L12- Anthropocene Ocean

Why do we use the sea?

• we are a coastal species

• have been using sea to travel and connect for millennia→ essential for the development of civilisation

• exploitation of resources is becoming more cost-effective by technological advances and exhaustion of land-based alternatives

• the ocean is a new economic frontier→ investments are driving growth in current/new industries

• there are many actors in this e.g. scientists, civil society organisations

Claims on our oceans-

There are 3 categories:

• food

• material

• space

  

Food→

• oceans and blue food have a role in food security

• fishing fleets are going out further, deeper and for longer

• are exploiting new products e.g. neutraceutical superfoods, mesopelagic fish- huge biomass

Materials→

• OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) projects a nearly 2x increase in global materials use, many are sourced from the ocean e.g. sand and gravel which will see the largest growth

• material extraction in 2011 and projected use in 2060:

  

• fossil fuels will still be a significant contributor of materials from the sea in the future: (yellow box)

  • still see evidence of this e.g. offshore oil platform in the gulf of mexico

    

  • oil and gas still accounts for 1/3 of the whole ocean economy, even when we are transitioning to alternatives

  • most major new discoveries of hydrocarbon (new reserves of oil/gas) deposits are found offshore

  • exploiting new technology and is getting harder to source on land→ are moving into deeper waters

  • other potential resources→ gas hydrates (mainly methane) are present on the sea floor, 2x more than all fossil fuels source of carbon

  • potential locations of tests performed on gas hydrate resources- are all around the world:

    

  • taking natural gas hydrates out of the sea, putting into a power plant- goes back into the deep sea, get clean energy:

    

• spreading of mining in the deep sea

  • targets high-value metals/minerals e.g. polymetallic sulfides/nodules which have large amounts of cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, copper→ used for green technologies (ironic)

  • current mining on land also has negative consequences→ there will always be a cost

  • countries with exploration contracts from the international seabed authority (deals with leases on the international seabed)→ many countries have claims all around the world:

    

Space→

• to exploit food and material, make a claim on space

• other space claims include:

  • energy infrastructure

  • communications infrastructure (deep sea cables)

  • shipping (global trade)

  • conservation (MPAs- drive for 30% of ocean set aside for conservation by 2030)

• irish sea→ lots of spatial claims of different activities, can end up with spatial/coastal squeeze where everyone has a reasonable claim on space and wants to use it

  

The blue acceleration-

• The great acceleration→ expansion of human activities mainly since WW2

• human impacts in the ocean was slightly later but mirrors trends on land→ termed as the Blue Acceleration

• uptick of all activities/claims for food, materials, space:

  

  • sharpest acceleration since the start of the 21st century

  • claims can overlap

  → the Blue Acceleration has increased pressures on the marine ecosystem, pushing the Earth system to its limits

• e.g. an initiative to visualise the impacts→ Global Fishing Watch pull together large amounts of data, different human activities on the North Sea:

  

  → maps show how busy the seas are

Blue planetary boundaries-

• planetary boundaries:

  

• putting boundaries in spatial context:

  

• BUT we live on a blue planet→ 70% of world surface is sea, 99% of habitable volume is marine, need to consider marine regions in planetary boundaries

  • paper kickstarted this thinking

    

  • integrating marine world into existing planetary boundaries:

    

• ways to map marine onto planetary boundaries→ land system changes:

  • coastal marine habitats can have large carbon sequestration (salt marshes can sequestrate 50x > tropical forests)

  • degradation of mangroves, seagrasses and coastal marshes can drive emissions of similar order to deforestation, despite covering 7x less area

  • albedo→

    • more ice- reflects solar radiation back into space, more sea- absorbs solar radiation

    • difference in albedo between boreal forest (low) and grassland (high) is similar to the difference between sea ice (high) and open ocean (low)

      

    → marine habitat change can impact global systems and should be included in this boundary

• ways to map marine onto planetary boundaries→ biosphere integrity:

  • persistence- evolutionary history of biosphere

  • functioning- measures of functional diversity of those living there

  • Biosphere Intactness Index→ measure biosphere integrity at the global scale:

    

    → doesn’t include marine organisms at all

    • BII compares conditions to controls- compares what should be there to what is there now→ is more challenging to decide controls for marine

    • BUT there are well established measures of functional diversity using functional traits, size-based indicators e.g. large fish indicator- proportion of fish over a certain size in an ecosystem

    → trait-based measures can be used to integrate marine into the current biosphere integrity measures

• ways to map marine onto planetary boundaries→ human appropriation of net primary productivity:

  • looks at how much of the NPP is used by people (directly or in our crops/livestock)

  • quantified HANPP on the global scale:

    • appropriating nearly all NPP in some parts of the world, all on a terrestrial level though

      

  • marine ecosystems are responsible for 50% of global primary productivity

  • similar proportions of NPP flow into fisheries in shelf seas as is appropriated by humans on land (food chains)

  • the oceans are comparable to land as a carbon sink→ important to understand how much we take out, how much we put in

  • attempt to integrate marine→

    • large parts aren’t appropriated but around coastal areas are very high, similar to land:

    

  → are initial attempts to incorporate marine systems into the planetary boundaries concept

• future→

  • planetary boundaries need to recognise the blue ecosystems

  • need to include the oceans in any kind of global effort

Equitability and the global commons-

• costs and benefits of the blue acceleration are not equitably distributed because:

  • some countries are landlocked, some are very coastal, countries have different capacities to benefit from marine resources

• benefits mainly to economically powerful states/corporations

• costs mainly to developing nations or small island developing states

• conservation overlooks these social and equity issues e.g. 30 by 30

• each country has terrestrial waters (extend 12nm offshore), exclusive economic zones (200 nm offshore) and the rights to exploit these waters

• areas beyond national jurisdiction→ is everyones

Seabed Grabbing-

• national claims to ocean space→ map shows EEZs (200nm off shore) and extended claims (UNCLOS allows countries to make an extended claim to edge of continental shelf), blue- ABNJ:

  

• some countries have done well with their claims:

  • most winners are islands and overseas territories

  • e.g. small island developing states are becoming large ocean states- the Cook Islands has claimed an area of extended continental shelf equivalent to 1,700 times its land surface

  • e.g. australia secured >2.5M km² of additional seabed thanks to their claims on 2 uninhabited islands: Heard Island (368 km²) and the McDonald Islands (2.5 km²)

• some countries are losing with their claims:

  • countries with limited or no coastline

• aus has claims on both uninhabited islands, extended it

• UK’s total EEZ→ have big areas from remaining UK overseas territories, legacies of the colonial H:

  

• transnational corporations→

  • drive most commercial activity in the oceans

  • revenue is concentrated in a few, large TNCs e.g. the Ocean 100 companies (100 largest ocean companies) generated 60% of total revenues by ocean industries in 2018

  • are not distributed equally around the world e.g. US (12%), Saudi Arabia and China (8%), Norway (7%)

  • looking at the various ocean industries and asking what proportion of the industry is controlled by the 10 biggest companies in that industry→ usually control a lot, is not universal e.g. lots of small scale fisheries in seafood

  

  → big companies are actively important in the seas

Having global stewardship-

• is difficult:

  • international bodies have struggled to balance conservation and sustainable use

  • SDG14: Life Below Water is systematically the least prioritised

  • 2/3 of the ocean is ABNJ→ governance is fragmented and ineffective

• paper- makes the case for the high seas as a global commons:

  

  • ABNJ can be considered a ‘final frontier’ → are distant and vast

  • The UN treaty on biological diversity found in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) was recently agreed (see https://www.un.org/bbnj/)

  • is needed as the Blue Acceleration is expanding into ABNJ

  • Question paper ask→ will economic and social benefits from ABNJ drive progress towards achieving SDGs, or further cement global inequities?

• solution→ decide as a society that equity will be a guiding principle:

  • activities in the ABNJ currently are focused only on production→ those accessing it have the financial and human capacity needed to operate there

  • instead should have common scientific endeavours e.g. a deep sea equivalent to the International Space Station

  • making the global commons as a conservation area by default→ has more benefits than costs:

    • climate change mitigation and adaptation

    • spillovers of fisheries in national waters

    • increasing nutrition and food security in developing countries

  • can implement these before significant exploitation (deep sea mining/mesopelagic fishing) begins

  → there are high level panels that are looking at recognising the rights of nature, which could transform the relationship between us and the oceans