UNESCO expert “Better ways needed to achieve oceanic sustainable development”

PARIS, June 8 (Xinhua) — The public and policymakers should pay more attention to ocean and coastal areas, so as to find ways to improve the sustainable management and protection of the marine environment, a senior UN marine expert has said.

Raising the public and decisionmakers’ awareness of oceanic sustainable development should be at the top of the agenda, Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright, assistant director general and executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (IOC-UNESCO), told Xinhua in a recent interview.

As the World Oceans Day falls on Friday, Watson-Wright said ocean protection will be one of seven top issues at the upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20), a major international environmental conference.

Headquartered in Paris, IOC-UNESCO promotes international cooperation and coordinates programs in marine research, services, observation systems, hazard mitigation and capacity development in order to better manage the nature and resources of the oceans and coastal areas.

“If we really, truly want sustainable development, we have to think about the ocean. There are many things under the ocean water that we have not had the chance to find out about. We have explored less than 5 percent of the ocean,” she said.

She reminded the public and decisionmakers of the fact that “the ocean covers 71 percent of the planet; it has 97 percent of the water; it is responsible for the oxygen of every second breath we take; and it is having problems right now.”

She also noted the ocean acidification caused by excessive carbon-dioxide emissions has become one of the tough issues that have threatened the healthy development of the ocean.

“The ocean is what has protected us from much greater climate change so far, and the ocean is absorbing the greater part of the carbon-dioxide emissions and it is causing the ocean, because of a chemical reaction, to become more acid,” she said.

She added the ocean acidification had enormous effects on all marine life, particular coral reefs. “It is a relatively new phenomenon and we need much more research on that.”

“We have certainly seen examples of unsustainable development of the ocean,” she said, referring to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year and the year before.

“We also know that 85 percent of fish stocks are reported to be overexploited or depleted. So, there are many examples of where we have been doing things in an unsustainable way,” Watson-Wright added.

She stressed that people cannot separate economic development from the ecologic protection, as “if we go after only the economic short-term benefits, in fact, in the long term, we will lose it all.”

Referring to coastal communities and smaller developing countries, she said the ocean has been where livelihood and their lives depend, and therefore, special efforts should be made to look after the ocean.

The oceanic sustainable development had not been much mentioned before, she said, but “there are many, many events now that are going to be dedicated to the ocean at Rio+20.”

UNESCO wants to take the upcoming Rio+20 summit as an opportunity to define new guidelines on priorities in coastal and ocean sciences for global sustainability.

Watson-Wright said a blueprint for ocean and coastal sustainability has been produced, including ten proposals targeting different objectives, and it would provide context for discussions at the Rio+20 conference.

“What the IOC and UNESCO will be mainly focusing on will be capacity development, that is technology transfer, and there are specific references right now, in the negotiating text, to the IOC guidelines on technology transfer for marine science,” she said, adding that it is very important for smaller and coastal developing countries.

The marine expert said the focus would also be on marine protected areas in the open ocean and the protection of marine biodiversity.

“There will be quite a lot on marine pollution and marine debris, a lot of the problems on the ocean are caused by land-based activities,” she said, adding that she believed there would be opportunities “for sustainable development and opportunities for disaster risk reduction.” [   She said decisionmakers in every country should understand the ocean impacts on humans through its control of climate, food and many other things.

Watson-Wright has visited China and met with officials of the country’s State Oceanic Administration.

“It is very clear that China is placing a great deal of emphasis on the ocean,” she said. “I know China wants to take more of a leadership role, for instance, in disaster risk reduction and tsunami warnings. They are also very interested in helping developing countries in Africa, in terms of capacity development.”  <Xinhua>

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