The Green Rocket

The stench of a good tuna sandwich has always left me less than pensive about the well-being of the fish. Nevertheless, a couple of days ago TheGreenRocket.com posted a news release from Greenpeace.org about the plight of Pacific Ocean tuna as a result of over fishing, and the organization’s proposed resolution caught my eye.

In brief, the article outlines activism performed by Green Peace to bring attention to the issue of over fishing as well as to the idea of international marine reserve networks, which they propose as a solution. Both the issues and proposed solution are further detailed in Green Peace’s full report: “Road to Recovery”. It’s a sixty page, well-researched, piece that is comprehensive in its discussion of the dangers facing some of the world’s aquatic life. I’ll leave out the detailed information on these dangers from the first nine sections of the report, as these can be read in a summarized format in the news release mentioned above as well as many others. My aim here is to open up discussion on the international marine reserve networks presented as a resolution to these issues.

The report introduces the idea of the networks to help protect the ocean life from further damage, and rehabilitate what has already been done. A marine reserve is basically an area that restricts human interference with the natural life (such as fishing or using the area as a trading route). Think national park, but underwater. The proposal aims for the networks to cover 40.8% of the ocean, with the final candidates of the network boundaries given in this world map:

Road To Recovery, pp31: The yellow pixeled areas are the proposed reserves, with the numbers corresponding to the justifications in section eleven of the report.

There are a couple of main criticisms of such a proposal. First of all, some of the species in question, such as tuna, are extremely mobile and therefore near impossible to protect. The report addresses this critique by suggesting that the protected areas will focus their attention to particularly vulnerable spots, such as breeding grounds for the aquatic life.

The second major criticism concerns the vastness of the ocean and the variability of its ocean’s critical spots. Not all locations at risk are fixed, like seamounts or fields of hydrothermal vents. Vulnerable areas such as those used for breeding vary spatially and temporally, depending on where and when the areas are critical. Thus, while in some areas it may be feasible to create a large enough marine reserve to consider such inconsistencies, in others it is near impossible.

The report also considers this complication through the strength of modern technology:

… today’s technologies provide the means by which we can both identify and protect important places at they move. Satellite sensors highlight areas of high chlorophyll concentration that indicate blooming plankton…[and it lists a few other performances of modern technology]. At present, satellite data are fed to fishing fleets either by national governments or private companies to guide boats to the places where it is known that fish will be concentrated. In the same way it would be a simple matter for governments to inform fishing fleets about that day, week or month’s position of designated mobile high seas marine reserves. (Page 22)

These criticisms and their counter arguments are easy enough to consider but unfortunately are only addressed in a few paragraphs, leaving some questions open about their effectiveness. Moreover, there is minimal consideration of the economic impacts of implementing an international marine reserve network.

To nitpick one economic implication that comes to mind, consider the notion of change by “daily, weekly or monthly position of designated mobile high seas marine reserves”. As mentioned above, marine reserves have the potential to limit trade routes as well as the actual commercial activities. If these mobile reserves are subject to change in such a short period of time, they may make trading routes unstable and therefore difficult for shipping companies to plan exact dates and times for their service, leading to some serious economic consequences.

Bear in mind that I am not an expert in the temporal/spatial variations of aquatic breeding grounds or what is entailed in planning shipping routes (just a logical economic thinker), so this may or may not be an outcome. However the point remains that negligible economic consideration is presented in the report, a factor that is extremely important in any environmental issue. This is especially true in a case like international marine reserves, as such a network requires vast global cooperation and it will be hard to advocate for collaboration without a concrete assessment of economic implications. The Kyoto protocol is an ideal example of how important a thorough economic assessment is, as we have seen.

That being said, GreenPeace does suggest an interim moratorium as a stepping stone to this network, so the report does consider the fact that the proposal will face challenges in achieving global cooperation. It also presents an exceptionally detailed and credible analysis of how the implementation of network boundaries and communication are envisioned, including approximately thirteen pages of visual aids in an appendix. Ultimately, someone has to take a radical stance on ecological issues to get the rest of the world thinking and talking about it. Greenpeace may not fully rationalize its thoughts or actions at times, but at least they bring attention to important issues and put vast amounts of resources into doing so.

In any case, I wanted to provide an outline and (brief) critique of one of the current proposed solutions to issues in the high seas, as well as provoke discussion of matter. For anyone interested in more information, the report can be found by clicking the link below!

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