea -- the UN Framework Convention on Biological Diversity -- the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control -- the UNEP Basel Convention on the Control of the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal --- the UNEP Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants -- the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change -- the Rome Statute of the international Criminal Court -- the UN Convention in the Prohibtion of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction -- the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty -- The UN Convention on Cluster Munitions -- [I'll stop here -- this list isn't exhaustive]

We all know that the 4th of July is Independence Day in the USA. I wish they'd make it Interdependence Day.

Lessons from Rio

I have refrained from blogging for three days until today, the final day of the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Not only because I have been (and continue to be) extremely busy with a multitude of tasks here. But also because I wanted to wait for the dust to start settling. There has been a quasi-universal condemnation of the Summit outcome and the way it was conducted by the Brazilian Presidency. What Ban Ki-moon had rightly called a one-time-in-a-generation opportunity has failed us (and him). I understand and share the frustrations -- especially from those who attended such a summit for the first time, and in particular for the youth groups. But life goes on (or -- rather -- Life has to go on).

So, what lessons have we learned, and what are the next steps?

Waste of time?

Now that the conference is almost over, many are asking whether such summits are a waste of time, and whether they are always doomed to failure. This is not new. For example I remember that even after the first Earth Summit in 1992 many commentators from NGOs were complaining that Agenda 21 was too weak, that it would not do the job, that the Rio 92 conventions had loopholes, etc. Yet, nowadays Rio 92 is always described as a milestone by the environmental movement. In Johannesburg ten years ago (Rio+10), frustration reached another level; even the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan  himself said on the final day that "the era of large summits is over." But when the UN General Assembly decided in December 2009 to organize Rio+20, there was renewed interest and broad participation, even though it is true that many people envisaged that governments in 2012 would not have the ambitions we need.

"Waste of time" are the words that Sarah Palin and her cronies from the Tea Party like to hear. Rio+20 has drawn considerable attention to the need to protect our environment and to build a more equitable and just world, even if it has not delivered. But it is true that in future it's got to happen differently.

Reverse order?

Listening to the litany of speeches by the Heads of State and Government here in the last three days, and hearing all of them say that the environmental crisis is upon us, that we need action and not just words, effective targets and measurable progress are urgent, that we owe it to our children, etc, etc. reminded me that the way these summits are conducted needs a thorough re-think. Until now, the appearance of Heads of State and Government at such summits has taken place at the end, after a lengthy process where civil servants represent their countries (this time it started in New York in January, 2011). Civil servants are hard pressed to reach agreement before their bosses (Heads of State and Government, Ministers...) turn up. The result is a race to the bottom, the search for compromise at all cost, also known as the lowest common denominator which reflected this time in the document called "The future we Want" which oddly everyone says is not the future we need.

So, why not invite next time the Heads of State and Government to speak first? They would share their bold vision ("we need action and not just words, effective targets and measurable progress are urgent, we owe it to our children, etc."). This would empower the negotiators to act more in conformity with what their bosses said, and they would presumably be less inclined to dive into the lowest common denominator pool. That would make a lot of sense; after all aren't the Heads of State and Government elected to lead?

Now What?

It's taking some time to develop strategies to work from the 49 page "Future we Want" document. But already there's a lot to build from in the document. Here are just a few examples:

• Heads of State and Government have given their benediction to the idea that a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be developed and launched before 2015. We'll have to push the envelope to make sure that the SDGs deliver the future we want;
• Heads of State and Government have entrusted the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to launch a ten-year Action Programme on Sustainable Production and Consumption, something that the two President Bush had fiercely opposed at Rio 92 and Johannesburg 02 respectively. The future will tell if this Action Programme will be significant, but clearly Bush & Bush thought it could be, otherwise they would not have opposed it so fiercefully.
• The section on Oceans and Seas contains important commitments to respect science-based management, eliminate subsidies that contribute to overfishing and fleets overcapacity, to combat illegal fishing, to guarantee access to fishing resources to small-scale artisanal fishers including indigenous peoples; 
• Also on Ocean, we were disappointed that -- due to the opposition of the US and Venezuela (strange bed fellows...), Russia, Canada and Japan -- there was no agreement to launch immediately negotiations of an international instrument for high seas biodiversity conservation (the areas beyond national jurisdiction that represent 45% of the surface of the planet and are subject to Wild West grab), but the importance of this issue is emphasized and the Future we Want includes the consideration of the development of this agreement in two years and a half;
• Governments agree that it is wrong to measure wealth just on the basis of countries' Gross National Products; potentially this could be what the History books our grand-children will read may remember of the Rio+20 Summit.

Because I've been at many summits and international fora, maybe I've got a tough skin and once the initial anger has passed I'm ready to go on. But what's most important is that all the young people who've been here don't get discouraged. They've got to be back the next time!

A metamorphosis takes more time than a revolution. But maybe it will have more lasting effects. 

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUÍ) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE.

Saving face or saving the Planet?

There was general disappointment last night when the Brazilian presidency of the Rio+20 Earth Summit bullied delegations into accepting a considerably watered down draft of the declaration to be brought forward for approval by Heads of State and Government tomorrow.

And there was shock at the way the Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Patriota banged the gavel at the beginning of the plenary this morning to declare the text adopted without giving any time to delegations to react or take the floor.

The group of African countries demanded during the Plenary that the text be amended to include a decision to adopt a new name, UN World Environment Organization,  for the 40 year old UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which the document pledges to strengthen. But Patriota completely ignored them.

However, I have now heard that the Brazilian Communication Minister recognized publically this afternoon that the Heads of State and Government could introduce amendments to the text tomorrow. And I just came from the press conference of the US delegation, where Todd Stern, US Special Envoy on Climate Change also recognized that this was possible, even though of course he said he did not hope so and thought that -- as we know -- the Brazilian presidency would do everything in its power to prevent this from happening.

Our hope has been that the Heads of State and Government come to Rio to save the Planet, not to save face. Technically this is still possible. But do they have the political will?

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUÍ) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE.