Happy World Oceans Day. June 8th has been celebrated, unofficially, as World Oceans Day since 1992, and has been officially recognized by the United Nations since 2008. This year the theme is “Healthy Oceans. Healthy Planet.”
What does World Ocean Day mean, from a practical perspective? Probably not too much. It feels like another marketing campaign focused on “awareness” rather than substance or policy. Unfortunately, the sponsoring organization has not fully abandoned their past “Wear blue, tell two” campaign, where to celebrate WOD, you were directed to wear blue clothes and tell two friends or colleagues about the importance of the world’s oceans. One useful initiative this year is the “Better Bag Challenge” which recommends not accepting disposable plastic bags for a year. The “Challenge” is buried in a poorly coded, virtually graphics free web site, so I doubt many will see it in any case.
On a more substantive note, Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent, former Commander-in-Chief Fleet of the Royal Navy, is suggesting that the high seas should be given a seat at the United Nations. The admiral is now a senior fellow at US-based project Oceans Beyond Piracy, which this week will publish its annual report on the global state of piracy. As reported by the The Indpendent: The report, to be launched on Wednesday, will reveal that piracy in South-east Asia has soared to its highest level since 2000, with more than 3,600 seafarers affected last year. While Somali piracy has fallen dramatically in recent years, the estimated total cost associated with attacks in the western Indian Ocean and Gulf of Guinea in 2014 was nearly $3.3bn (£2.1bn).
Admiral Burnell-Nugent, who was also Second Sea Lord, said events such as pirate attacks which happen “over the horizon” appeared to induce “sea blindness” in politicians. “It’s a major political struggle to get governments around the world to pay attention to this issue,” he said….
Giving a United Nations seat to international waters would help to address the lack of action, Admiral Burnell-Nugent said. “What’s missing in my view is international waters don’t have a seat at the UN,” he said. “The land – 25 per cent of the planet – is well represented on the UN, but the 75 per cent of the planet which is covered in water is not represented at all. There’s no voice to represent the concerns of international waters and they are many.
“There are huge issues over fish stocks, deep-water mining, the search for hydrocarbons. There are lots of issues and there are going to become more and more. The pressure to exploit international waters for good or bad will increase. For example, there’s nothing to stop one of these massive ocean-going trawlers from going into international waters and hoovering up millions of tons of migrating fish. There are many more issues than piracy.”
While how effective (or likely to be adopted) the admiral’s proposal may be, it is preferable to “wearing blue and telling two.”
On a less political note, Google has released some amazing underwater street view for World Oceans Day.
Thanks to Irwin Bryan for contributing to this post.
Regardless of how poorly worded the plastic bag challenge may be, at least they have the right idea. The politicians in the state where I now live – Arizona – have seen fit to prohibit cities from implementing bans on plastic bags. Until this short sighted thinking is overcome our oceans will continue to be polluted. Very sad.
The Admiral makes an interesting case for representation of the world’s oceans. However given the UN’s history of political posturing, I fear that it would become another huge battleground for control of the seas. One thing for sure, the sailors, seamen and mariners who make their living upon those international waters, must be heard and given a significant role in any governing body that is being contemplated.