Dräger Foundation...| 3 The Malente Symposia, organized by the Dräger Foundation at two-year...

XVII Malente SymposiumMore than Water – Oceans and Global Responsibility

October 12 - 14, 2008Music and Congress Centre Lübeck

Dräger Foundation

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The Malente Symposia, organized by the DrägerFoundation at two-year intervals since 1981, are theFoundation’s most comprehensive and internation-ally recognized events. They are named after asmall town in Germany where the first conferencewas held in 1981, and provide a forum for innovativedebates at the interface between economic andsociopolitical issues.

The XVII Malente Symposium, entitled ‘More thanWater – Oceans and Global Responsibility’, tookplace in Lübeck from October 12 – 14, 2008, and was organized in cooperation with the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius in Hamburg,and the Cluster of Excellence ‘The Future Ocean’in Kiel. The conference aimed to examine in depththe 21st century challenges the world’s oceans are facing through global warming and rising sealevels, overfishing, pollution, invasive species, and the exploitation of resources, and seeked toidentify solutions to best manage these challenges.It aimed to increase awareness and facilitate a dialog with the global business community, withpoliticians worldwide, and with society as a whole.

Since the publication by the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change (IPCC) of its mostrecent report in Paris at the beginning of 2007 andthe results of the Stern Report toward the end of2006, it has become obvious that the human-induced climate change that our planet is experi-encing could soon have drastic consequences forour quality of life, and especially for the earth'swater balance. Thermal expansion of the oceansmay bring about a rise in sea level of no less than20 to 30 cm by the end of the century. Added tothis would be a more uncertain increase of approxi-mately 15 cm caused by the melting of the Green-land icesheet; on the other hand, increased snow-fall in the Antarctic could cause global sea levels todrop by some 5 cm. Higher temperatures and pre-cipitation would decrease the density of surface

water in the North Atlantic, thereby potentiallyreducing ocean circulation and the transport ofheat, and the ocean’s uptake of CO2.

Whereas attention hitherto has been primarilyfocused on the consequences of greenhouse gasemissions and the accompanying warming of theearth's atmosphere, public debate – and, by exten-sion, political interest – will now revolve to a greaterextent around the consequences of climate changefor our oceans. After all, the oceans are at least asimportant as the earth's atmosphere when it comesto maintaining a balanced global climate. To date,however, this fact has only penetrated the publicconsciousness to a rudimentary degree.

At the same time, the world's oceans are increas-ingly becoming the scene of inter-governmentalconflicts. The lines of conflict extend from fishingrights to the securing of fossil fuels. Yet the oceanspresent not only a danger and source of potentialconflict, but are also a vital resource: the oceansare the biggest long-term sink of human-madeCO2, they store and generate energy, and they pro-vide a habitat for fauna and flora. The oceans boastmore than half the earth's biodiversity, with 1,600new species being discovered every year. Thisgene pool of earthly life, which is largely stillunknown, is essential for humankind – countlessmedical drugs, for example, are based on naturalextracts from the marine fauna and flora. The biodi-versity of the oceans, however, is increasingly atrisk as a result of industrial waste dumping andoverfishing. A lack of internationally valid legalcodices means that it is virtually impossible to pre-vent this, or to pursue offenders. Expanding inter-national law to take effective account of this area –i.e. in many cases drawing up such laws in the firstplace, incorporating them into national legal sys-tems and implementing international mechanismsto enforce them – is a major undertaking which hasyet to be attempted.

XVII MALENTE SYMPOSIUM | MORE THAN WATER – OCEANS AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY4 |

The XVII Malente Symposium brings togetherexperts and stakeholders from around the worldand from all fields of society to discuss these chal-lenges in a comprehensive way and to identifypractical solutions to facilitate future sustainabledevelopment.

For their active and valuable support in the pre -paration of this conference, the Dräger Foundationand the ZEIT-Stiftung wish to thank their coopera-tion partner, the Kiel Cluster of Excellence ‘TheFuture Ocean’, and the members of the steeringcommittee for the preparation of the XVII MalenteSymposium:

Professor Martin Visbeck, Deputy Director, IFM-GEOMAR, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences,and Member of the Cluster of Excellence ‘TheFuture Ocean’, Kiel, Germany

Professor Gernot Klepper, Director, The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and Member of the Cluster of Excellence ‘The Future Ocean’,Kiel, Germany

Frank Schweikert, Marine Biologist and Journalist,ALDEBARAN Marine Research & Broadcast, Hamburg, Germany

Antje Uhlig, Project Director ‘Governance’, ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, Hamburg,Germany

Dr. Markus Baumanns, Executive Vice President,ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, Hamburg,Germany

The Foundation wishes to thank the artists

Beatrice Dettmann, Hamburg, Germany, and

Detlef Moraht, Schaddingsdorf, Germanyfor exhibiting their paintings;

Flo Peters Gallery, Hamburg, Germany for making available photography by SebastianCopeland, Los Angeles, CA, USA, and

Frank Schweikert, ALDEBARAN, Hamburg, Germany,

for exhibiting photography, video panoramas andfulldome underwater impressions from his excur-sions.

The Foundation also wishes to express itsgratitude to

Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg, and

OCÉ-Deutschland Business Services GmbH,Lübeck, Germany

for their generous support of the conference.

Responsible for the preparation and organizationof the Symposium:

Petra PissullaDirector, Dräger Foundation, Lübeck, Germany

More than

water

The Program

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2008

St Peter's Church, Lübeck

Opening Reception and Dinner

Welcome

Dr. Bernd SchwarzePastor, St Peter's Church, Lübeck, Germany

Dr. Christian DrägerMember of the Board, Dräger Foundation, Lübeck, Germany

Speaker:Professor Peter M. HerzigDirector, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences,IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

OCEAN RESOURCES AND MARINE

CONSERVATION

After Dinner:Participants Play Jazz!

Professor Peter Eigen, tenor saxKurt-Jürgen “Curtis” Lange, drumsProfessor Eckhard Maronn, bassGebhard Ohnesorge, clarinet and baritone saxProfessor Dieter H. Feddersen, piano

MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2008

Music and Congess Centre, Lübeck

Plenary Session

Moderator:Professor Gernot KlepperDirector, The Kiel Institute for the World Economy;Cluster of Excellence ‘The Future Ocean’, Kiel,Germany

Welcome by the Organizers:

Professor Dieter H. FeddersenMember of the Board, Dräger Foundation, Lübeck, Germany

Dr. Markus BaumannsExecutive Vice President, ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin undGerd Bucerius, Hamburg, Germany

Word of Greeting on behalf of the State Government of Schleswig-Holstein

Dr. Werner MarnetteMinister for Science, Economy and Transport of theState of Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany

XVII MALENTE SYMPOSIUM | THE PROGRAM6 |

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Word of Greeting on behalf of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

Dagmara BerbalkHead of Division, Protection of the Marine Environment, Federal Ministry for the Environment,Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Bonn,Germany

Opening Speeches

Professor Karin LochteDirector, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar andMarine Research in the Helmholtz Association,Bremerhaven, Germany

RESEARCHING THE OCEANS:

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN

Professor Jacqueline McGladeExecutive Director, European Environment Agency,Copenhagen, Denmark

MANAGING THE OCEANS:

ECONOMIC USE AND CONSERVATION

The Honorable Professor Tullio TrevesJudge, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,Hamburg, Germany; University of Milan, Milan, Italy

GOVERNING THE OCEANS:

RISKS AND POTENTIAL CONFLICTS

Panel DiscussionSAVING THE OCEANS:

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

Moderator: Caspar HendersonJournalist, Oxford, UK

Panelists:Paul F. Nemitz, Kick-offHead of Maritime Policy Development and Coordi-nation, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium

Professor Colin Devey Deputy Director, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sci-ences, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Professor Martin VisbeckDeputy Director, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sci-ences, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Professor Daniel PaulyDirector, Fisheries Centre, Aquatic EcosystemsResearch Laboratory (AERL), The University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Dr. Agustín Blanco-BazánSenior Deputy Director, UN International MaritimeOrganization (IMO), London, UK


Parallel Working Groups 1-4

Working Group 1OCEANS AS A GLOBAL SOURCE OF RESOURCES?

Chair: Professor Colin DeveyDeputy Director, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sci-ences, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Rapporteur: Dr. Kirsten SchäferScientific Coordinator, Cluster of Excellence ‘The Future Ocean’, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Topics & Questions:– Exploitation, environment and sustainability– Oceans as energy provider - costs & benefits– Maritime mining– Marine gene pool– How should valid international regulations and

codices be implemented for the benefit of theoceans?

Speakers: Dr. Mary H. FeeleyChief Geoscientist, ExxonMobil Exploration Company, Houston, TX, USAPaul HolthusExecutive Director, World Ocean Council, Honolulu, HI, USAProfessor Alexander ProelßDirector, Walther-Schücking-Institute for International Law, Christian-Albrechts-University,Kiel, GermanyDr. Christian ReichertDirector and Professor, Division Geophysics,Marine and Polar Research, Federal Institute forGeosciences and Natural Resources (BGR),Hanover, Germany

Working Group 2 OCEANS AND CLIMATE CHANGE:

CONSEQUENCES AND NEED FOR ACTION

Chair: Professor Martin VisbeckDeputy Director, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Rapporteur: Dr. Emanuel SödingProject Manager, Cluster of Excellence ‘The Future Ocean’, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Topics & Questions:– Rising sea levels: risks for coastal regions;

climate change vulnerability

– Coastal management and urbanization concepts– Ocean currents and CO2 absorption– Ocean acidification and carbon-climate

connections– Oceans as dumping ground for carbon

sequestration– Ocean-determined climate change and

climate interactions between oceans and land– Costs and financing instruments; legal

regulations – Protecting the ocean and the climate:

Conflicting goals?

Speakers:Professor Ralph F. KeelingProfessor of Climate Science, Scripps Institution ofOceanography, San Diego, CA, USADr. Hartwig H. KremerCEO, Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone(LOICZ), Institute for Coastal Research, GKSSResearch Centre GmbH, Geesthacht, GermanyProfessor Till RequateProfessor for “Innovation, Competition Policy andNew Institutional Economics”, Department of Economics, Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, GermanyProfessor Markku WileniusMember of the Club of Rome; Senior Vice Presi-dent Group Development, Allianz SE, Munich, Germany

Working Group 3HABITAT OCEAN:

HOW TO SAVE THE OCEAN’S BIODIVERSITY

Chair: Professor Daniel PaulyDirector, Fisheries Centre, Aquatic EcosystemsResearch Laboratory (AERL), The University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Rapporteur: Dr. Martina ZellerCoordinator, Kiel Earth Institute, IFM-GEOMAR,Kiel, Germany

Topics & Questions:– Ecosystem of the oceans; ecosystem functions– The effects of human activities on marine

resources and collateral damage– Marine environment management & protection

(garbage & noise from vessels, sewage & other discharge, seagrass)

– Invasive species– Overfishing– Conservation beyond the limits of national

jurisdiction– International scientific and technical cooperation

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Speakers:Professor Antje BoetiusGroup Leader, ‘Microbial Habitat’ Group, Biogeochemistry Department, Max Planck Institutefor Marine Microbiology, Bremen, GermanyJochen DeerbergOwner & CEO, Deerberg-Systems GmbH, Oldenburg, GermanyDr. John M. FentisPresident, Algalita Marine Research Foundation,Long Beach, CA, USAProfessor Reinhold LeinfelderGeneral Director, Natural History Museum, Humboldt University, Berlin, GermanyDr. Richard C. MurphyDirector of Science & Education, Jean-MichelCousteau's Ocean Futures Society, Santa Barbara,CA, USAAlfred SchummDirector, Marine Programme, World Wide Fund ForNature (WWF), Hamburg, Germany

Working Group 4NAVIGATING THE OCEANS:

TRANSPORT SECURITY, TRANSPORT TECHNOLOGY,

AND MARITIME INFRASTRUCTURES

Chair: Dr. Agustín Blanco-BazánSenior Deputy Director, UN International MaritimeOrganization (IMO), London, UK

Rapporteur: Ulrike BernittCoordinator, Kiel Earth Institute, IFM-GEOMAR,Kiel, Germany

Topics & Questions:– Shipping, security & environment– Transport system development– The opening of the North-West Passage– Technical, political, social, and legal issues

related to the use of coastal resources & environments

– Implementing an integrated system of marine and coastal area management

Speakers:Professor James J. CorbettMarine Policy Program, College of Marine andEarth Studies, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USASverre AlvikPersonal Assistant to the CEO, Det Norske Veritas,Høvik, OsloDr. Hermann J. KleinMember of the Executive Board, GermanischerLloyd AG, Hamburg, GermanyDr. Ralph RaynerDeputy Director, Ocean.US, U.S. National Officefor Integrated and Sustained Ocean Observation,Silver Spring, MD, USAHarald KuznikExecutive Vice President, Global Head of Shipping,HSH Nordbank AG, Hamburg, GermanyStephan WrageChairman of the Executive Board, SkySails GmbH& Co. KG, Hamburg, Germany


Reception and Dinner at the Schiffergesellschaft Restaurant

Dinner Speaker: Frank SchweikertBiologist and Journalist; ALDEBARAN MarineResearch & Broadcast, Hamburg, Germany

OCEANS: A THREATENED BIOSPHERE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2008

Music and Congess Centre, Lübeck

Plenary Session

Chair: Professor Dieter H. FeddersenMember of the Board, Dräger Foundation, Lübeck, Germany

Reports from the Working Groups

Closing SpeechesDr. Kenrick R. LeslieExecutive Director, Caribbean Community ClimateChange Center (CCCCC), Belmopan, Belize

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE CARIBBEAN

– SEEKING SOLUTIONS FOR AN ENDANGERED

REGION

Dr. Sylvia A. EarlePresident, Deep Search International; Member ofthe Board, Marine Conservation Biology Institute,Bellevue, WA, USA

SUSTAINABLE SEAS – THE VISION, THE REALITY

Plenary DiscussionHOW TO REACH A GLOBAL COMPACT ON OCEAN

SUSTAINABILITY – FURTHER STEPS

Moderator: Andreas ErnstHost and Anchor, PHOENIX, Bonn, Germany

Panelists:Professor Colin DeveyDr. Sylvia A. EarleDr. Kenrick R. LeslieProfessor Daniel PaulyDr. Reinhard Priebe Director MAREIC, DG for Fisheries and MaritimeAffairs, European Commission, Brussels, BelgiumProfessor Martin Visbeck

Farewell

Professor Dieter H. FeddersenMember of the Board, Dräger Foundation, Lübeck, Germany

Dr. Markus BaumannsExecutive Vice President, ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin undGerd Bucerius, Hamburg, Germany

Save the ocean's

biodiversity

KAPITEL | UNTERKAPITEL12 |

Opening Dinner at St Peter’s Church, Lübeck

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Dr. Bernd Schwarze Pastor, St Peter’s Church, Lübeck, Germany

Dr. Christian DrägerMember of the Board, Dräger Foundation, Lübeck, Germany

Professor Peter M. HerzigDirector, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

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DR. BERND SCHWARZE

WELCOME

Thou, who laid the foundations of the earth, that itshould not be removed for ever. Thou coveredst itwith the deep as with a garment: the waters stoodabove the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at thevoice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up bythe mountains, they go down by the valleys unto theplace which thou hast founded for them. Thou hastset a bound that they may not pass over; that theyturn not again to cover the earth. (Ps. 104, 5-9)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and a warmwelcome to all of you, to the hosts and the promo-ters and to all the participants of the XVII MalenteSymposium. Welcome also to St Peter’s Church ofLübeck.

“More than Water – Oceans and Global Responsi-bility.” As the pastor of this church, I have the honorof speaking the first words at a conference thataddresses an issue of the highest importance. I havethe honor of giving my regards and paying my re -spects to hundreds of guests who have come toLübeck to discuss questions of global interest. I started by quoting a few lines of Psalm no. 104,hopefully for good reason. “Thou, who laid thefoundations of the earth...”

Quoting the bible at this occasion is neither intend -ed merely to legitimize my function and this specialplace in which we have come together, nor is it anattempt to stress a religious dimension when wethink of debates that work well in a “down-to-earth”state of mind. Nevertheless, I am convinced thatbiblical and mythical worldviews provide enormouswisdom and insight concerning some of the pro-

blems that we have to cope with nowadays. Thereis knowledge, and there is a deep understandingabout balance in those old images and ideas.Balance between the earth and sea. Balance be -tween chaos and order. And balance between thebeneficial, refreshing and stimulating aspects ofwater on the one hand, and the aspects of dangerand destruction on the other.

“Let the waters under the heaven be gathered to -gether unto one place, and let dry land appear: andit was so”. The book of Genesis tells us that ananimated sky, an animated earth and an animatedsea were created and divided. And in the way thatmythical stories go, it wasn’t long before human failure caused a catastrophe: the coming of theflood. Only the wisdom of a few chosen ones couldhelp mankind and all species of animals to survivethe chaos that covered the whole world. In the end,God promised through the token of his covenantthat this would never happen again. Never? Or justnot for the time being?

Dr. Bernd Schwarze

14 | XVII MALENTE SYMPOSIUM | SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2008

Anyway – climate research warns us again andagain that the balance is in danger. That the floodmay be coming and that many species and probab -ly even mankind may not survive. No divine angerrequired. The situation is serious enough on its own.And all of you, ladies and gentlemen, you are hereto spread knowledge and to invent ideas and tofind solutions. Let there be rainbows of hope blessing your symposium.You chose a fine place for the welcome night ofyour conference, St Peter’s Church of Lübeck – St Peter, by the way, is the patron saint of fishermen.Churches have always been compared to ships onthe ocean. We are sitting together in the nave.Somebody told me that if you take the alleged oldmeasurements of Noah’s ark and convert them tothe metric system, you end up with pretty muchexactly the size of a Gothic cathedral. St Peter’s Church is a house that cares, that caresabout science and culture, about political and eco-logical issues. Open to everyone, to believers of alldenominations, and also to atheists and agnostics.The search for truth matters more to us than theproclamation of a confession.

And St Peter’s Church loves it when people gettogether and dine and drink and talk and think andlaugh and sigh and take care of each other. Let the celebration begin. Everything is prepared. Be blessed. And enjoy!

DR. CHRISTIAN DRÄGER

EXCELLENCIES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

It is my great pleasure and honor to welcome youon behalf of the Dräger Foundation, the ZEIT Stiftungand the Kiel Cluster of Excellence ‘The FutureOcean’, and also in the name of my fellow BoardMember, Dieter Feddersen, to the opening dinnerof our XVII Malente Symposium here at St Peter’sChurch. We thank Pastor Schwarze very much foropening his church for this occasion. What couldbe more suitable for a conference on the future ofour oceans than starting it in a church which isdevoted to Simon Petrus – first disciple and a fisherman! The Malente Symposia always address topical problems which are too complex and ‘too global’ for national solutions, but which require global platforms for compromises between conflictinginterests, between idealistic visions and realistic op tions. My father, Heinrich Dräger, organized the first Malente Conference in 1981 – five years before he died at the age of 88 – on ‘The danger of worldpopulation explosion’, undoubtedly a topic whicheven today has not lost its relevance. Since thenthe Malente Symposia have dealt with various other– likewise still burning – issues and have becomethe best-known international conference series ofthe Dräger Foundation. There is a good chancethat this year’s topic will also remain as pressing asit is today for many more years to come. But it is

Dr. Christian Dräger

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high time to increase awareness in the public, tofacilitate a dialog with the global business commu-nity, with politicians worldwide, and with society asa whole on the challenges the world’s oceans arefacing through global warming and rising sealevels, overfishing, pollution, and more. It is time tointensify the search for solutions, and we hope thatthrough the international and interdisciplinary plat-form of the Malente Symposium we will be able tocontribute to this search.Two years ago, the XVI Malente Symposium on‘Energy, Climate, and Future Welfare – ChangingGlobal Dynamics’ was organized in cooperationwith the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, whichis part of the Kiel Cluster of Excellence ‘The FutureOcean’ – also one of our partners today. FrankSchwei kert from Aldebaran Marine Research & Broad - cast is on board again as well. His dinner speechtwo years ago on the impact of global warming onour oceans prompted us to organize an entire con-ference on the endangered habitat of the ocean. I am very much looking forward to two exciting andstimulating conference days and to our dinner spea-ker tonight, Professor Peter Herzig, the Director of

the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, IFM-GEO-MAR in Kiel. Professor Herzig, the floor is yours.

PROFESSOR PETER M. HERZIG

OCEAN RESOURCES AND MARINE CONSERVATION

– A SUMMARY

In his opening speech on ocean resources andmarine conservation, Professor Herzig started byasking three questions: – What are the ocean resources of the old and

the new generation, i.e. of the 20th and 21st centuries?

– Do we expect to use these ocean resources?– If so, how can we protect the marine

environment most efficiently?

His answer to the first question was, in both cases,as follows: energy resources, biological resourcesand mineral resources, though with big differenceswithin each category. While the energy resourcesof the old generation consisted of off-shore depositsof crude oil and natural gas – both of which still drive the world economy yet both of which are finite– the new generation is dominated by gas hydrates. These gas hydrates may provide the solution to twomajor problems of the 21st century, believes Herzig:the recovery of new and largely clean energy and cli mate protection through carbon sequestration and storage. Here, however, more research is clearly needed.

While the true biological resources of the oldgeneration were fish and seafood – 80% of whichare depleted – the biological resource of the 21stcentury is the marine gen pool, blue biotechnologyfor the pharmaceutical industry. And while the

Professor Peter M. Herzig

XVII MALENTE SYMPOSIUM | SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 200816 |

minerals of the old generation were off-shore dia-monds in Namibia and South Africa, not to mentionsand and gravel which are also mined in Europeanwaters, the 21st century mineral resources of theoceans are manganese nodules in large areas ofthe Central Pacific Basin – the mining of which isenvironmentally neither feasible nor acceptable –and massive sulfide ore deposits on the seafloorwhich can be mined in selected areas.

Finally, Professor Herzig gave his audience three“golden rules” for ocean resource recovery as take-home messages:– Research has to be the basis for what we do in

the oceans in the future: from scientific knowledge to political and economic decisions;

– We need a fair assessment of the risks and chances that are associated with resource recovery from the oceans in order to achieve a balance between the economic use of the oceansand the protection of the marine ecosystem;

– Mistakes made during resource recovery on land over the past 100 years should – under no circumstances – be repeated in the oceans.

Scientists, politicians, industry, and society need to agree on sustainable management of oceanresources. If we fail, we will create the next globalcatastrophe. If we succeed, he concluded, it will be to the benefit of our planet and to the benefit offuture generations who have to live on this planet.

For further information, please see ProfessorHerzig’s slides at the Dräger Foundation’swebsite (www.draeger-stiftung.de), in theMalente Sympo sium XVII program.

XVII MALENTE SYMPOSIUM | SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 200818 |

Welcome Speeches XVII Malente Symposium, October 12 – 14, 2008Professor Dieter H. FeddersenMember of the Board, Dräger Foundation, Lübeck, Germany

Dr. Markus BaumannsExecutive Vice President, ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, Hamburg, Germany

Dagmara BerbalkHead of Division, Protection of the Marine, Environment Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Bonn, Germany

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PROFESSOR DIETER H. FEDDERSEN

EXCELLENCIES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

I would like, also on behalf of Dr. Christian Dräger,my colleague on the board of the Dräger Foundation,to welcome you most warmly to our XVII MalenteSymposium. ‘More than Water – Oceans and GlobalResponsibility’ is our theme this year – a subjectwhich already arose at our last Malente Symposiumon energy and climate change, yet one which wewould like to pick up on again and address ingreater depth, since we believe that our oceansand their multifaceted significance for life on ourplanet deserve greater public attention.

What effect will the rise in sea levels and increasedincidence of severe storms, as caused by globalwarming, have on coastal management, not only inthe mega-cities of South-East Asia and denselypopulated island groups in the Pacific and theCaribbean, but also in the waterside metropolisesof Northern Europe? What are the likely conse-quences for Hamburg, Kiel and Lübeck, for London,Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, forHelsinki or St. Petersburg?

It is not only climate change which is damaging ouroceans, however, but also fishing, shipping, theexploitation of natural resources and other humaninterventions. If the oceans die, it is said, so too willmankind die. How can we succeed in researchingand using the oceans with all their resources, whileat the same time protecting this precious habitatfrom unfettered economic exploitation and its con-sequences?

The biodiversity of the seas is increasingly at riskfrom industrial waste dumping and over-fishing.

The lack of international legal regulations meansthat it is virtually impossible to prevent this or topunish offenders. To effectively expand internationallaw in this area, to incorporate it into the legal sys-tems of individual countries and to implement inter-national enforcement mechanisms is a broad andas yet untilled field. We intend to discuss theseand other questions over the next two days.

This year, we are devoting our attention once againto a problem which cannot be overcome by indivi-dually affected countries on their own but onewhich requires action by the international communi-ty as a whole – by politicians, business actors,international organizations, academics, NGOs andindeed civil society and consumers. I hope that thissymposium will enable us to bring the manifold pro-blems, conflicts of interest and proposed solutionsfurther into the focus of public attention.

Professor Dieter H. Feddersen

XVII MALENTE SYMPOSIUM | MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 200820 |

DR. MARKUS BAUMANNS

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

It’s a great pleasure to welcome you on behalf ofthe ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius to thisyear’s Malente Symposium on Oceans and GlobalResponsibility!It is no coincidence that philosophy coined theterm “oceanic feeling” to describe the very sub-jective sensation of infinity and belonging to agreater whole. Alexander von Humboldt, the 19thcentury German explorer and scientist, defined thegeographical position of the Mediterranean as“beneficent in its influence on the movement ofpeoples and the growth of a global conscious-ness.” His contemporary, the German philosopherGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, called the Mediter-ranean the “axis of world history” and described itas the “conditioning and vitalizing principle of theOld World.” He observed that oceans in generaldo not divide. Rather, their most important featureis to connect lands by the shortest possible route.The Atlantic, likewise, has long been a symbol of freedom, being the shortest connecting line be -tween the Old World and the New World. One might conjecture today that this will be no lesstrue of the Arctic Sea in a few years time. Consider -ing the pace at which the northern icecap is cur-rently melting, trans-Arctic voyages will be possiblewithin the next five to ten years. Using the NorthernSea Route and the – ice-free – North-western Pas-sage, shipping routes will be up to 40% shorter inthe future, and will thus link China to Europe andthe Atlantic in a more direct way.

However, there is a significant divisive aspect ofthese developments that urgently needs to be ad -dressed first. As Scott Borgerson, a former Lieu -

tenant Commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, wrotein an article in Foreign Affairs this spring: “The com -bination of new shipping routes, trillions of dollarsin possible oil and gas resources, and a poorly de -fined picture of state ownership makes for a toxicbrew.” Russia was the first of the Arctic powers tostake its claims over the resource-rich Arctic waters.Canada, the United States, Norway and Denmarkare meanwhile on high alert and will follow suit.World waters elsewhere also appear today to bemore of a source of distress among nations andcountries than one of interconnectedness. Risingsea-levels are threatening to trigger as yet unimagin -able floods of climate refugees, especially fromSouth-East Asia. Finally, oceans have become thelast uncontrolled dumping ground for garbage, toxicand nuclear waste, and their natural wealth, not justin terms of fossils but also in terms of flora andfauna, is greatly endangered.

It is for us to decide whether the connecting or thedivisive aspect gains the upper hand in this, whichis why I am very happy to see the response to this

Dr. Markus Baumanns

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conference. Our topic today and tomorrow, “Morethan Water – Oceans and Global Responsibility,”fits in perfectly with the ZEIT-Stiftung ’s fundingand operating profile. A conference at the interfacebetween the international scientific, political, eco-nomic and civil society sectors is long overdue. Weare extremely grateful to the Dräger Foundation forhaving recognized this and for having accepted usas partners. To close my remarks by referring onceagain to Hegel and von Humboldt, I therefore hopethat just as oceans interconnect the different conti-nents and cultures of this world, the panels andworking groups of this conference will over the nexttwo days lead us toward new insights and perhapstoward a common understanding of the solutions tothe challenges our oceans are facing.

DAGMER BERBALK

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

I am here today to pass on my regards to you fromFederal Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who becamepatron of this symposium with great interest andconviction, even though he is unable to be here inperson today. Your symposium is taking place at atime when the fields of marine policy and marineprotection are increasingly moving into the forefrontof political, scientific and public attention; the sub-ject of this year’s Malente Symposium "More thanWater – Oceans and Global Responsibility" with itstopical areas of focus is yet further proof of this. Iwill be interested to see which results and conclu-sions we will arrive at here. I am particularly interest -ed in view of the fact that the Federal Cabinet, atthe suggestion of Minister Gabriel, approved theNational Strategy for the Sustainable Use and Pro-tection of the Seas – in short, Germany’s national

marine strategy – on 1 October 2008, following threeyears of extremely lengthy and intensive discussions.

This strategy is a concept for action, developedjointly by all Germany’s federal ministries, whichaims to achieve a better balance between the inter -ests of use and the interests of protection, and tobetter interlink the existing responsibilities and

competencies. It follows an integrational approach,turning its back on the outdated sectoral mentality;all disciplines have a joint responsibility here. Firstand foremost, the national marine strategy relatesto the German territorial waters of the North andBaltic Seas, yet maritime policy is in all cases anational, regional and international policy too. In ourown German interests, we are also dependent at aregional European level, and worldwide within theframework of the international community of states,on finding appropriate solutions to the conflictinggoals of worldwide use and protection of the seas.It is a question, as the title of the symposium rightlyemphasizes, of global responsibility.

Dagmara Berbalk


The European Union has also recognized the needfor a global maritime policy in which the commer cialuse and protection of the oceans are contractual lylaid down. The EU Commission’s Blue Paper for anintegrated maritime policy for the European Unionis now ready for implementation, and the Germangovernment is currently developing a correspondingnational integrated maritime policy. The nationalmarine strategy of which I spoke just now is a firstbuilding block of the future integrated Germanmaritime policy.

I would also like to mention at this point the Euro-pean Marine Strategy Framework Directive, whichentered into force on 15 July 2008; it is intended tobe the environmental pillar of the European maritimepolicy. We are obliged to implement the Directivein two years; the aim is for the marine environmentto achieve good status by 2020. To this end, nationalstrategies shall be developed in the individual mem -ber states using the ecosystem approach; this re -quires an integrated cross-sectoral protection con -cept designed to ensure that current and future

generations use our seas sustainably. Both – thenational German marine strategy and the EuropeanMarine Strategy Framework Directive – representour attempt to find answers to precisely thosequestions that will be debated here today andtomorrow.

The future of our society depends to a very largeextent on the status of the world’s seas. They areamong those habitats which are intensively used butreceive little in the way of protection. The oceans playa key role in climate development and potentiallyoffer considerable opportunities through the use ofas yet largely undiscovered, untapped and immea-surable quantities of natural resources on the seabed. At the same time, however, they pose wide-ranging and little-known dangers and risks. If wedo not wish to jeopardize our society’s future, wemust not regard the seas and oceans purely as aneconomically quantifiable value and resource, butmust recognize, respect and preserve their value as a part of nature. I wish you an interesting con -ference.

New insights and common

understanding


Researching the Oceans: Exploring the UnknownProfessor Karin LochteDirector, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association, Bremerhaven, Germany


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Thank you very much for the kind invitation. I ammuch honored to be here and very pleased to talkabout “Exploring the Unknown”, because this iswhat scientists do best and like most. Oceans arean integral part of the earth; they are linked to theatmosphere, and to the land. To unravel this inter-play between the different components of theearth’s system is not only scientifically challenging,but also very important if we are to understand thefuture of our earth. Another aspect is the ocean’svast biodiversity. Humankind relies on this biodiver-sity, on the different types of plants and animals,not only for food but also for natural materials and amultitude of ecosystem services. We therefore needto understand and treasure the biodiversity in theocean. Last but not least, exploring the depths ofthe oceans means discovering an unknown area. Weknow very little about the deep ocean, its trenches,mountains and endless plains; we have only just be -gun to understand this part of our world.

The first global climate models in the 1970s did nottake the ocean into account. Subsequently, a flatand shallow “swamp” ocean was added. We keptimproving our modeling and, in the second assess-ment report of the IPCC, the ocean became deeperand included currents and transport of heat. In thethird assessment report of the IPCC, the transportand uptake of CO2 into the deep ocean was consi-dered. The fourth assessment report included vege -tation on land, and I dare say the next big step willbe to include vegetation in the sea into our modelsin order to arrive at better predictions of future climate changes (figure 1).The ocean is indirectly and directly endangered by human activities. The warming of the ocean willalter the current systems and the stratification of

the water masses. This will impact the transport of heat on earth. The rise in temperature will alsoaffect the distribution of organisms: those that aresensitive to warm waters will move to the north. In areas like the North Sea, for instance, organismsthat could not survive here in the past, because thewinters were too cold, are now surviving quite well.

Melting sea ice and glacial ice sheets represent amajor problem. This is affecting the ecosystem, butit also affects sea level. Sea level rise is caused byboth the warming of the ocean (because it expandswhen it gets warmer) and the additional water fromthe glaciers. It is very complicated to actually predicthow much sea level rise we must expect in the nextdecade or two.

Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere has anothereffect: it acidifies the ocean. This alters certainchemical and biological processes in the ocean,though we have very little understanding as yet ofwhat will happen in a more acidic ocean.

Professor Karin Lochte

Figure 1


Besides these indirect effects, we also have directhuman impacts. A number of these have alreadybeen mentioned: massive changes in biodiversitydue to fishing; the introduction into our coastalwaters of alien species as a result of shipping, theexploitation of resources that harm the environ-ment; coastal constructions such as wind powerplants and other buildings; shipping accidents, andpollution by toxic substances. We cannot say thatthe ocean is still in pristine condition; we havealready changed it quite a bit in coastal areas.

First, we should take a look at the equipment re -quired for marine research. This is nearly as com-plicated as that needed for extraterrestrial research,because the deep ocean is a remote place that isdifficult to access. Research vessels are the mostimportant work platforms for marine science. Take for example, the “Polarstern”, the ice-breakingresearch vessel operated by the Alfred WegenerInstitute for Polar and Marine Research. It is aswimming laboratory, like all other research vessels

in Germany, for taking samples and measurementsin the deep ocean and polar oceans. These shipshave to be able to deploy very complicated andheavy pieces of equipment, and, of course, theyhave to be stable in heavy seas. We often work for weeks or months in really rough weather, which is more than a normal commercial ship hasto endure. ((Abb.))

Some examples of the modern sampling and measur -ing instruments that we use are remotely operatedvehicles (ROV), deep-sea landers, deep-sea drillrigs and automated underwater vehicles (AUV)(figure 2). The first ROV, an underwater roboticinstrument able to dive to depths of 4,000 meters,was installed in Bremen. It has been in operationfor some years now and has produced many excel-lent results. These instruments are put into the seawith an umbilical cord and carry out sampling andexperiments on the sea floor while being controlledand observed by cameras on board the ship. Oneof the latest additions at the IFM-GEOMAR in Kielis the ROV 6000. It can dive to 6,000 meters – oneof only three in Europe capable of this – and wehave high expectations of this new instrument.Deep-sea landers are another type of system. They are deployed over board, sink freely to the seafloor, carry out pre-programmed experiments, sampleand come back when called by acoustic signal.Another new type is an AUV, an automated under-water vehicle, that also follows a pre-programmedpath, takes measurements along the way and thenbrings the data back. Such a system is now in oper -ation in Kiel and is being developed in other insti -tutes, too. A deep-sea drill rig has been developedin Bremen. It is deployed on the sea floor and isable to drill up to 70 meters into the sediment toFigure 2

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retrieve cores for geological and paleoceanographicstudies. Normally one would need a drill ship forsuch operations. The depth to which this systemcan drill is limited, however, compared to that of a drill ship.

All of these instruments are highly complicated andsophisticated, so it would seem that we are well-equipped to explore the deep ocean. Satellitesscan the surface of the ocean and are also able toreceive data from measuring systems and transmitthem to shore. Glider systems drift in the sea, mea-sure and send their data via satellite back to thehome laboratory. We deploy floating systems andmoorings with instrument packages that can alsosend their data back to shore via satellite. Finally,there are deep-sea systems that sit on the seafloor, measuring and transmitting their data back toshore through glass fiber cables, or releasing datawhen they are brought back. Despite all this instru-mentation we have so far seen only a very, verysmall part of the deep ocean.

I believe the future of deep ocean research willconsist of measuring systems on the sea floor thattransmit their data to shore via cable and can becontrolled and monitored from the home laboratory.However, this is still the future; there are only a fewsystems in operation yet. One of them is “Antares”that was designed by French scientists to give earlywarning of earthquakes in the Mediterranean.Others serving the same purpose are situated onthe US West Coast and in Japan; there is also atsunami early warning system off Indonesia thatwas installed by German institutions following thedevastating tsunami in winter 2004. These systemsare too large and too expensive for one nation onlyand require concerted international efforts. I willreturn to this issue later.

Having outlined the problems of how to researchthe ocean, let me now turn to a scientific subject –the warming of the Arctic. Arctic warming is anissue of deep concern for the global climate and atopic of intense research at my institute, the AlfredWegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research(figure 3).Figure 3


This map shows the predictions of warming in thelast decade of this century (2090-2099) from thefourth IPCC assessment report. The Arctic is warm -ing up twice as fast as the rest of the world. Forthis reason we consider the Arctic to be an earlywarning indicator for global change and will have toobserve it particularly carefully. Comparing satellitepictures over many years shows that ice coverageis steadily declining. The loss is on average eightpercent per decade. The sea ice cover in the Arcticdecreased dramatically between the years 2005and 2007 alone. 2005 was already a year with verylittle ice cover, and in 2007 a record low of sea icecover occurred. In fact there is much less ice thanthe models predicted. The important question is:What are the consequences of the sea ice disap-pearing at such a rate? Amongst other less positiveaspects that I will describe later, this could alsopresent an opportunity for us, because it may openup new sea routes on the Northwest or NortheastPassage. However, one must remember that theArctic will still be frozen in winter, while even small

amounts of sea ice still present a hazard to ships insummer. The sea routes will not be suddenly freeof all obstructions.This year, in 2008, there was somewhat more icethan in 2007, but the ice coverage in the ArcticOcean is still very low. Nevertheless, the slightincrease led to some very interesting and differentinterpretations in the media. One newspaper titled“The melting of the sea ice has stopped, we areback on an upwards track”, while another news -paper claimed “The sea ice is still very low, and theArctic Ocean will be ice-free in a couple of decades.”This is a typical example of how the glass can beseen as being half full or half empty. It is very diffi-cult to say what is going to happen in the nextdecades.

The sea ice has many important roles (figure 4).The first is that ice insulates the relatively warmwaters of the ocean surface against the atmos-phere and blocks evaporation. Thus sea ice pre-vents the exchange of heat and moisture betweenatmosphere and ocean. The sea ice has a strongalbedo (backscatter); it reflects sunlight back into space and therefore prevents warming of theearth’s surface. If there is no sea ice, the darkocean surface will absorb more sunlight, leading togreater warming of the surface waters and, in turn,to increased melting of the ice – a positive feed-back loop. Last but not least, the sea ice is alsohome to many animals and plants. Polar bears areone prominent focus of public attention; but the ice also harbors many small plants living in, aroundand under the ice. They are an essential basis for the food chain in the Arctic Ocean. If the icedisappears, the entire diet of larger animals willalso change.Figure 4

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It is not only important to know the extent of thesea ice but also its thickness. To measure it, onecan start in the traditional way and drill a hole intothe ice. This is an extremely tedious method thatmakes it very difficult to obtain sufficient data.Other methods employ measurements taken bysubmarines. They are usually done by the military,and we already have access to some of the datafrom submarines. The next development is an elec -tro-magnetic probe. It is carried by a helicopter orlow-flying airplane and measures the air/ice andice/water boundaries. This gives relatively goodand detailed measurements of the ice thickness.Hopefully next year the CryoSat Satellite will belaunched and give us a much greater overview ofthe Arctic sea ice than has been available so far.However, ice thickness data from the satellite willnot be as detailed as data obtained by ground measurements.

This is data on ice thickness, measured between1991 and 2004 by the Alfred Wegener Institute

using the electro-magnetic probe. The graphs showfrequency distributions of ice thickness for differentyears. In 1991, the most frequent ice thickness was 2.5 meters, while in 2004 it was only 2 meters (figure 5). We are forced to conclude that the areaof sea ice is not only shrinking but is also thinning.We now have to find an answer to the big question:What happens next (figure 6)?

In this model the observed data are shown in red;the blue line indicates the average of several modelruns. If we assume a steady decline and extrapolatelinearly to the end of this century, we would stillhave sea ice at the North Pole in 2100. The model,however, predicts a sudden drop in ice coveragecaused by the positive feedbacks mentioned earlier.If this sudden drop actually occurs, we will run outof sea ice in the Arctic in about 30 or 40 years. Let me give you just a simple explanation: if we havevery thick ice in winter, it can melt in summer – theice gets thinner, but it still persists and ice coverremains on top. If we start with thinner ice in winter,

Figure 5 Figure 6


it may melt completely in the summer. This may leadto a positive feedback loop with warming of thesewaters as explained above and even less ice forma-tion the following winter. An accelerating decreasein ice cover over the next decades may occur.We do not really know yet how likely such a de -velopment is; we also do not know how it may bemodified by increased evaporation and increasedsnowfall.

Future development depends on the remaining icevolume and ice thickness and, of course, on naturaltemperature variability. Temperature records for theArctic Ocean show an oscillation within a cycle ofapproximately 60 years from a warm period in the1930s to a cold period and, now, a warm periodonce again. If another cold period were now to follow, the sea ice might be rescued. If globalwarm ing proceeds as predicted, however, it mayoverride the temperature decline of the cold period,with the result that the sea ice would be lost. What

is going to happen depends very much on the de -velopments over the next decade. In less than tenyears time, we will know the direction in which thesystem is moving. Since this is not a very long time,we need to observe the developments in the Arcticvery carefully in order to be prepared for the im -pending changes.

I want to show an example of how changes in thesea ice are not just restricted to the surface, butare transmitted to the deep ocean as well (figure7).The yellow star indicates a long-term deep-seaobser vation station; it is called the “Hausgarten”and is the world’s northernmost regularly sampledstation, located between Greenland and Spitzber-gen. It lies at a depth of between 1,000 and 5,500meters and is situated at a very sensitive gatewaywhere the warm water from the Atlantic enters theArctic Ocean. The station is equipped with variousmoorings and is sampled regularly, sometimes by ROVs.

The station measures chlorophyll on the sea flooras an indicator of microscopic plant material thatsinks from the surface ocean to the sea floor andprovides a source of food for animals at the bottom.Since 2001, we have found a decrease in theamount of this plant material on the sea floor. Overthe same period, temperatures have increased evenat depths of 2,500 meters, and the ice edge hasretreated towards the North. Since much of thebio logical productivity is connected with the iceedge, this has resulted in less plant material sinkingto the sea floor. The large organisms at the bottomhave started to disappear, probably due to the lackof food. This indicates that the changes in the sur-face water are rapidly transmitted to the sea floor.Figure 7

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The ocean is an interconnected system, and thedeep ocean is closely linked to the processes atthe surface. However, even after nearly a decade of observations, we still do not know whether this is simply natural variability or actually a trend in dicating climatic change.

The Arctic Ocean has been at the center of a dispute in recent years because of its oil and gasre sources. In August 2007 the Russians planted aflag at the Lomonosov Ridge to claim an Ontario-sized swath of the ocean floor at the North Pole astheir exclusive economic zone. The Canadians pro-tested, saying this isn’t the fifteenth century – youcan’t go around the world and just plant flags andsay ‘We’re claiming this territory’. Denmark alsocomplained because the Lomonosov Ridge may beconnected to Greenland, meaning that the NorthPole may belong to Denmark. This dispute is on -going and will occupy us for some time.

There are rich raw material deposits in the ArcticOcean (figure 8). The yellow dots indicate oil andgas resources that have already been identified,while the red (gas) and green (oil) dots indicateexpected re sources that have not yet been confirm -ed. It is not easy to drill in the Arctic Ocean to analyze these po tential deposits. The “Polarstern”,with the help of the icebreaker “Oden”, measured a seismic profile of the Lomonosov Ridge in 1991.These seismic data made possible the first drillingin the Arctic Ocean; the sediment cores indicatedthat the Arctic was a warm greenhouse ocean 55 to 34 million years ago. We also saw that thestepwise cooling of the Arctic was synchronouswith the expansion of the Greenland ice 3.2 millionyears ago and the East Antarctic ice sheet some 14 million years ago. We are certainly keen to further investigate past climate change in the Arctic in order to understand the processes thatcontrolled it. Others are inte rested in exploring theoil and gas deposits, but we all have a commoninterest in drilling into the sea floor of the ArcticOcean.Figure 8


We discovered traces of a series of earthquakes inthe Arctic, and volcanism in the Arctic mid-oceanridges was found recently. At the Gakkel Ridge weobserved masses of ash, indicative of volcanismunderneath the ice. We do not know whether theorganisms living at these active volcanic sites in theArctic are similar to those at hot vents in an oceanwithout ice cover or whether they are different. Thedeep Arctic Ocean is still one of the most unknownparts of our earth. We know it contains large re -sources in a highly vulnerable environment. Sincewe know so little about it, it is difficult to envisagesustainable and careful ex ploration of these re -sources. How can we safeguard the balance between utilization of resources and the safety of this environ ment?

Let me end by stressing that the ocean is an essen-tial part of the future of human society.We have many untapped resources in the ocean,and we need to understand it much better than wedo at the moment, if we are to be able to use it in a responsible and sustainable way. The ocean also

poses a threat, especially to the ever-growing coastal populations, in the form of tsunamis, hurri-canes, sea level rise and toxic algae. Finally, theocean plays a very important role in global climate.In order to tackle the extensive challenges that liebefore us, it is important and high time for us toovercome national boundaries and develop programswith an international and strategic focus. The insti-tutes within a country and across borders need tocooperate in joint programs to a greater extent thanthey have done in the past. We need to find waysto optimize sharing of our expensive and largeinfrastructures. There is, for example, a proposal to build a European drill ship for the Arctic, the“Aurora Borealis”; it is obvious that such largeequipment can only be run jointly by several nations.Last but not least, I believe we have to link re searchin the public and private sectors much more effi-ciently. We have common interests, and can makemuch better progress if we combine our efforts,especially in such difficult environments as thedeep ocean and the Arctic Ocean. Thank you very much!

The ocean poses a

threat



Managing the Oceans: Economic Use and ConservationProfessor Jacqueline McGladeExecutive Director, European Environment Agency,Copenhagen, Denmark

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About two weeks ago, my agency brought out areport on the impacts of climate change. Readingthis report can seriously damage your health, be -cause everything is going in the wrong direction. If,like me, you meet many climate skeptics, this reportis a useful tool because you need to have a wholerange of indicators and signals to persuade eventhese skeptics that maybe there is something tothis climate change idea. But we are hopefully awell-informed audience; we do not do policy-basedscience but rather science-based policy, and I amgoing to work on that principle. So let me give youa brief overview of all the areas in which we are ei -ther implicitly managing the oceans or are explicitlyrequired to do so by various policy instruments,and let us also look at the way in which economicssometimes intervene in the way we wish to manage.

When you meet skeptics and they talk about climatechange, they often point to the fact that it has allhappened before. But we really have to talk aboutthe last 50 years, and the IPCC has certainly de -monstrated the high level of anthropogenic impactwe have had on the particular change in green -house gases that we see at the heart of the climatechange debate. The reason I raise this is that in thelast couple of weeks the Global Carbon Projecthas brought forward some more reality checkswhich tell us that, in terms of observed pieces ofevidence, we have in the last three years been out-side of any one of the “business-as-usual” modelcurves from the IPCC. I therefore think it is in -credib ly important that as a community of academics,scientists and technologists we continue to remem-ber that although models are important, observationsare equally important. I really do endorse what KarinLochte said about needing at this moment to have

as much real observation as well as models to helpour case. The more worrying element in the context of carbondioxide emissions and their faster rise, however, isthe fact that our terrestrial and marine sinks are be -coming less efficient. Back in 1960, 400 kilogramsof every ton emitted would remain in the atmosphere.That figure has now risen to 450 kilograms. We cansee that the oceans in particular are doing less wellthan they have in the past. This is one of the funda-mental principles of how the planet operates. Theloss of efficiency and sequestration of carbon – theabsorption of carbon – is really a very serious issue.

We also have to deal with the concept of long timelags. Even if we fix things now, we are going to bedealing with sea level rise for at least 50 to 100 years.We are going to be dealing with many, many arti-facts that accompany sea level rises, and will effec -tively be making decisions on a day-to-day basisabout whether we should adapt to larger flood de -fenses or whether we should retreat. The state ofplanning in Europe and the state of our climatechange adaptation planning is very, very low. In theNetherlands the discussions about risk coverage isobviously at a very high level, but in most other coun -tries it is pretty much fixed on one or two sec tors,mainly water and, maybe, some coastal flooding.But there has rarely been an attempt by any one ofour European nations to put forward an integrativeview of how adaptation and vulnerability will bedealt with in the future. Flooding will happen. Mostcatastrophic flooding will not happen here in Europe,but in other parts of the world. But I think we willsee – and this is certainly backed up by insurancecompanies like Munich Re and others – that thecost of it is simply going to grow exponentially.

Professor Jacqueline McGlade


More importantly, however, there are other signalsthat we need to pay attention to. Karin Lochte talk -ed about one in the Arctic arena which is where we think about the thermal hyaline circulation, butthere are many other signals around the world. Thesad fact is that today we do very little monitoring ofthese potential tipping points, which means that welack knowledge. If you translate this situation into abusiness context, it is clear that nobody would everwant to run a company with the small amount of in -formation that we are actually trying to manage theplanet on. We are managing uncertainty, and wehave to be very careful not to make fear the basisfor such management. Instead, we have to try tocontinually backfill with information to give a senseof security that the kinds of policies that we haveand that the kinds of legal instruments that we willbe putting in place really will resonate and fix someof the problems.

I draw your attention to the Greenland icecap. Thisis because – as many people know – the icecap isone of the places where we can collect informationthat gives us the long time frame we need. It tells usthat the last 10,000 years have been spectacularlystable, but also shows us just how much ice hasbeen flowing out from the Greenland icecap intothe ocean in recent times. This is of course verysignificant because this is ice that is not in theocean but sitting on land, so its melting makes adifference to sea level rise.

I want to focus on what this sea level rise means topeople in their local environment because, at theend of the day, managing the oceans actually meansmanaging people and people’s and companies’ ex -pectations. If we think about Greenland itself, whatdoes it mean to the local people? It means quitefrankly that their way of life is coming to an end.They can no longer hunt in the way they used to,the sea is unstable, they cannot take their dogs andsleds out at the times they used to, nor can theyget to their fishing grounds because the ice is toolarge for them to get around in their small fishingboats. So many of the communities now have tolook for other ways to make a living.

Greenland, with its young and barely educatedpopulation of 54,000 people, has only five lawyers,and faces a very interesting choice; in fact, they arevoting now on self-determination. Do they want tojoin the big economic world and have open-castmining for aluminum and many minerals? Greenlandhas a wide array of very valuable minerals. It is notclear how Greenland would be able to run itself asa country. Due to climate change, Greenland has tomake decisions about governance today. They haveto make decisions about where to put their fishingindustry, their minerals industry and many other elements. As the ice retreats, fisheries will movenorthwards, and we could very easily – if we arenot careful – repeat the mistakes of the southernAtlantic and other places by allowing fishing fleetsin too quickly. We will end up with a boom-and-bust cycle instead of a kind of stable, well-estab -lish ed eco-system. Climate change will expose usto many terrestrial risks. In the oceans we still donot know what many of these security risks are.

Let me now turn to how we motivate management.Much of our policy throughout the world entails acost element – the costs of action and the costs ofinaction. We know that this calculation has causeda lot of reaction because of the Stern Report whichput forward some mitigation arguments when it cameto the costs of inaction. But there is also anotherside to the coin: How do you actually value thingswhich are priceless? We really will suffer funda-mentally within the policy world if we try to measurethings which are immeasurable. For example, wecan see how difficult it is for people who have toper form an environmental impact assessment inwhich they have to weigh up the respective worth ofhuman lives and health, hectares of coral reefs, theuniqueness of a particular ecosystem, endangeredspecies, oil and gas exploration. And yet, somehow,all of this is supposed to fit together. What do wedo? We end up doing a cost-benefit analysis. Inmainstream macroeconomics, this approach worksvery well when you can actually attribute costs. Thedifficulty is that from a practical purpose we canbarely justify or put on paper what the benefits are.And this means that we routinely apply the cost-benefit analyses in very inappropriate ways. When itcomes to the oceans, this is very much the casebecause they are virtually devoid of human beings.

If we want to improve the picture, we can introduceanother set of policy instruments, the life-cycle analysis. But again, we have a fundamental problemwith this, because depending on what questionsyou ask you actually can get very different answers.For example, eating fish can be very healthy. On theother hand, sometimes fish bioaccumulated a lot ofheavy metals, which is not healthy. In other words,

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you get conflicting evidence depending on whatkind of question you ask. On the whole, we areactually ill equipped to put in place policies whichare based on sound fundamental economics, parti-cularly when it comes to the oceans, where there isa large vested interest and where the sort of naturalobservation from the human population side reallydoes not exist. We have to focus on what the bene-fits are. We need to be careful about which dis-count rates we use. Basically, we have to start withthe concept of equity. We have to start with equityas it is as much the right of the whales as it is theright of people and commercial companies toexploit the ocean. This underpins what in Europe we feel is a funda-mental way to take policy forward, and that is theprecautionary framework. One misunderstandingabout the precautionary framework is that it is themenu for inaction. Quite the opposite – it is actuallya way in which you can raise the flag and say “thinkagain”! And it should be invoked again and again,because sometimes the policies we have in placejust do not work. Therefore, it is very important thatwe do not simply think that once we have a policyin place we can walk away from it. Fisheries are theclassic example of this. The other thing about thejurisprudence network or framework is that we haveto use needs to reflect the goods and services thatecosystems provide. At the moment we do not reallyhave a legal framework that takes into account boththe goods and services of ecosystems and the ethi-cal sides. It is a robust context for policy. In Europewe are rather careful about how the rights-basedapproach has been embedded, but it is not explicitenough when it comes to the rights of nature. Forexample, we see Marine Protected Areas (MPA)that are not really protected. They are designated

as a defined chunk of geographic land, but in factthe rights of organisms to co-habit are not reallypart of the way in which the MPA is actually set out.We have to look for alternative forms of governance,and here we need international cohesive legislation.

I just quickly want to look at three issues of policyconcern. One has to do with our energy demandand how the oceans are going to get brought intothat discussion whether we like it or not. We have aworld population that is growing; we have oil whichpretty much dominates the way in which that popu-lation lives on the planet. Peak oil has essentiallybeen reached or is about to be reached – there maybe some debate on this – but the easy oil itself hasgone. As Karin Lochte and others have said, wewill have to move off into deep water. But deepwater brings its own problems. As the latest reportfrom Douglas Westwood points out, offshore gasand oil production will increase. As we becomemore and more dependent on this, however, thedepletion rate will become much more of a knifeedge. It is actually much more expensive to go outthere and get oil and gas from these places. Wealso have an aging infrastructure. The North Seaalone has many, many installations which are oper at ing well beyond their normal life. They are in need of either decommissioning or repair but we do not have enough people out there to do that, and we are also short of steel and many otherraw resources.

Carbon capture and storage is all very well in theNorwegian context. But it is another matter entirelywhen you consider some of the international con-ventions and ask whether you can actually seque-strate carbon dioxide in the open ocean. The same


goes for pouring iron filings into the ocean as well.There are many discussions about this but I am notentirely convinced it is legally possible. The oceans,on the other hand, have yet to be properly tapped,particularly in terms of tidal and wave power. Eachcountry in Europe has different renewable poten -tials, particularly on the ocean side. This really begsthe question of what our policy in Europe is when itcomes to setting national energy priorities.

The Arctic is another place where we could easilyfall foul of national desires. Yes, there is a cake tobe divided, but who has yet decided whether it isonly coastal states that will have a piece of thatcake and who will decide how it will be divided up?Is the Seabed Commission able to do it? Will theLaw of the Sea hold? The “Ilulissat Declaration”claimed that it would, but three or four weeks agothe Nordic Council was not quite so clear. Theywere saying that maybe the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) should be theorganization that will take over fisheries in the Arctic when the sea ice retreats. My question thenis, would you want an organization that is alreadyoverseeing the demise of most of the fisheries totake over also the Arctic?

I believe that we have time to think carefully abouthow to manage the Arctic; this is not something weshould rush into. In other words, let us not allowthe political urgency to make us find a solution tooquickly. Let us actually try and bring all of theseelements together so that the Arctic does not be -come one of these sectionalized places where themanagement of one sector becomes part of theother’s problems. I say this because I am the co-chair of something called the “Assessment of the

Assessments”. I report to the General Assembly ofthe UN, and our job was to review all the marineassessments in the world. In actual fact, we didn’treview them all, but we did sample them. Our re -port will be issued in the spring, and we looked verycarefully at how assessments were done, how policywas driven and how management implementationwas driven. In other words, we looked at the cre -dibility of the science, its policy relevance, how itwas communicated, its legitimacy, who was involv -ed and, ultimately, how useful these assessmentswere. I will not give you the answers now, but I cantell you it was a very sobering experience. If youwanted to oversee the demise of resources youwould put in place what we have. I do not thinkthere are many curves or fisheries which are goingup – the majority are going down. It is a very sadstate that we have got ourselves into, and yet thescience can be considered to be excellent. Themodels can be considered robust. The observationscan be considered adequate.

There are, of course, still many uncertainties. Onemajor thing that none of these fisheries modelshave really taken into account in management termsis the big stresses. The climate change stresses,UV radiation, acidification, shipping and all theother activities, the kinds of ways in which commer-cial fishing is moving with climate change. Theseare really serious spatial problems which show uswhat is happening today, but we can only guesswhat is going to happen in the next few decades.So we have seen this overall collapse of global fisheries despite the best management intentions.There is not a fishery around which does not havethe imprint of human exploitation on it. Many thingshave actually gone to what we call post-peak. There

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are all kinds of things wrong about the way in whichwe are managing our resources. And we are cer-tainly not taking into account these big climatechange images that we see.Much the same applies to coral reefs. It is pretty clearthat in the next few years this valuable resource willgo one way or another. Either temperature chan gesand acidification will bring about the demise in manycoral reefs or we will do it through human exploita-tion. One way or another, the future looks verybleak for many of them. The process it self is verywell under stood, yet there is less know ledge abouthow reefs recover. There are some places whererecovery occurs, but overall we know that thesethings have happened periodically. The question iswhether they are likely to recover or not if additionalstrain is put on the coral reefs? These are some ofthe possible future scenarios we could paint giventhe IPCC approach.

In the end, it comes down to the fact that the oce-ans’ chemistry is beyond us. It is such a large-scaleissue, yet there are people who want to manage theoceans in the future by pouring iron and other kindsof things into them. As I mentioned earlier, I am not entirely sure this is legal, but if you were to do it,how successful would it be to pour iron filings in, in an attempt to stimulate the draw-down of carbonthrough primary productivity? One has to weighthat up against the kind of global chemistry that weknow is in many cases already on a downwardscurve in terms of acidification.

Other oceans, like the Baltic, over a number of yearshave been suffering from a combination of land-based pollution, climate change and human manage -ment or mismanagement of fisheries, result ing inthe concatenation of all three. The outcome in thecase of the Baltic Sea is that it is filled with speciesthat are not endemic, with many invasive alien species,with high levels of nitrification, and algae blooms. Onpaper we now have the Helsinki Commission BalticSea Action Plan, an ambitious program to restorethe good ecological status of the Baltic marineenvironment by 2021 which was adopted in Novem-ber 2007 and which represents also a very goodassessment of the environmental status of the Bal-tic. And yet the reality is, we do not have a fisherythat could support any size of population, and themarine environment does not look very healthy either.In other words, you can have the best science andthe best assessment processes, but if you do notcheck reality every now and again, you may ac tuallyfind yourself with this sterile and dead world.

The final part is about observation. We cannot con-tinue to manage our oceans without information.Kopernikus is the European contribution to the big

global environmental observation systems. This isour best and last chance to do something togetherat a European level and not, so to speak, at a nation -al level. We hope that it will bring many benefits tounderstanding how the ocean can be properly man -aged, how we can intertwine the Law of the Sea atUN level, the Seabed Commission, the national re quirements and so on. There are no guarantees,but unless we have observing systems, we are notgoing to be very well off.

In the Arctic, for example, we see an accumulationof PCBs and DDTs, not only in the seal or fishpopulation but also in the human population, as aresult of transportation and the way in which thebasic ocean and air circulates. Ten times the WorldHealth Organization’s limits can be found in the tis-sues of females in East Greenland. Essentially, theseare toxic doses. Breastfeeding children – if you areeating seals and fish which is all you can do be -cause there are no supermarkets – is essentially adeath wish for your children. Where is this toxicpollution coming from? It is coming from a well-regulated part of the world, from Europe. We aresupposed to regulate our pollution, indeed we doregulate our pollution at the level of installations,yet marine and air transport mean that basic parti-cles and pollutants are arriving in other parts of theworld. The cost-benefit analysis for our pollutionregulations does not take this aspect into account.If we are going to manage the oceans properly, wealso have to manage the long-range impacts ofwhat we are doing in Europe, North America orChina – wherever we are. If we are not very careful,the Arctic will ultimately become a place devoid ofeven the normal kind of inhabitants, not just humans.

We need to have accounts, here in Europe andacross the world. We have agreed on a formulationto establish resource accounts now as part of thestatistical reporting alongside of GDP. But we alsoneed a way in which to rebalance the evidence thatis brought in to manage our oceans. I say that be -cause people who are in close contact with theoceans sometimes know a lot more than peoplewho sit in Brussels and Washington and othercapitals around the world (I say that with the ut -most respect, having been and being one of themmy self); I am talking in particular about indigenouspeoples, peoples who actually depend upon theoceans for their livelihoods. We need somethinglike the “Eye on Earth” which we started here inEurope, a sort of global citizen observatory to sup-plement all the wiz banks, satellites and everythingelse that we have got. We need people who careabout the oceans to be part of the way in which wemanage the oceans. Thank you!



Governing the Oceans: Risks and Potential ConflictsHon. Tullio TrevesJudge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Hamburg, Germany;Professor of International Law, The State University of Milan, Italy

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"GOVERNANCE" AND THE OCEANS

The concept of “governance” is not part of commonlegal parlance, even if lawyers, under pressure frompolitical scientists, have started using it. “Governan-ce” contains something more than “government”. Itincludes the idea of “good” government, govern-ment which serves the general interests of thosegoverned on the basis of common values. The ideaof “government” encompassed in that of governan-ce is not identical to the concept used under thatname by lawyers. It has no reference to doctrinessuch as the separation of powers. It alludes to allforms of regulation and enforcement of such regu-lation in a given area or on a given subject.

THE PRESENT SITUATION OF OCEAN GOVERNANCE

The oceans are governed by international law. Thisis the law developed customarily, or by agreementbetween the subjects, within a non-hierarchicallyordered society made up of independent actors,mostly states. At least traditionally, states have aninstinctive interest in self-preservation and the ex -pansion of power rather than in pursuing the com-mon good. Essentially, the core rules of internatio-nal law tend to guarantee the preservation of statesand the development of their activities, while avoid -ing clashes. The common good, from a traditionalinternational law standpoint, is only a question ofavoiding clashes.

The traditional, mostly customary, international lawof the sea reflected this. It provided for the protec -tion of the state by recognizing its sovereignty –with a modest concession to other states’ interestsof innocent passage – over a narrow band of seaad jacent to the coast (the territorial sea), whileaffirm ing that all states have equal and free access

to the rest of the sea (the high seas) for the pur -pose of utilizing it for communications and for theexploita tion of resources The abundance of thoseresources, in proportion to the efforts needed fortheir appropriation, meant they were consideredinexhaustible.

While the essence of the international law of thesea remains the same, the situation I have just des-cribed reflects a long-distant past. The internationalcommunity has made substantial progress in de -veloping, through international law, the governanceof the oceans. The complexity of the interests in -volved is mirrored by the governance tools adopted.This is due not only to the added complexity andvariety of the interests of each state, but also to theemergence of common interests whose importancehas been, or is in the process of being, recognized.

Adopted in 1982, the United Nations Convention onthe Law of the Sea has been in force since 1994and now binds 154 states and the European Com-munity; it is the principal, though not the only, in stru ment developed to ensure ocean governan-

The Honorable Professor Tullio Treves


ce. The convention is based on the acknowledge-ment, stated in the preamble, that “the problems ofthe ocean space are closely interrelated and needto be considered as a whole”, and aims to contribu-te to the strengthening of “peace, security, coope-ration and friendly relations among all nations” byestablishing “a legal order of the seas and oceans”.

Twenty-six years after its adoption, UNCLOS is stillregarded as the “constitution of the oceans”, as thetext of reference for all questions involving the seasand their uses. Before examining the risks andpotential conflicts in the governance of the seas, itseems useful to survey briefly the most importantcharacteristics of the present regime, in light espe-cially of UNCLOS. The main aspects of this regimeconcern rules, cooperation, institutions, and theresolution of conflicts, which I will consider in turn.

A) UNCLOS lays down a global set of rules con-cerning principally:a) the maritime zones of states and their

spatial limits;b) the rights the coastal state and, respectively,

other states enjoy in each zone, and the approachto be followed for resolving conflicts between those rights;

c) principles for protecting the marine environment;d) principles for conducting marine scientific

research.

The main innovations introduced concern new mari-time zones, especially the exclusive economic zoneand archipelagic waters, which develop the recog -nition of coastal states’ interest in the resources ofthe adjacent waters, started with the full recognition,in the 1958 Geneva Convention, of their rights on

the continental shelf. The balance between therights of the coastal states and those of otherstates is carefully maintained in very complex pro visions.

The provisions for principles concerning the pre-servation of the marine environment are prescientand innovative as they incorporate, for the first timein treaty form, concepts that later, especially throughthe Rio Conference of 1992, were to become thecore of international environmental law.

The rules governing marine scientific researchrecognize the key importance of research and, atthe same time, the concerns of coastal states withrespect to their resource and security interests.

B) UNCLOS sets out a framework for cooperation concerning, above all, fisheries and the protection ofthe marine environment. As regards fisheries, co -operation is indicated as a tool that can be used tohelp the coastal state to prevent the overexploita -tion of fisheries under its jurisdiction (art. 61, para 2)

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and, especially, to obtain the rational exploitation offisheries on the high seas (articles 118-119). Theseare only the most visible manifestations of a “dutyto cooperate” which has been described by theInternational Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in theMox Plant provisional measures order of 2001 as a“fundamental principle” for the prevention of pollu -tion, (ITLOS reports 2001, 95, para 82).

C) Institutions and cooperation within institutionsare regarded by UNCLOS as being of the utmostimportance in order to achieve its goals. Not onlydoes the Convention provide for the establishmentof four new international institutions – namely theInternational Seabed Authority (the Authority), theInternational Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, theCommission for the Limits of the Continental Shelfand the Meeting of the States Parties – it also en -courages the setting up of new organizations, espe-cially in the field of fisheries and for the protectionof the marine environment. Moreover, it entrustsexisting organizations, especially the InternationalMaritime Organization (IMO), with tasks concern -ing the way its rules are implemented: for instance,the requirement that the IMO adopt sea lanes ortraffic separation schemes proposed by coastalstates for transit passage through straits beforethese states can designate them (art. 41, para 4),or that the removal of abandoned or disused struc -tures or installations in the exclusive economic zonetake place in line with the generally accepted inter-national standards established by the IMO (art. 60,para 3).

Most remarkably, UNCLOS establishes a global re -gime provided with an institutional mechanism forthe exploration and exploitation of the mineral re -sources of the seabed and its subsoil beyond thelimits of national jurisdiction, denominated the Inter-national Seabed Area or, briefly, the Area. The me -chanism established is the Authority, an internatio-nal organization composed of all the states whichare parties to UNCLOS, and in which states repre-senting special interests connected with the mine-ral resources of the Area enjoy privileged represen-tation and power in the restricted organ, the Council.

D) UNCLOS has brought the law of the sea underthe jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals.Disputes that may arise in the application or inter-pretation of UNCLOS may be submitted unilaterallyby a party for adjudication by an international courtor tribunal or by international arbitration. The basicprinciple is compulsory jurisdiction either of theInternational Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, or ofthe International Court of Justice, or of an arbitraltribunal. There are, however, limitations and optio-nal exceptions concerning categories of disputes

that can be submitted to adjudication only on thebasis of an agreement of the parties.

Thus UNCLOS establishes a global network ofrules to be applied through international coopera -tion and the work of international institutions. Con-nected in various ways are numerous other treatiesand institutions, both on a global and a regionallevel. In particular, UNCLOS functions as a “frame-work convention” as regards specialized treatiesconcerning marine pollution and the protection ofthe environment, and is constantly referred to asthe “legal framework within which all activities inthe oceans and seas must be carried out” (2007UN General Assembly’s Resolution on the Seasand Oceans, A/RES/62/215). Conventions andother instruments adopted since the entry intoforce of UNCLOS and concerning subjects relatedto the law of the sea emphasize that nothing they

provide “shall prejudice the rights and obligationsof any State” under UNCLOS. A number of inter-national agreements on issues relating to the law ofthe sea adopted since 1994 stipulate that the rulesof UNCLOS shall apply to the settlement of dis-putes concerning the interpretation and applicationof their provisions, irrespective of whether the par-ties to the disputes are also parties to UNCLOS,thus linking UNCLOS and these agreements withina law of the sea network.

Perhaps most importantly, the 155 ratifications ob -tained by UNCLOS, and the practice it has broughtabout, have had and continue to have a strong im -pact on customary law. It can be presumed that –with the exception of rules concerning institutionsand the settlement of disputes – the rules ofUNCLOS correspond to customary law, unless thecontrary can be proven for a specific rule.

THE LIMITS OF PROGRESS TO DATE

There is no doubt that UNCLOS has brought aboutenormous progress in ocean governance, respond -ing to the political and technological changes ofthe time in which it was negotiated and adopted. As


this time is now more than three decades behindus, it seems appropriate to look at the progressmade in order to discuss whether it is adequate tocope with the challenges of today.Of course, UNCLOS is far from being a technicallyperfect instrument. For instance, the lack of any de -finition of “marine scientific research”, even thoughthis expression occurs often throughout the text,can raise difficulties. Notions such as the “maximumsustainable yield” also used in UNCLOS may havebeen made obsolete by scientific development, etc.However, the main limitation as regards the progressachieved as a result of UNCLOS is that such pro-gress is uneven.

The clearest example of this concerns the Interna-tional Seabed Area and its regime. This is a full-fledged international regime, provided with an insti-tutional mechanism. It applies only, however, to alimited category of resources, namely to mineral re -sources. What about other resources, such as ge -netic resources and biodiversity? Some may claimthat anything not considered is subject to generalrules, which in this case would mean the principleof the freedom of the high seas. It could also besaid that the principles concerning the Area shouldbe applied extensively, above and beyond mineral

resources. Whichever legal interpretation may becorrect, this shows clearly in my opinion that theprogress made by UNCLOS in the governance ofthe oceans through implementation of the rules onthe Area is only valid for what was regarded asbeing important and urgent thirty years ago.

As regards jurisdictional zones, the basic functionof UNCLOS is to indicate which lawmaking andenforcement rights can be exercised by the coastalstate and which can be exercised by other states.Substantive principles are set forth unevenly, cover -ing only certain aspects in rather summary form,particularly as regards the protection of the marineenvironment and fisheries, while on other subjectsno indication as to substance is given. Similarly, asregards the high seas, UNCLOS basically refers to

the competence of the flag state in the area of law-making and enforcement activities, with the provisothat due regard needs to be paid to the exercise ofparallel rights by other states.

A similar example of uneven progress can be seenin the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement. This agree-ment combines law of the sea and international en -vironmental law concepts, introducing modern no -tions such as the ecosystem and the precautionaryapproaches. It applies, however, only to certainspecies, those belonging to straddling and highlymigratory stocks. What about high seas speciesnot belonging to these categories, such as “dis -crete” high seas stocks, that is to say fish stocksthat only occur in the high seas and that are oftenthe target of deep-sea fishing? The Review Confer -ence of the Agreement recommended in 2006 thatstates and Regional Fishery Management Organiza-tions (RFMOs) apply the UN Fish Stocks Agree-ment’s general principles to these stocks. This ofcourse limits the unevenness of the progressachieved as a result of the Fish Stocks Agreement.It does not eliminate it altogether, however, as ge -neral principles are not the same thing as a full-fledged regime, and because their extension todiscrete fish stocks is set out in a recommendatoryinstrument.

THE ROAD TOWARDS ENHANCED OCEAN

GOVERNANCE AND PITFALLS TO BE AVOIDED

Politics being the art of the possible, it seems clearthat the road toward enhanced ocean governancemust be pursued notwithstanding the above men-tioned limitation, perhaps in the expectation thatstates will slowly realize that their political disincli-nation to consider matters straddling their jurisdic -tional areas does not, in the long run, best servetheir interests. Consequently, progress that is rea-sonable to expect in the foreseeable future con-cerns the high seas.

The main subjects that are currently considered ur -gent and on which activities are being undertakenare the following:

A) Fisheries. The fight against Illegal, Unreportedand Unregulated Fishing (IUUF) requires furtherinitiatives. Various such initiatives have been under-taken by FAO after the adoption of the Code ofConduct for responsible fisheries and the Plan ofAction to prevent IUUF. Specifically, these concernthe guidelines for deep-sea fishing in the highseas, the binding instrument for port state enforce-ment, the studies on the responsibilities of the flagstate of fishing vessels, on the use of Vessel Moni-toring Systems (VMS) and on the establishment ofa comprehensive global record of fishing vessels.

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Some of these initiatives, such as the guidelines on deep-sea fisheries, have reached or are near -ing their conclusion as, hopefully, the bindinginstrument on port-state control. Others are at thebeginning, such as the work on flag state perfor-mance.

To be effective all these initiatives must be imple-mented at the regional and the national level.Action in the Regional Fisheries Management Or -ga nizations, essential to implement global instru-ments, has sometimes preceded consideration bythe UN General Assembly and action at the globallevel by FAO. The key role exercised by RFMOs isstarting to raise political objections by states thatare not parties (or cooperating non-parties) to them,as they object to being bound directly or indirectlyby decisions of entities they do not belong to andin which they have difficulty in becoming parties asthis would give clout to their desire for quotas. Atthe national level, the differences in developmentare very important and action to take into accountthe particular situation of developing countries isneeded.

B) Bioprospecting and genetic resources. The complexity of the problems involved, straddling asthey do many aspects of the law of the sea and ofthe law of bio-diversity, the alleged prospect of hugeeconomic returns, and the emergence of polarizedpositions reminiscent of those that dominated thestage when the regime of polymetallic nodules be -gan to be discussed in the sixties and seventies,makes this the most “fashionable” sea law problemof the present. Notwithstanding claims by otherorganizations, such as the International SeabedAuthority, the General Assembly has kept the dis-cussion within the UN framework by convening

an ad hoc Informal Working Group in 2006 and2008 that is slowly making progress with identifying issues and positions. Will this be the beginning ofa process comparable to that brought to the ThirdUN Conference for the law of the sea?

C) Pollution and the preservation of the marine environment. Conventions intended to prevent marine pollution and concerning matters such asthe introduction of alien species into particularparts of the marine environment, require, more thannew instruments, the will of states to accept andimplement them. The IMO Convention on ballastwaters is a very good example. Despite the impor -t ance of pollution from land-based sources havingbeen recognized, the various international initiativeswhich have been taken have yet to yield decisiveresults. Modern concepts such as the Environmen-tal Impact Assessments, the precautionary principleand the ecosystem approach must be used moreextensively than was the case, in particular, whenthe Mediterranean and Baltic regional conventionswere revised. New problems are emerging such aspollution by ocean noise.


D) Climate change. The impact of climate changeon the oceans requires study and action. Talkingabout the consequences of Arctic ice melting re -presents the beginning of such discussion, as doestalk about carbon sequestration and iron fertilizationof sea areas.

E) Other new uses. Uses for the purposes of car-bon sequestration, or prospects of the exploitationof undersea gas hydrates may in the future requireefforts to develop governance.

This – undoubtedly incomplete – indication of theareas in which efforts to broaden ocean govern -ance must be developed or may be directed showthat such efforts will in all likelihood be separateand un even, as they have been since the adoptionof UNCLOS. This prospect probably being unavoid -able, some basic orientation should neverthelessbe followed in order to avoid pitfalls. Attempts toachieve progress on one issue should not bringdisorder and regress in others or in the law of thesea as a whole.

First, UNCLOS should be maintained as the basicframework for all action concerning the law of thesea. To include in every new instrument a statementthat the instrument should be interpreted in the con -text of UNCLOS and that it should not prejudicethe rights and obligations under UNCLOS shouldbe more than mere political lip service. It should beseen as a legal requirement necessary for the con-sistency and unity of the law of the sea.

Second, multilateral cooperative approaches shouldbe given preference over unilateral approaches.While it is true that unilateral initiatives have in some

cases triggered the development of new rules, itcannot be forgotten that unilateralism often bringsabout conflict and tension.

Third, it must be kept in mind that global approachesare preferable for global problems and regionalapproaches are preferable for regional problems.Approaching global problems regionally – unlessthe aim is to implement global rules - may amountto a coordinated form of unilateralism jeopardizingthe unity of the law of the sea. The EuropeanUnion’s approach to ocean governance shouldseek a balanced position in this regard.

Fourth, legal techniques should be utilized thatfavor the rule of law. Clear language, rejection ofreservations, and strict and efficient provisions forthe settlement of disputes, including unilateral re -course to international judges and arbitrators, shouldbe among the tools normally resorted to. The currenttrend toward also utilizing the dispute-settlementmechanism of UNCLOS for disputes concerningother law of the sea agreements and conventionsshould be encouraged as favoring the unity of thelaw of the sea. Overlapping competences in institu-tions should be avoided and coordination betweenthem enhanced. This does not mean that only trea-ties and other binding instruments should be con -sidered. Well-drafted non-binding instruments canhave beneficial effects and avoid the slow pace ofnegotiation, entry into force and achievement ofbroad acceptance that sometimes thwarts treatiesand conventions.

RISKS AND POTENTIAL CONFLICTS

The development of initiatives aimed at extendingocean governance is not devoid of risks and may

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entail conflicts. While the basic guidelines set outabove, if followed by the international community,should reduce the risks and help avoid conflicts, itappears useful to try to specify the kind of risksand conflicts we are talking about. Of course, up toa certain point, the very distinction between risksand conflicts is artificial as most risks may bringconflict, and conflict is in itself a risk. Keeping thisin mind, it seems expedient to mention some risksand some potential conflicts.

One risk inherent to all action aimed at extendinggovernance to certain marine issues is that suchextension may be achieved too late. This is particu-larly evident as regards efforts to combat pollutionor IUU fishing. However, it seems clear that thispossibility also exists as regards the impact of climate change on the oceans.

A second risk to be avoided is that of jeopardizingimportant principles in order to cope with new pro-blems that are seen as urgent. The principle mostat risk seems to be that of the freedom of the highseas. It is threatened by pressure to introduce ex -ceptions in order to deal with violence at sea, withthe traffic of drugs, with the smuggling of migrants,with the transport of weapons of mass destruction,with the use of ships for purposes of terrorism, with the use of ships by organized crime, with theuse of substandard ships. The sum total of excep -tions, if accepted – this has not yet happened asthe resistance of many states is strong – may throwthe very principle into question. The consequencesmay have a destabilizing effect on the law of thesea and, possibly, on world peace.

A third risk is associated with the fact that many newproblems do not require a “pure” law of the seaapproach, as they have components that bring intothe discussion values and concepts belonging toother sectors of international law, such as humanrights law, the law of international trade, and, ofcourse, environmental law. To reconcile these ap -proaches and values, whose legitimacy is in mostcases undisputed, with the needs of the law of thesea is one of the challenges of the present and thefuture. From the viewpoint of the law of the sea, therisk is that some of its basic tenets may be jeopar-dized by the priority given to other values and con-cepts. In the event that these problems are broughtbefore a judge or arbitrator, judges accustomed todealing with issues relating to the law of the sea willhave a natural – and legal – tendency to see thequestions in the context of the law of the sea, whilethe contrary will happen (as in the recent Medveyevcase before the European Court of Human Rights)if the judge is installed by a treaty adopting a differ -ent approach and values.

The road toward developing ocean governance isfraught with potential conflicts. I will not mentionthose deriving from specific geographical or politi-cal situations. It appears more interesting to indicatesome potential conflicts that may hamper the de -velopment of new legal instruments and institutions.These are not new – as they have characterized theroad toward past developments – but it seems use-ful not to forget them.

One such conflict already alluded to is that betweenmultilateralism and unilateralism. Unilateral actionmay be seen a convenient shortcut to affirming cer-tain values, but only multilateral action, with all itsdifficulties and slowness, can produce the agreedsolution that will develop governance of the oceans.

Next, one must mention what Professor Oxman, inan essay in 2006, labelled the “territorial temptation”,namely the tendency of many states to extend theirsovereignty, or sovereign rights and jurisdiction,beyond the limits accepted in UNCLOS. This con-cerns the geographical limits as well as the limits toexercising the coastal states’ powers. Although itcan be seen as the continuation of a trend of whichUNCLOS is the major manifestation, this tendencyseems not to take into account the risks it entailsfor the balance between the different interests thatare present in activities in the seas. The conflict between the “territorial temptation” and the need to main tain the balance set out in UNCLOS will in evitably characterize, as indeed it already is doing,all discussions on ocean governance.

Last, one must refer to the conflict between leavingdisputes and conflicts to “power politics” and sub-mitting them to mechanisms for their managementand settlement. The experience of the Third Law of the Sea Conference has shown that robust dis-pute-settlement mechanisms are particularly usefulin the law of the sea. Still, the temptation alwayspresent in major powers to keep their distancefrom judges and arbitrators, coupled with the same


temptation on the part of totalitarian and inward-looking states, may jeopardize the conquests ofUNCLOS at every step of future development.

CONCLUDING REMARKS: THE PROTAGONISTS

OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF OCEAN GOVERNANCE

States, as the main subjects of international law,are undoubtedly the protagonists of all present and future efforts to extend ocean governance. Newrules and institutions must be adopted by them andmany aspects of implementation require efforts to bepursued within the domestic legal systems of states.

Nonetheless, states are not the sole protagonistsof current efforts, as certainly they will not be theonly protagonists of future developments. In thecon text of governance it is fashionable to talk about“stakeholders”. These are all entities, includingnon-state entities, who have a stake in a particularsubject. We must mention, in particular, intergov -ern mental organizations, non-governmental organi-zations (NGOs), the interested industries and labororganizations, and the scientific community. All thesenon-state actors have a very important role to play.

Intergovernmental organizations are set up bystates and depend on the collective will of themember states. Still, they develop a will distinctfrom that of their member states, can bring aboutcooperation between states, and pursue studiesthat focus on new problems. Moreover, their secre-tariats take seriously non-binding decisions takenby states. They are the main framework withinwhich constructive action may develop.

Non-governmental organizations are forms of orga n -ized civil society pursuing the most disparate inter -ests. Those of particular relevance to ocean govern -ance are NGOs pursuing general interests, inparticular the protection of the environment, of bio-diversity and of sustainable development. They arethe link which connects the scientific community and,in some cases, industry, with governments. They playan important role by putting new subjects on theagenda, by supporting solutions they consider to bein the public interest and by opposing those they be lieve are not. They may be helpful in persuadingthe domestic public and politicians to promote or op -pose certain initiatives and in acting as watchdogs tomonitor the correct implementation of new policies.Industry, together with labor organizations, some -times plays a similar role to NGOs, for instance infocussing the attention of governments on newresources or technologies. Sometimes industrycounter-balances the idealism displayed by govern-ments by addressing the economic and social conse-quences of an action and its technical feasibility.

Finally, the scientific community is the source of thegreatest input in the process that identifies newquestions which may concern dangers, risks andnew resources. In some cases it even precedesstates in developing a regulatory framework, forinstance by adopting codes of conduct for scientificactivities in particularly sensitive areas.The development of a harmonious interaction be -tween state and non-state stakeholders is essentialfor the harmonious development of ocean govern -ance.

The freedom of the

high seas


Panel DiscussionSaving the Oceans: What Needs to be Done?

Caspar Henderson, ModeratorJournalist, Oxford, UK

Paul F. Nemitz, Kick-off Head of Maritime Policy Development and Coordina tion,European Commission, Brussels, Belgium

Professor Colin Devey Deputy Director, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences,IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Professor Martin Visbeck Deputy Director, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences,IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Professor Daniel Pauly Director, Fisheries Centre, Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory (AERL), The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Dr. Agustín Blanco-BazánSenior Deputy Director, UN International MaritimeOrganization (IMO), London, UK

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The panel discussion between Paul Nemitz, Headof Maritime Policy Development and Coordinationat the European Commission, and the four chairmenof the afternoon breakout sessions, Martin Visbeckand Colin Devey – both Deputy Directors of theLeibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, IFM-GEOMARin Kiel –, Daniel Pauly, Director of the FisheriesCentre at the Aquatic Ecosystems Research Labo-ratory of the University of British Columbia in Van-couver, and Agustín Blanco-Bazán, Senior DeputyDirector at the UN International Maritime Organi -zation in London focused on the need for immediateand future action. After introductory remarks byPaul Nemitz, the chairmen of the breakout sessionshighlighted some of their major concerns whichthey liked to discuss in greater detail later in theworking groups.

For those of us who work in the policy-making area,the key challenge is to progress from good ideasand good scientific advice to real action – we needto enforce the declarations we adopted and thelaws we passed and make them change the real

world, said Paul Nemitz in his introductory remarks.The Marine Strategy Framework Directive of theEU, which is in fact a directive for the protection of the marine environment, came into force on July 15, 2008 and is the environmental pillar of theIntegrated European Maritime Policy which aims to provide a coherent framework for concertedmaritime governance. This is a start, said Nemitz,and the rules are in place, but now comes thephase in which we have failed more often than notin the past – particularly as regards the CommonFisheries Policy, but also in relation to many aspi -rations enshrined in the United Nations Conventionon the Law of the Seas – namely the phase ofimplementation and enforcement. What we willneed in the future to achieve real impact is muchmore than just natural science advice and politicalsupport, he believes; we will need good econo-mists to analyze the economic incentives whichspur governments and individuals into action,because what we are talking about in this room ishow to regulate and influence people’s willingnessto engage.


Nemitz also pointed out that the Commission willonly be able to bring about a change in attitude if itfocuses not on ocean protection alone but also onthe sustainable use of ocean resources, becausepeople have lived off the seas for centuries and willcontinue to have to do so. Millions of people makea living from coastal and marine tourism, for exam-ple, yet marine tourism suffers if the sea is polluted,if algae is prevalent and if dead fish or seals can beseen floating belly-up on the surface. We need tobuild a coalition for the oceans which includes allstakeholders. That is the philosophy of the IntegratedMaritime Policy which the EU Commission is tryingto drive forward in Europe; indeed, it is the philo so -phy inspired by the preamble of the United NationsConvention on the Law of the Sea, which says wemust regard the sea as one, which means we haveto include the actors who make money. Looking atthe oceans as one also means that we have to lookat it across borders and across disciplines, andthat we have to see risks and opportunities toget-her rather than only the risks. We need to involvenot only the experts but also the general public.

We have a governance challenge in Europe, Nemitzstated, because we will either not succeed in puttingour aspirations and ambitions into practice or wewill encounter conditions which make it difficult forthe law to cover a sufficient geographic area. In theMediterranean, for example, we face the problemthat the member states of the European Union donot have exclusive economic zones. This meansthat EU law – the directive on the protection of themarine environment, for instance, or the EU fisherieslaw – only applies in principal to the twelve milezone, beyond which one finds oneself in internation -al waters. Managing the high seas within the systemof international law requires consensus, and reachingthis consensus is very difficult. So it may be betterto extend the zones of responsibility in the Mediter-ranean by giving the coastal states ownership oftheir resources, because ownership automaticallyentails responsibility. Paul Nemitz’s last remark addressed one of the keyissues of the European Union, the Common Fisher -ies Policy. Why is it so important for the EuropeanUnion to get the Common Fisheries Policy right, he

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asked. First of all, because it is one of the fewexclusive competences of the European Union. Ifwe don’t get this policy right, it casts doubt onmore than just our ability to deal with fisheries.After a first reform in 2002, the EU is beginninganother reform of the Common Fisheries Policy asone of the keys to ocean sustainability. And we arecalling on everybody, on scientists and actors andcivil society, to support us in this. Do not give usonly your ideas relating to legal regimes and scien-tific models but also your best and second bestideas on what can work in practice in an environ-ment in which there is likely to be limited willing-ness to enforce even in the future. It is important inthis area to start thinking within a system which willnever be perfect, Nemitz concluded, finishing withan invitation for a broad dialogue.

Colin Devey started the discussion by pointing outthat there is no such thing as a pristine ocean andby asking how we want the oceans to look in thefuture. If you were to look at the way the earth wasseveral hundred thousands years ago, you wouldfind that the Alps would look quite different, that anAlpine pasture would not be at all the same as it isnowadays, that Lübeck would not resemble the citywe see today. It is simply a fact that humankind hasmade decisions about how to use the land. Whatwe need to do for the oceans is to think about howwe want them to look in the future. We are goingto change the ecosystem whatever happens; theproblem is that we are doing it by default at pre-sent, without really controlling our actions – so letus give this some thought.

Martin Visbeck endorsed Paul Nemitz’s request forconcerted action on the part of all stakeholders, i.e.

for a joint endeavor of regulatory bodies, business,natural and social scientists, and environmentalorganizations aimed at observing and exploring theoceans in a realistic way and establishing a com-prehensive ocean information system. As naturalscientists, he says, we are used to taking thingsapart in order to understand how they work, but areutterly lost when it comes to policy and what itmeans to take up stewardship. Quite often we stoponce we have discovered how things work andthen pass the buck to somebody else. We need tounderstand how the ocean is behaving now andhow it is changing, and I think we should be in thisresearch altogether.

Daniel Pauly, in his capacity as the Director of theFisheries Center at the University of British Colum-bia, complained about the worldwide overfishing ofthe oceans. Although this has manifested itself in acontinually diminishing catch of fish throughout theworld since the late eighties, this is not noticed inthe rich countries of the west because they com-pensate for declining catches by increasing


imports. The EU countries, for example, get thebulk of their fish from outside of the EU – Spainimports around 65% of its fish consumption, whileGermany imports more than 70%. This also appliesto Japan and to the USA. It is the developing world,on the other hand, which suffers from overfishedoceans. According to the WTO, about 34 billiondollars a year are given as subsidies to fisheries.Of these, about 20 billion dollars are capacityenhancing; in other words, they contribute todepleting fishing stocks that are already on thedemise, that are already heavily overfished. Themajor donors of these bad capacity enhancing sub-sidies are East Asia and Europe. This certainly isnot the way to ensure sustainability, Pauly said,adding that it is up to the EU to go ahead and set agood example, because what is happening in Asiais very often done by firms that do not have suffi-cient scientific knowledge and do not know what

they are doing, while here in Europe we have noshortage of scientific information about the state of our oceans. Thus the west should take the leadwhen it comes to saving the oceans’ biodiversity.

Agustín Blanco-Bazán pointed out that shipping isonly responsible for some 10% of total marine envi-ronment pollution, while 90% is due to land-basedsources. While shipping is essentially international,i.e. you can regulate every aspect of internationalnavigation with international treaties issued by inter-national maritime organizations, land-based sour-ces of pollution are national and not regulated byinternational treaties. The same is true if you look atCO2 emissions: CO2 emissions from shipping amountto just 11% of total CO2 emissions incriminating themarine environment. These imbalances are at the coreof potential conflicts between international navi -gation and national coastal management.

Respect and preserve as a

part of nature


Working Group 1 – 4Working Group 1Oceans as a Global Source of Resources?

Working Group 2Oceans and Climate Change: Consequences and Actions

Working Group 3Habitat Ocean: How to Save the Ocean’s Biodiversity

Working Group 4Navigating the Oceans: Transport Security, Transport Technology, and Maritime Infrastructures

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WORKING GROUP 1 – SUMMARY Oceans as a Global Source of Resources?

Summary by Professor Colin Devey and Dr. Kirsten Schäfer

Chair: Colin Devey, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Speakers: Mary H. Feeley, ExxonMobil Exploitation CompanyHouston, TX, USAPaul Holtus, World Ocean Council, Honolulu, HI,USAAlexander Proelss, Walther-Schücking-Institute forInternational Law, Christian-Albrechts-University,Kiel, GermanyChristian Reichert, Federal Institute for Geosci-ences and Natural Resources (BGR), Hanover,Germany

After a brief introduction to the topic by ColinDevey, the speakers presented different aspects of marine resources and their use. Global marineresources addressed in this workshop were sea-floor resources and biological resources like themarine gene pool. Aspects of fisheries were dis-cussed in working group 3.

Christian Reichert gave an overview of marineenergy and mineral resources. Most of the gashydrate deposits fall under national jurisdiction. Forthose regions outside national waters, called the“Area”, UNCLOS was adopted in 1982 and cameinto force in November 1994. One of the three bodiesestablished by UNCLOS is the International Seabed

Authority (ISA). ISA is responsible for managingthe “Area” and finding appropriate regulations forthe exploitation of this common heritage of mankind.But the UNCLOS bodies are still in the initial phaseof their work. Thus, the consequences of their de -cisions and freshly formulated regulations will mostlikely take some years until they become effectiveand can be appraised. One of the main questionsis whether appropriate control over the seas andoceans is guaranteed and who will take measures ifthe rules are broken.

Alexander Proelss focussed in his talk onUNCLOS on the new uses of the sea – bio pro -spec ting and the exploitation and exploration of gas hydrates. Some unresolved questions remainconcerning the use of genetic information of organisms in the “Area”: 1. Organisms can be handled like mineral

resources and would fall under the ISA, or can fall under the “freedom of the seas” like fish.

2. To ensure open access to the genetic resources and sharing of benefits, they need to fall under the “Area” regulations.

3. The marine genetic resources, as derived characteristics, will most likely fall under intellectual property.

Proelss stressed that instruments need to be deve-loped to answer these questions. He outlined thatscience can provide tools to balance the differentinterests.

Mary Feeley described the oceans’ role in meetingenergy demands. Feeley presented a chart showingthe expected global energy demand, broken downaccording to the different energy sources. Only 8%


of the world’s potential hydrocarbons are expectedto be in the deeper marine areas. Exploration dataof coastal Nigeria from the 1960s to today revealsan obvious tendency toward exploration in deeperareas of the sea. To cover future energy demand,development of infrastructure and technology mustbe enforced. A group of hydro carbon companieswill be promoting a program of peer-reviewedresearch over the next few years.

Paul Holthus started by stating that mankind iswinning a few battles but is losing the war to securea sustainable future for the oceans. The globalocean is an interconnected “commons” for whicheveryone, and no one, is completely responsible –with little incentive for companies to take on sharedenvironmental issues, he said. Currently marine

environmental problems are addressed by govern-ment regulation, intergovernmental agencies and byadvocacy groups operating on a sector- or inci-dent-specific basis (e.g. trawling, oil spills) withlimited success, especially in areas beyond thereach of government enforcement. Some oceanindustries try to do business in a more environmen-tally sustainable way, but the efforts of a singlecompany or even a whole sector will not be enoughto address global, cumulative impacts of privatesector use of the ocean. At the same time, oceanmanagement regimes, such as Marine ProtectedAreas, are being determined by governments, inter-governmental bodies and NGOs in a variety of pro-cesses, often without coordinated, constructiveindustry participation.

Holthus highlighted the need for corporate oceanresponsibility that has to be proactive, global and

cross-sector. He presented the World OceanCouncil which seeks to develop sustainability andstewardship for the management of the oceans byinvolving all stakeholders. He announced a globalindustry summit in May 2009.

DISCUSSION

Colin Devey opened the discussions by askingthree questions:– Are the present mechanisms/bodies sufficient

to regulate ocean use?– What is sustainable use in terms of marine

mining and marine genetic resources?– Who should be responsible for the oceans?

The plenum agreed that present mechanisms are not sufficient to manage the ocean or the enormous pressure on the seafloor and the sea.The bodies need to be improved, yet it is not clearin which way. What is clear, however, is that thedeveloping countries, which in some cases are notrepresented in all decision-making processes dueto their lack of people with appropriate expertise,need to be fully involved in the discussions anddecisions. When thinking about the use of marineresources, consideration also has to be given tosocial issues. The benefits (and losses?) have tobe balanced between society, the economy and the environment.

To ensure sustainable use of the oceans the pre-cautionary principle may be relevant, although how this principle translates into law and what itslimits are is not clear. In most parts of the world thereversal of the burden of proof does not work. Inthis context Europe could serve as an example.

It was suggested that coastal states and mankindin general should take responsibility for the ocean.Every nation has an interest in saving the freedomof the sea. The Intergovernmental OceanographicCouncil (IOC) of the UN is one of several bodieswhich may be suited to convening the process.

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WORKING GROUP 2 – SUMMARY Oceans and Climate Change: Consequencesand Actions

Summary by Professor Martin Visbeck and Dr. Emanuel Söding

Chair: Martin Visbeck, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany

Speakers: Ralph F. Keeling, Scripps Institution of Oceano-graphy, University of California San Diego, CA,USAHartwig H. Kremer, Institute for Coastal ResearchGKSS, Geesthacht, GermanyTill Requate, Christian Albrechts University, Kiel,GermanyMarkku Wilenius, Allianz SE, Munich, Germany

INTRODUCTION

The theme of oceans and climate change has beensplit up into five topics: – Physical Challenges– Chemical Dimension– Coastal Dimension– Economic Perspective– The Private SectorThe main challenges mankind faces in the nearfuture are related to the sustainable supply of energy, water, and food, and to the protection ofthe environment. To achieve this, we need con -certed integrated management of these resources.Effective management requires a scientific con-sensus including prioritized action items that arecommunicated to decision-makers and politicians.

Science-based stewardship of the planet and itsoceans is critical.

Elisabeth Mann-Borghese: We have to save theoceans if we want to save ourselves

PHYSICAL CHALLENGES

CO2 emissions as the driving force of climatechange are a global factor, both on the emissionsand the climate impact side. Nevertheless, the ocean’s response is regionally complex and not allscientific data are globally uniform and comparable.The oceans regulate climate and have strong im -pacts on land. The recent IPCC report gives anexcellent account of the close interaction betweenthe ocean and the atmosphere.

As recent publications evidence, the observationalbasis for addressing long-standing questions, suchas changes in the thermoline circulation, is veryincomplete: necessary science is not yet beingdone.

Aside from inaction there are only two pathwaysavailable for responding to climate change: mitiga -tion and adaption. We need to understand andengage in both. As an immediate step, however, we need to sustain and improve the initial globalocean observation system to continuously monitorphysical, chemical and biological change in theocean.

CHEMICAL DIMENSION

The increase in atmospheric CO2 has now beendocumented for more than half a century, and therehas been a scientific consensus since the late1970s that this increase would significantly impact


global climate. In the course of research, many scenarios for changes with large societal problemshave been predicted. However, only marginal actionhas been taken.

The ocean is the most relevant factor for long-termCO2 uptake (followed by the terrestrial biosphere),and any attempt to influence the CO2 cycle musttake account of the ocean’s role. The absorption ofCO2 is causing the oceans to become more acidic,with profound effects on calcifying organisms. Anemergent topic is that the ocean oxygen in mid-depth tropical layers is likely to be reduced, withunknown consequences for ocean chemistry andlife.

In addition to the extended use of renewable energy sources, three mitigation strategies can bepursued: – CO2 may be captured and stored in sediment

formations. – Fertilization of surface waters with dissolved

iron could bind carbon in the form of biomass,

which will sink and stay on the ocean floor.– CO2 may be captured and deposited directly

into the deep ocean Some effects like acidification and oxygen deple -tion will affect the deep sea regardless of anyactions taken by humankind. Hence we should con-sider a trade-off between long-term global damageon the surface vs. locally restricted possible short-term damage in the deep sea.

COASTAL DIMENSION

Coastal zones represent a socio-ecological systemthat stretches along the water continuum includingriver catchments, ground water and shelf seas to the continental margins. Being influenced by oceanic, atmospheric, land-based and sea-bottomforcing factors, they are estimated to provide abouthalf of the global ecosystem’s goods and services.Since historical times coastal zones have been atrajectory of human development and now faceseveral challenging issues: accelerating populationpressure; management of local fisheries; land,ocean, and atmospheric pollution includingnutrients; invasion of alien species; acidification;sea level rise; flooding and erosion to name but afew. Many of these problems originate in globalprocesses and hence have to be solved on a globalscale. Others are local or regional. Governancestructures are therefore required to enable inform-ed management and policy decisions on the mostappropriate scales, i.e., the influences of globaliza-tion and related economic fluxes and feedbackscall for flexible response options.

Coastal vulnerability due to sea level change, a keysocietal concern, is affected not only by climateprocesses. Human interference in many locations

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such as deltas is an even stronger indication. Damming of river systems worldwide has increased the standing stock of natural water by more than900% since the 1950s. Similarly, sediment loads incoastal zones have been reduced by 1.4 BT sincehistorical times. These pressures, plus increasingcompaction of coastal lands due to ground waterabstraction, oil and gas exploitation and urbaniza -tion, exacerbate coastal vulnerability to storm surges and climate-driven sea level rise. By 2070,people and assets in large port cities, predominant-ly in developing economies, will face a 10 to 100fold increase in their risk of being exposed to thesort of flood that only occurs once a century.

The challenge is to make markets, governmentsand society work together in order to implement

sustainable management of the socio-ecologicaland life support system that includes coastal zonesand the open oceans. Joined-up thinking needs to be developed and informed by interdisciplinaryscience. The goal is to bridge the gap between thedifferent world views of political decision-makers,scientists, and actors/stakeholders.

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE

From an economic perspective, climate is a publicgood, or put differently, emissions of CO2 andother greenhouse gases are a public bad. Withoutintervention by governments there is no incentive to reduce emissions, so governments have to pro-vide incentives for emission abatement. Potentiallyeffective instruments are taxes on emissions andthe issuing of internationally tradable emission permits.

Estimates show that each additional ton of CO2 willcause marginal damage on mankind and the globaleconomy worth 30-50$. In other words, one tonless CO2 has an economic value of 30-50$. Thesecalculations have to be weighed against the costsof avoiding emissions. It is the difference betweenthese costs that can create a market for CO2 emis-sion certificates. Emission certificates are alreadytradable in the European Union. The current priceis roughly 24€ which is close to 34$ as estimatedabove. This indicates that the market is indeed aninstrument able to determine the price as the costvs. avoidance of CO2.

By contrast, additional intervention in the tradablepermit system such as paying feed-in-tariffs forrenewable energy is not efficient. Moreover, a sys-tem of tradable permits will only induce sufficient

CO2 reduction if all countries participate, since thereduction effort by a small group of countries suchas the European Union is likely to be offset by a“leakage effect”, meaning that our CO2 savingstrigger falling energy prices and thus higher emis -sions outside the EU. This illustrates the supra-national importance of CO2 certificates. We haveto realize that, since emissions are “global”, wehave to coordinate efforts globally, in order to allowcompanies to reduce emissions cost-effectively in one place and convert these savings into localemission certificates. This would allow a veryeffective globally steerable instrument for control-ling CO2 emissions.

PRIVATE SECTOR

20-50 year time frames are most relevant for insur -ance companies, as retirement funds and insur -ance certificates typically run for these terms. Thisis because this time frame is relevant within the lifetime of customers. In order to judge the risks for companies, it is important to understand howthe various elements interact: pollution, population,industry, food, resources. Today, climate changecontinues to challenge insurers, as average insuredlosses are growing (shifting baselines). This hasthree underlying reasons: A) the global economyowns more commodities and goods; B) moreassets are being insured against catastrophicevents; C) the total number and intensity of catas-trophic events is rising. Currently, the insuranceindustry faces the problem that it is very hard, if not impossible, to assess the risk of catastrophicevents with sufficient accuracy. The governing systems are not well enough known.

It is recommended to agree on regulations on aninternational basis, and to get public and intergo-vernmental institutions to work together and comeup with internationally binding policies.

AUDIENCE STATEMENTS:

“We have a global climate crisis on our hands. All mitigation options need to be on the table toassess their merit, including less acceptable options such as CO2 sequestration in the deepsea. It may turn out to be a bad option, but perhapsit is the least bad one.” Ralph Keeling

“Is the technology for CO2 sequestration sufficient-ly developed for it to be used without too muchimpact? I cannot advise my government as there is no consensus among scientists.” A voice fromAfrica

“We must recognize that millions of years of evolu-tion and fine tuning got us to where we are with afunctioning environment. We should do no harm

and protect the natural systems. Especially if wedon’t know how to put them back together again.”Sylvia Earl

“Before we start ‘ocean engineering’ we should beclear about how we want the ocean to look likeafterwards (park, farming). Inform people about thebest solutions, and not give orders that are toopolitical or conflicting.”

“How to save mankind: We need to provide com-munities with as much information as we can. Weneed to try to understand the system better andinform policy makers.”

“Take it personal, start with your personal engage-ment. Politicians will follow what people ask for.“

“We can’t afford to scientifically research the con-sequences in full. We need quick action, indepen-dent of full knowledge.”

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

– Preserve existing (eco)systems, influence current systems with great care.

– Promote mitigation, but prepare for adaption.– Promote better public awareness.– Inform the policy cycle at all stages and

consider the relevant scales.– Ensure economic regulation by states.– Create efficient instruments such as tradable

permits to guarantee that scarce resources lead to maximum avoidance of CO2 emissions.

– Continuously improve the laws of the sea.– Introduce better ocean observing system to

improve data.– Ensure stable funding for long term

observatories.


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WORKING GROUP 3 – SUMMARYHabitat Ocean: How to Save the Ocean’s Biodiversity

Summary by Professor Daniel Pauly and Dr. Martina Zeller

Chair: Daniel Pauly, Fisheries Centre, Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Speakers: Antje Boetius, Max Planck Institute for MarineMicrobiology, Bremen, GermanyJochen Deerberg, Deerberg Systems, Oldenburg,GermanyJohn M. Fentis, Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Long Beach, CA, USAReinhold Leinfelder, Natural Science Museum,Humboldt University Berlin, GermanyRichard C. Murphy, Jean-Michel Cousteau’sOcean Futures Society, Santa Barbara, CA, USAAlfred Schumm, Marine Programme, World WideFund for Nature (WWF), Hamburg, Germany

Richard C. Murphy presented an overview of thebiodiversity and ecological processes of coral reefsand the threats they face. A reef is like a city witharchitects and builders (the corals), farms and ener-gy producers (algae), lawn mowers (herbivores),sanitation engineers and air conditioners (sea cu -cumbers and sponges) and many collaborative part -nerships (symbiotic cleaners), Murphy illustrated.Collectively this biodiversity creates a dynamic com -munity with resilience sufficient to avoid phase shifts.

To protect biodiversity in coral reefs, marine protect -ed areas (MPAs) could provide the local component,while the use of alternative energies would providethe global component. Education and the raising ofawareness are also important in this context.

Reinhold Leinfelder talked about coral reefs from ageological perspective in an attempt to identify“what can be learned from the past”. There is evi-dence from the earth’s history that coral reefs canrecover from mass extinction events. Corals existsince about 500 million years, coral-rich reefs sincemore than 450 million years. Reefs thrived underelevated runoff, elevated water temperatures andpartially high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels,and they even survived major extinction episodes.Thus, are the reefs more robust than we think?After all, the world was and is always changing. Isour view too short-termed and do we overestimatethe threats for coral reefs, maybe even for biodiver-sity as a whole? Could it be that reefs have enough„adaptational power“ to recover again despite envi-ronmental changes, Leinfelder asked. On the otherhand is the geological time scale so different fromthe human time scale that one cannot count onsuch recoveries. Action has to be taken now toreduce CO2 emissions, to stop overfishing, and toprotect both partially damaged and healthy reefs.

Alfred Schumm addressed the threats to oceanbiodiversity posed by overfishing, habitat destruc -tion by bottom trawling, shipping and tourism. Toprotect marine species and habitats, a minimum of30 % of the ocean and 90 % of mangroves shouldbe covered by MPAs. Also, fisheries should landtheir by-catch, and it should be counted towardtheir quota.


Antje Boetius focused in her talk on diversity andchange in the deep oceans. The deep ocean isthreatened by warming, reduced levels of O2, changesin deep currents, acidification, a decline in sedi-mentation rates and deep-water fisheries. A greatchallenge to any plans of deep ocean use, pro -tect ion and management is the limited of knowledgeon ecosystem diversity and distribution. Ocean ob -servation of the past 20 years shows enormousvariations and dynamics of processes and struc -tures even at the greatest ocean depths – but thedetection of anthropogenic influences on the deepecosystem remains difficult because the baselinesare unknown and long-term observation is scarce.An incredibly scary idea, demonstrating the lack ofresponsibility of present day societies, is the lossof biodiversity before it was ever known, she said.Action should be taken along the lines of “knowingthe unknown”, observing natural variations spatiallyand temporally, performing risk assessments of po -tential impacts and solving the complicated con-ceptual and legal issues related to the use andmanagement of the high seas and deep ocean.

John M. Fentis talked about pelagic plastic marinedebris and its impact on the marine environment.Many species are threatened by plastic: particlesget stuck in the digestive tracts of fish and sea-birds, for example, while larger debris can stranglebirds, reptiles and mammals, and chemicals re -leased from plastics (DDT, PCBs, PAHs) inducemalformations and injuries. Thus the oceans mustbe cleaned up; where necessary, adequate techno-logies for this have to be developed. Further, properdisposal and/or recycling of plastics should helpreduce debris in the oceanic environment.

Jochen Deerberg gave an overview of the innova -tive waste management and environmental achieve-ments of the cruise ship industry. Highly integratedwaste management systems can be used to treat all the waste on board the vessels. The availabilityof such technology on the vessels of a given cruise line could become a criterion for discerningpassengers. Stricter rules and better control andenforcement by governments working collaborative-ly with the cruise ship industry, the shipyards andcivil society will enable the cruise ship industry toreduce its environmental footprint.

The subsequent discussion of working group 3 con -centrated on the ‘grey waters’ of cruise and cargoships, biodiversity in coral reefs and over fishing.

Grey water is a major issue for cruise and cargoshipping, as it continues to be dumped into theocean despite the fact that it is often more pollut -

ing than ‘black water’. Technologies for grey watertreatment exist, but will probably be ignored until itsuse is legislated. In this context it was pointed outhow difficult it is to push cruise line companies toclean the water from their ship, as illustrated by theenforcement of the Alaska route regulations.

Returning to the topic of coral reef biodiversity, thegroup discussed the bottom-up and top-down pro-cesses, as well as the external processes (such asincreased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) whichimpact on coral reefs. To maintain coral reef func tion,all of these processes and the related problems mustbe addressed simultaneously. At the local level, ifoverfishing can be reduced (e.g. by fishermen find ingalternative livelihoods and/or by establishing MPAs),then experience shows that coral reefs can recover.

Working group 3 also focused on the issues ofoverfishing, in coral reefs and generally. One par -ticipant answered ‘yes’ to the question of whether“we can feed people from the ocean”. This wasbased on the notion that improved managementwould rebuild fish populations and hence allow for larger catches. Improved management wouldalso eliminate the discarding of by-catch, redirect ingto humans species such as anchovies and othersmall pelagic fishes now used as feed for farmedcarnivorous fish such as salmon. However, evendoing all of these good things would not provideenough fish for a growing human population with agrowing taste for fish and increasing in comes. Thiscannot be achieved by aquaculture, either. Two-thirds of aquaculture production occurs in China;the last third, serving the rest of the world, includingEurope, comprises predominantly the farming ofcarnivorous fish, whose production consumes morefish (as feed) than they themselves contribute. Thisform of aquaculture, while it can be economicallyprofitable, cannot therefore ‘feed the world’.

Finally, Daniel Pauly gave a wrap-up presentationon major issues in fisheries with an emphasis onthe work done by the Sea Around Us project todocument IUU (illegal, unregulated and unreport -ed) catches. He suggested that, while illegal catches and discarded by-catch are now receivinglots of attention, the systematic neglect of small-scale fisheries by government has led to their sub-stantial catch often remaining undocumented. Thishas caused us to overlook the only fisheries which,in the long term, may survive the present crisis.Indeed, small-scale fisheries, using passive gearand exploiting coastal stock, may already have anecological advantage over large, fuel-guzzling andhabitat-destroying trawl fisheries, and thus offer away out of the present crisis of fisheries.

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WORKING GROUP 4 – SUMMARY Navigating the Oceans: Transport Security, Trans-port Technology, and Maritime Infrastructures

Summary by Dr. Augustín Blanco-Bazán, Professor James J. Corbett, and Ulrike Bernitt

Chair: Augustín Blanco-Bazán, Senior Deputy Director,UN International Maritime Organization (IMO), London, UK

Speakers: Sverre Alvik, Det Norske Veritas, Hoevik, Oslo,NorwayJames J. Corbett, Marine Policy Program, College of Marine and Earth Studies, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USAHermann J. Klein, Germanischer Lloyd AG, Hamburg, GermanyRalph Rayner, Ocean.US, U.S. National Office for Integrated and Sustained Ocean Observation, Silver Spring, MD, USAHarald Kuznik, Global Head of Shipping, HSHNordbank AG, Hamburg, GermanyStephan Wrage, SkySails GmbH & Co. KG, Hamburg, Germany

After a brief introduction to the topic by AgustínBlanco-Bazán, the speakers presented differentaspects of ocean navigation for the purposes oftransportation:

James Corbett gave an overview of ocean shippingand global responsibility from an historical per-spective. He stressed that navigation has always

served society and global civilization and hasalways been strongly connected with nature and aduty to society.

The movement of goods and products from originto market is intrinsically coupled to the environmentthrough economic geography. Changes in the useof power from wind to steam and fossil fuel oil haveresulted in savings of time, route length, costs,cargo space and crew. The movement of goods isclosely related to economic growth. Corbett gavethe working group a broad summary of environ -mental issues relating to shipping and of challengesthe industry is facing.

Harald Kuznik stressed in his talk that banks onlyfinance ships – it is the shipping companies thatoperate the ships. Nonetheless, it is extremelyimportant for the bank that ships are operated cost-effectively. This includes ensuring that the ship isoperated safely in accordance with the principlesof good quality management (good maintenanceetc.) and in line with the relevant shipping regula -


tions. The bank thus has a vital interest in quality.The bank itself can provide incentives by means ofthe rating procedure, as it does not base the loanprovision solely on quantitative methods but canalso take qualitative aspects into consideration.

Hermann Klein started by stressing that pollutioncaused by ships is due to the need for transporta -tion rather than by the vessels themselves. Heremarked that shipping is the most environmentallyfriendly way to transport freight. He showed thatefficiency improvements are of key importance.While the focus in the past was on cargo optimiza-tion, energy efficiency is now becoming more of anissue. He presented examples of how to improvethe efficiency of shipping. In this regard, globallyenforced environmental regulations are of particu-lar importance. He closed his talk by providing anoverview of trends in shipping (i.e. less crew, big-ger vessels).

Stephan Wrage presented wind propulsion tech -niques for cleaner shipping. The peak oil has beenreached and prices for oil are increasing. The useof kites as an additional source of power on shipsis one possible way to reduce emissions and costs.Stephan Wrage described the system components,the pilot customers and the operational results.Nowadays, wind power can only be a supplementa-ry source of energy in shipping, yet it is nonethe-less an efficient part of the CO2 solution.

Sverre Alvik presented a roadmap for reducedCO2 emissions. He stressed that the industry itselfhas to take action, as otherwise regulators outsideshipping will define the required environmental pro-tection measures. More shipping and the relocation

of cargo from air and road to ships is part of thesolution. He showed that business as usual is notan option and introduced different scenarios foremission reduction measurements. A fuel shift isneeded to achieve CO2 targets. Besides techno logydevelopment, logistic and operational improvementsare essential. Targets will only be achieved if thereis a concerted effort on the part of all the industry’skey stakeholders.

Ralph Rayner showed in his talk that the Arctic isthe region with the most rapid rise in mean tempe-rature and is a region that is experiencing unprece-dented changes. The Arctic is the focus of diverseand increasing interests, such as of the offshore oil and gas and the mineral industries, tourism, fisheries and research activities. All these activities

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are related to shipping. Hand in hand with thisincrease in shipping activity go safety, security andenvironmental protection risks. There is a lack ofany suitable Arctic infrastructure. Ralph Raynerstressed that more cooperation in the region isurgently needed.

DISCUSSION

The discussion reflected different aspects raised inthe talks. The following points were most intensive-ly discussed: – Interrelation of innovations and environmental

regulations– Relation of industry growth, environmental

impact and optimization– Performance possibilities– Future patterns of trade– Efficiency– Legal possibilities of Arctic protection– Quality in shipping

OUTCOME

– Ship efficiency has to be redefined in environ-mental terms (external effects have to be included).

– The CO2 issue demands further regulation and implementation of new techniques in the shipping sector within a short period of time.

– Shipping has not achieved its full potential. A great deal of optimization is still possible – also in governance.

– Joint action / stronger cooperation is needed to meet climate and environmental targets.

– Industry growth is greater than its achievements in terms of optimization.

– A fuel switch is needed to meet climate targets.

Efficiency and technology development are of keyimportance. Environmental regulations must pro -mote improvement activities to bring about a fuelswitch.

In his final summary for the plenary session, JamesCorbett pointed to the fact that shipping has forcenturies responded slowly to the demands of aglobalizing economy. The role of innovation in ship-ping has until recently favored advances in power,size, speed, and other technologies – and the ratesof growth in shipping (in terms of all freight modes)have been greater than the rates of growth in mostother sectors and in the global economy as a whole.This makes the ability of shipping (and freight generally) to carry its own weight a unique challenge.In short, what for some time was regard ed as bestpractice is no longer sufficient. And the industry iscoming to realize that no action is not an option.

The relationship between shipping and the environ-ment is changing. In the days of sailing ships, thesea was a wondrous and threatening place in whichnature was ever-present. In recent decades techno-logy has seen ships become larger, motoriz ed, and


safer. Currently, shipping is becoming more awareof measures that give greater con sidera tion to envi-ronmental issues. The group discussed the traditio-nal and emerging ways in which ship efficiency ismeasured – the ability to move goods to a reliableschedule is now joined by concerns for energy effi-ciency and reduced environmental impact. Ship-ping is concerned with optimization. The industryremains focused on cost-effectiveness – from itsown perspective and in terms of the resourcesfrom which it secures financing.

However, the industry is becoming more consciousof its responsibility toward the oceans and the environment. It is responding by looking for newways to innovate or adopt advanced technologies.The group discussed how some future perfor-mance possibilities are being driven by market forces, and how regulation is required to motivateother performance requirements. Example: recentpolicy action to require fuel switching in shippingunder the IMO convention is driving forward avariety of new technologies that otherwise wouldnot have been seriously considered. The wind-assist technologies of sky sails has become morewelcomed by the industry as it recognizes the challenge of making cleaner more costly fuels areality in the next decades. The discussion coveredthe role of policy as well as the role of law in re -sponding to known inventions and in inspiringnecessary changes.

This would be a rather traditional innovation path-way if not for the realization that shipping demandis derived from international trade. Shipping devel -ops along a pathway not entirely defined by its own

vision. Given the volatility in the industry, and theanticipated changes in financing new ships, therewas significant discussion about the shifting pat-terns of trade that will or might occur. For example,the discussion focused on the potential for newroutes to emerge along the Arctic region, at leastseasonally. There was general consensus that legalregimes would provide (or will need to provide)significant controls on Arctic shipping.

It was recognized that even a modest increase inArctic shipping (tourism, extraction, and transit)would likely increase the risk to the environment.More broadly, the future patterns of trade (whetheror not new routes emerge) would change in inten-sity as the economy shifts. For example, we maysee significantly increased coastwise shipping andsome shift in major transoceanic routes. Thispotentially presents a rather different future thanthe trend toward larger vessels.

The summary discussion focused on the generalagreement that the good record of performance by ships in economic contexts is being expanded to embrace more environmental performance measures. Ship efficiency has to be redefined interms of environmental aspects – energy conserva-tion, greenhouse gas mitigation, environmental protection. Shipping has not yet achieved its fullpotential and the discussion raised the issue thatthe industry would respond better to emergingregulation if governance was improved. The needfor joint action encompassing all modes of goodsmovement was raised, since the potential for bestshipping prac tices may not be fully developed bymarket drivers without regulatory and policy action.

Climate is a public

good


Oceans: A Threatened BiosphereFrank SchweikertBiologist and Journalist,ALDEBARAN Marine Research & Broadcast, Hamburg, Germany

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All of us feel emotionally close to the oceans, nomatter whether we are scientists, economists, lawyers, politicians, seamen or tourists. The sea isthe largest, most breathtaking and gorgeous livingspace on earth. We are all fascinated by the myste-ry, wilderness and power of the oceans, and thefact that it offers an oasis of silence and recreation.Colourful fishes and other species decorate amaz -ing reef systems; even today, nobody fully under-stands the role colours play in the underwaterworld.

For a short period in springtime, the biggest fishesin the world show up, accompanied by the marvel-lous spectacle of spawning “snappers”. It’s like amiracle: just two days after full moon, schools ofsnappers appear from the deep sea at “GladdenSpitt” – a special point in the Central Americanreef system 30 miles offshore.

Thousands of big pregnant snappers push them-selves close to the water surface, creating a dazzl -ing scene stage-managed by these three-feet longfishes when they appear in a kind of love delirium.Suddenly they dance around each other and fill theblue water with their white eggs and sperm. As adiver close by you completely lose your orientation.

As if there were a secret director behind the whitecurtain, some seconds after the love dance of thesnappers the biggest fish of the world shows upfrom the deep blue. Gliding out of the middle ofnowhere, he opens his gigantic mouth and sucksthe spawn released into the open water just secondsearlier. A stunning performance modulated by themoon, the weather, the temperature, the air pres -sure and a couple of other factors – and we humansare mere observers.

A Belizean fisherman said that some years ago theywere scared of the big monsters coming up fromthe deep. None of them knew that whale sharks areonly plankton-eaters and absolutely harmless tohumans. This small but significant example makesclear just how important it is to know more aboutthe sea and the clockwork of marine nature.

These days the whale shark represents the maintourist attraction in Belize. Thousands of diverscome to see this huge fish every year. The tide,however, has turned – nowadays whale sharks arevictims of humans and need our protection, as domany other species in the ocean.

Frank Schweikert


Development in coastal zones is expanding andtourism is growing, so we need to find the rightbalance. Times have changed yet we are trying tomanage the oceans without knowing very muchabout the system itself, a “system” that controls theearth’s climate and the food resources of tomor-row. Climate change is happening more quicklythan everyone expected. Scientific measurementshave shown dramatic shifts that occurred within thespace of just ten years!

Sea-level rise will be the most important impact ofclimate change. For example, “Dog Flee Island” –one of 500 small islands off the Belizean Coast inCentral America – was destroyed by the rise of thesea level in combination with the huge force of hur-ricane “Mitch” a few years ago. Gradually, one

island after the other will disappear off the worldmap. Besides coast flooding and erosion, the smallislands also have to face socio-political problems.Who will accommodate all the people who need tofind new homes? This climate change will causethe largest migration ever seen on our earth.

Numerous creatures in the marine environment willbe affected by the rise of the sea temperature.Today we’re just beginning to understand the con-sequences for our complex marine ecosystem. Andit’s true: we know more about the other side of themoon than we do about the bottom of the ocean.So, if scientists do not know about what is goingon deep down – how could the public know andhelp to protect?

Many coral reef systems are still alive and providehomes for a great diversity of creatures. However,rising temperatures, storms and diseases aredestroying the fragile reef systems and their vast bio-diversity. In some parts of the world whole reef sys-tems are suddenly dying - and a full scientific expla-nation for these alarming phenomena is still missing.

All the media and environmentalists are talkingabout disappearing species on this planet – withthe ultimate aim of raising money for their cam-paigns. However, all ecosystems are changing per-manently. Some species are disappearing, yet thou-sands or even millions of unknown species still

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exist on earth. Scientists from the Natural HistoryMuseum in Berlin are diving for new species on theMesoamerican Reef System in Belize.

Finding new creatures on earth is a thrilling experi-ence, and good news in times of man-made climatechange. But it is a pity that bad news is better thangood news in the media business. We thereforehave a political responsibility – together – to findthe way to attract attention for constructive andsustainable environmental communication.

Sustainable fishery is one of the great goals ofmodern society, yet demand for seafood is increas -ing at a much faster rate than the efforts to savethe marine populations. The fishing industry actsmore quickly than scientists and politics are able tointervene.

Supporting their government and their own jobs,Belizean fishermen have created their own laws forsustainable fishery: no nets, no foreign fishermenand strict discipline keep the waters and reefs ingood condition. It is hard work, but the fish popula-tions seem to be in good shape – today as well asfor future generations.

OCEAN’S RESOURCES

We can and still are learning a lot from the oceans.All these gorgeous marine organisms seem to be ahelpful resource for medical science, yet plentyhave yet to be probed. Underwater species likecold water sponges and algae are screened in anattempt to identify new active ingredients whichcan be used, for example, to develop anti-cancerdrugs. Scientists are especially researching man-groves – a zone with a very high level of biodiversi-ty. The colourful underwater world appears to bean abundant drugstore that invites us to serve our-selves.

The oil price per gallon is still on the rise and politi-cal pressures have been growing to encouragemore domestic oil and gas production. That meansincreasing pressure on the ocean. Although we arealready benefiting from the ocean in terms of natu-ral resources, there is still more to get out of it.Huge capacities of energy could possibly be pro -vided by methane hydrates, which contain moreenergy and carbon than all conventional deposits


together. Might they be the energy source of thefuture? The answer is still to come.

In times of exploding oil prices and rapidly growingshipping capacities, a company in Hamburg hasannounced the new “age of sailing” for cargoships. 200 years ago the world’s entire fleet wasdriven by environmental-friendly, free of chargewind power. Why shouldn’t we use modern techno-

logies from the aerospace industry to reintroducewind power for shipping? Initial experiences pointto average fuel savings of between 15% and 50%per year. The oceans could be protected againsthighly toxic sulphur exhaust and greenhouse gaspollutions. Rapid implementation of this “win-win”technology for the economy and the environment isonly possible if there is consistent communication.

CONCLUSION

We are expert at gathering information and data,and we are busy improving our technical know-howin the service of science, and we can afford high-profile research projects. But what about the dis-tance we have to overcome between scientificknow-how and those people who need the informa-tion to put research results into action? Protecting our natural resources means also de -veloping our human resources! And to fully developour human resources we need more education andscientific communication.

The quality, quantity and speed of communicationwill be the key to saving our planet and protecting themost powerful ecosystem of the world, the oceans.

Protect our natural

resources

“Help us to set up the Sea Foundation”, asked Frank Schweikert.www.meeresstiftung.de

XVII MALENTE SYMPOSIUM | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 200876 |


Global Climate Change and theCaribbean – Seeking Solutionsfor an Endangered RegionDr. Kenrick R. LeslieExecutive Director, Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC),Belmopan, Belize

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MR. CHAIRMAN, DISTINGUISHED GUESTS,

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

Let me start my presentation by briefly reviewingsome of the critical factors that have a direct bearingon the region’s vulnerability to the warming of theearth and associated sea level rise.

These can be divided into: 1) geographic and eco-nomic and 2) natural and anthropogenic.

1. The following geographic and economic factorsare worthy of note: – The Caribbean consists of 28 insular and coastal

states and ten territories bordering the CaribbeanSea and the Gulf of Mexico.

– It is one of the largest salt water seas and has an area of about 2,754,000 km² (1,063,000 square miles).

– It has an estimated population of 40 million people of which some 70% live in coastal cities, towns and villages.

– Approximately 38 percent of the population can be classified as poor.

– Economic activities are frequently dominated by tourism and specialized agriculture such as sugarcane.

– Economic growth has failed to keep pace with population growth.

– Economic globalization is impacting the region’senvironment through reduction of access to traditional markets as a result of the WTO agreement.

2. The noteworthy natural and anthropogenicfactors include the following: The geographic location of the Caribbean regionexposes it to a number of natural hazards which are

further exacerbated by anthropogenic factors.These include:– six months of hurricane activity– significant climate variability– several active volcanoes, both on land and

under water– significant seismic activity

The anthropogenic factors include among otherthings: – poor land use management– poor marine practices, and– damage to the ecosystems

Taken separately and collectively, these natural andanthropogenic factors are serious impediments toany effort at sustainable development and theattainment of the millennium development goals(MDG). As an example, Grenada, an island ofpopulation 90,000, is still recovering from hurricaneIvan in 2004. Damage from the hurricane has set

Dr. Kenrick R. Leslie

The Caribbean


the most vulnerable to the impacts of climatechange and sea level rise.

Climate change, as projected, will certainly exacer-bate development challenges and make it harder toachieve and sustain MDG achievements and otherdevelopment goals. Economic, social and environ-mental sensitivity to climatic conditions and pover-ty- driven low adaptive capacity compound the re -gion’s exposure and amplify its existing challenges.Adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate changewill, therefore, be critical in achieving sustainingdevelopment.

The region is already experiencing changing weat-her patterns with more intense extremes includingdrought, floods and hurricanes. For example, tem-perature records have shown an increase duringthe last century, with the 1990s being the warmestdecade since the beginning of the 20th century.Rainfall trends have been changing, bringing

the country back by decades. The total damagewas estimated at over US$1 billion compared to itsGDP of US$440 million. There was severe damageto all sectors of the island. There was major loss offoreign exchange resulting directly from the damageto tourism infrastructure. Utilities – electricity, waterand telecommunication – were severely disrupted.The hurricane caused twenty eight deaths. There wasalso significant damage to public health facilities.

Hurricane damage in 2004 for the greater Caribbeanwas in excess of US$4 billion. This yearly trend hascontinued through 2005, 2006 and 2007. Already in2008, damage has exceeded US$8 billion. In Cubaalone, damage resulting from hurricanes Gustavand Ike has reached the US$5 billion mark. Othercountries affected since the start of the 2008 hurri-cane season include: Bahamas, Belize, CaymanIslands, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico,and Turks and Caicos Islands. Deaths are wellover 500 with Haiti alone reporting 328.

FINDINGS IN THE IPCC FOURTH ASSESSMENT

REPORT (FAR)

Global warming and sea level rise bring additionalworrying factors to the development equation. TheIPCC Fourth Assessment Report notes that thetemperature trend from actual observations confirmsthat "warming of the climate system is unequivo-cal". The Report projects a further rise in globaltemperatures of between 2 and 4.5oC, and a rise in sea level of between 11 and 77 cm. The Reportfurther notes that weather patterns will also bechanging with more intense extremes includingdrought, floods and hurricanes and that SmallIsland Developing States, or SIDS, and low lyingcoastal States (LLCS) of the Caribbean are among Coral reefs bleaching

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Georgetown, GuyanaJanuary 2005

Belize City, BelizeJune 2008

Nassau, BahamasSeptember 2004

cases insurmountable, challenges to the region’seconomic and social vulnerability. It will certainlyhave a negative impact on:– agriculture and fisheries, hence on its food

security – tourism, hence on its economic sustainability– health, through increases in vector-borne

diseases and other heat-related diseases– water quality and quantity– human settlements, especially on the smaller

islands.A recent study has shown the potential economiccosts to Caribbean SIDS as a percentage of GDPif no action is taken to reduce the impacts of climatechange. By 2025 the average cost to the region willbe 14% of its GDP, increasing to 39% by 2050, 45%by 2075 and 63% by 2100. In the case of Grenadathe cost could be in excess of 100%.

increased flooding to some areas and unusualdroughts to others.

The tropical North Atlantic and Caribbean Seawarm pool has been expanding with serious conse-quences. The Caribbean has been experiencingmore frequent category 4 and 5 hurricanes thatresult not only in infrastructural damage but alsocause serious mechanical damage to the alreadystressed coral reefs and coastal erosion of thebeaches.

In 1998 coral reefs around the world suffered themost extensive and severe bleaching and subse-quent mortality in modern record. In the same year,tropical sea surface temperatures were the highestin modern record, topping off a fifty year trend forsome tropical oceans. The repercussions of the1998 mass bleaching and mortality events will con-tinue to be far-reaching temporally and spatially.In Belize, for instance, live coral cover on shallowpatch reefs has decreased from 80% in 1971 to20% by 1996 and further decreased from 20% in1996 to 13% in 1999.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF GLOBAL WARMING

AND SEA LEVEL RISE IN THE CARIBBEAN

The IPCC is projecting a further rise in global tem-peratures of between 2 and 4.5oC. A 2oC rise inatmospheric temperature could be catastrophic forthe Caribbean. Preliminary studies have shown thatyields of key staples such as rice, beans and maizewill decrease by between 12% and 20%. A signifi-cant reduction is also anticipated in some key spe-cies of fish resulting from a further 1oC rise in seatemperature. A warming climate and rising sealevels will, therefore, pose significant, and in some

COST OF INACTION: % OF CURRENT GDP

COUNTRY YEAR

2025 2050 2075 2100

Antigua & Barbuda 12.2 25.8 41.0 58.4

Bahamas 06.6 13.9 22.2 31.7

Barbados 06.9 13.9 20.8 27.7

Dominica 16.3 34.3 54.4 77.3

Grenada 21.3 46.2 75.8 111.5

Haiti 30.5 61.2 92.1 123.2

Jamaica 13.9 27.9 42.3 56.9

Saint Kitts & Nevis 16.0 35.5 59.5 89.3

Saint Lucia 12.2 24.3 36.6 49.1

Saint Vincent & 11.8 23.6 35.4 47.2the Grenadines

Trinidad & Tobago 4.0 8.0 12.0 16.0

Source: The Caribbean and Climate Change – The Costs ofInaction By: Ramon Bueno et al, Tufts University, May 2008


ADAPTATION AN IMPERATIVE

The projected impacts associated with global warm -ing and sea level rise make adaptation an impera -tive for the Caribbean. However, the process ofadaptation will be a very costly venture. Estimates of the funding which will be required toassist developing countries in managing theimpacts of climate change vary widely. There isgeneral consensus that the cost to the public andprivate sector could reach tens of billions of dollarsper year. The UN’s latest Human DevelopmentReport (HDR) estimates that additional adaptationfinance needs will amount to US$86 billion annuallyby 2015. Oxfam puts the price tag at US$50 billionper year, and the UNFCCC puts it at US$2867 billion by 2030. Based on the Oxfam estimate ofUS$50 billion and a population of 40 million theCaribbean region will require some US$430 millionannually to meet its adaptation needs.

SOLVING THE CARIBBEAN ADAPTATION PROBLEM

Solving the Caribbean adaptation problem will re -quire strong collaboration between the Caribbeanand the international community. The Caribbean will need to ensure that appropriateadaptation policies for all sectors are in place andare enforced if it is to address the projectedimpacts arising from climate change and sea levelrise on its:– water resources– agriculture– land use– energy, and– energy efficiency

In addition, it will need to develop a strategic planwith a goal of ensuring the effective utilization of

limited resources to build a more resilient societyand economy that can withstand the effects of achanging climate. Global climate change presentsa disturbing paradox in the context of the Carib-bean. It poses a serious threat to the ability ofCaribbean countries to build robust, diversified,and competitive economies which are critical totheir efforts at building their preparedness to dealwith climate variability and global climate change.Thus the objectives of the strategy plan should, at aminimum, include:– building the capacity of relevant institutions and

agencies to develop effective and integrated climate hazard risk management processes, plans and strategies;

– encouraging the incorporation of climate hazard risk reduction in all public and private sector planning initiatives;

– fostering the establishment of an appropriate decision-support system based on systematic research and observation of climate hazard risks;

– improving the public’s knowledge and under-standing of climate change issues in order to obtain broad-based public support for and

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participation in climate hazard risk mitigation and adaptation;

– fostering the development and application of appropriate legal and institutional systems and mechanisms that mitigate climate hazard risks;

– encouraging private sector involvement in climatehazard risk mitigation and adaptation measures;

– empowering local community groups to under-take climate hazard mitigation measures.

The implementation of the plan will require signifi-cant support from the developed countries. Theinternational community will need to take aggressiveactions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions toensure a high degree of success in achieving theglobal temperature rise of no more than 2oC. This means a serious attempt will have to be made to stabilize GHG emissions at the 450 ppmlevel but certainly not exceeding 550 ppm. This can be achieved through the promotion of – prudent use of fossil fuel;– renewable energy investments;– increased use of renewable forms of energy

as a significant portion of the energy budget;– technology transfer and support of the develop-

ment and exploitation of Caribbean indigenous sources of energy such as: wind, solar, biomass,hydro, geothermal and oceanic.

Furthermore, the international community will needto support fully the implementation of the Nairobi Plan of Action noting the need to adequately address the special circumstances of the Caribbean region:

– being among the world’s most vulnerable regions to the anticipated impacts of climatechange;

– the high cost of adaptation (relative to GDP)which is well beyond the capacity of nationalgovernments;

– immediate support for implementation of “no regrets” adaptation options as recom-mended in the Stern Report; and

– mobilization of the Adaptation Funds (UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol)

In addition to adaptation we are exploring opportu-nities afforded under the Kyoto Protocol to reducethe carbon footprint of our productive and domes-tic sectors. A recent report from the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank (IDB) highlighted the high car-bon intensity of the region’s energy sector and theneed to address this issue especially since therecent upward trend in fossil fuel prices. In thisrespect we are pursuing initiatives in the region tomake our own modest contribution to the mitigationof global Green House Gas Emissions. At thesame time we are placing our energy sector on amore sustainable footing. Toward this end the Cen-tre is presently:– Seeking resources to implement a multi-year

project that would address the use of energy in the region’s tourism industry. The project seeks to assist the Caribbean region in transforming its tourism industry into a low carbon economic sector and thus support its promotion as a carbon neutral destination. The project will facilitate capacity building for the attainment of improved energy efficiency, carbon emission reduction and climate change planning and management within the tourism sector. This is a key project objective to be undertaken at the local, national, and regional levels.

– Preparing to carry out a feasibility study on the manufacture of solar grade silicon utilizing the above 99.5% pure silica deposits in Guyana and the low cost (0.02-0.04US$/kwh) electricity supply in Trinidad and Tobago. The ultimate objective of this initiative is to establish a world-class manufacturing capability in renewable energy technology in the Caribbean region.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Guests,Ladies and Gentlemen, I have attempted to high-light some of the factors making the Caribbean an“endangered region” from the threats posed by glo-bal warming and sea level rise. I have also propo-sed what I consider to be the roles and responsibi-lities of both Caribbean governments and theinternational community to ensure that the Carib-bean will not only survive the impacts of climatechange and sea level rise, but will prosper econo-mically and socially.



Subtainable Seas –The Vision, the RealityDr. Sylvia A. EarlePresident, Deep Search International; Member of the Board, Marine Conservation, Biology Institute, Bellevue, WA, USA

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SUBTAINABLE SEAS –

THE VISION, THE REALITY

My fascination with the ocean started when I was achild, more than half a century ago, when attitudesto the ocean were very different to those of today.We believed that the ocean was infinitely able toabsorb whatever we wanted to put into it and infi n -itely able to yield whatever we wanted to take out of it. Today we look at the oceans from a differentviewpoint. As never before, we have begun to under -stand that there are limits to what we can do to thenatural world and that there are consequences ifwe do not observe these limits. We have neverknown as much about the vulnerability of natureand our own vulnerability as we do today.

I don’t think that we have run out of time to changeour behavior, but I also don’t think that we have muchtime left. We should be able to put things right ifwe grab the chance to act now. This earth is ourplace, the only place that we know that works forus. And it has become clear that we have to takecare of this place that takes care of us.

Timothy Wirth, who worked with former Vice Presi-dent Al Gore on global environmental and popula -tion issues in the U.S. State Department for someyears, once commented that the economy is awholly owned subsidiary of the environment. Rightnow, however, the world is completely absorbed bythe economic and financial crisis. There does notseem to be much room for the environment. Peopledo not seem to be willing to realize that we are alsofacing an environmental crisis which is far moreearth-shaking and far more dangerous than whatwe are now experiencing in the global economy. Ifwe destroy this world, where else should we go for

the assets to create wealth, to create a place forourselves? We know there is no other place in theuniverse for us other than this blue planet. Theworld is truly blue, as it is mostly ocean. Withoutthe ocean, think of what the planet would be – nota very hospitable place for the likes of us.

We have to understand – and some of us do – howimportant the ocean is to every breath we take, everydrop of water we drink; even if we never see theocean, we are connected to it. Now that we are be -ginning to understand, we have a chance to makedecisions that none of our predecessors couldmake because they didn’t have the knowledge wehave. Only now do we have the capacity to under-stand how things are connected, how one part ofthe earth influences the entire planet, how every-thing ties together. The explosion in energy con-sumption has taken place within my lifetime. Lightsare burning day and night all over the planet to driveour expanding economy and our expanding desires– not necessarily our needs but certainly our desires– and to harness power to produce and do thingsthat none of our ancestors could imagine. It is justthis little slice of time that is putting new pressureson this ancient planet.

We are beginning to see and understand the effectsof our exploitation of the planet, although we are farfrom fully understanding how the planet works.Less than five percent of the ocean has been seen,let alone explored, but at least we know enough tosee that we are in trouble, that the ocean is in trou-ble and therefore so are we. Those of us who have had the joy of being under-water understand something of the changes thatare taking place, and we get an idea of their pro-

Dr. Sylvia A. Earle


found impact on a global scale because of our ability to communicate. Our use of energy is part of our ability to communicate, because it is energythat takes us high up in the sky and allows all of usto meet here in person from all parts of the planet.We have an obligation to make use of energy in apositive way. Energy and new technologies allowus, for example, to look at the earth from high in thesky, to track events over time and observe howquickly the planet is changing. If we were all stuckin one place and did not have access to that per-spective we would not know that we are in suchtrouble, and we would not be empowered to beable to do something about it.

To see how swiftly, in just a matter of months, theLarsen B Ice Shelf disappeared in 2002 is alarming.Some experts predicted that if that shelf goes, weare in for big trouble. Well, it did go and we are infor big trouble. Change is normal, and inevitable,but nobody expected that change would be happe-ning as fast as it is. Nobody knows what the futurewill be, but the trend is clear: the melting of polar

ice is a fact, swifter than has been the case duringany time that we can record or know about. Badnews for the polar bear, bad news for their eco -system and for the creatures who share it with them.

Bad news for people, too! What will happen tocoastal zones if there is a six meter sea level rise?When will this happen? We don’t know for sure butit is faster than we imagined it would be a few yearsago. It is bad news for any place in the ocean thathas a calcium-carbonate base, whether for coralreefs or existing chunks of calcium-carbonate thatare vulnerable to ph changes in the ocean. Theocean is not acid yet, but the trend toward acidifi-cation is clear. The blue part of our planet is under-going chemical changes that are affecting the chemistry of the planet as a whole. There are forexample little creatures out there in the oceanwhich are even more vulnerable perhaps thancorals, the coccolithophorids – the little creaturesthat make up the bulk of the White Cliffs of Dover.They have been churning out oxygen and takingcarbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for many millions of years. But what happens – if the oceancontinues on this acidification trend – to their calci-um carbonate shells, their capacity to do their partin keeping the planet and the ocean ecosystems inbalance and in driving the food chains in the sea?

We have certainly heard a lot at this meeting aboutthe vulnerability of coral reefs. Whoever imagined –during the time of Cousteau – that we would befacing what we now face? Look back to the fiftiesand the sixties, when people thought that coral reefswould be there forever, like sturdy mountains. Thediversity of life: who ever imagined that we wouldsee such a loss of biodiversity in the sea? Some

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scientists still believe that ocean life is less vulnera-ble than life on land, that you can see the extinctionof animals, plants and whole ecosystems on theland but not in the oceans. There is still this illusionthat the ocean is so big, so vast and so resilientthat nothing we mere humans do can harm it. Butwe are learning otherwise, we are learning that theloss of wildlife in the sea is equivalent to and insome cases even more drastic than the loss ofwildlife on land.

All the creatures on land and in the sea are thenuts, bolts, cogs and wheels that hold the planettogether. As we lose them, we lose resilience, welose integrity, we lose stability. Many fantastic oceanspecies are in trouble across the planet due to pol-lution, overfishing and warming. But – fortunately –they are not all gone, not yet. And I think we still dohave some time left to act. As long as we still haveten percent of the big fish in the ocean – which isabout where we are today as compared to 50 yearsago – it is not over. We have seen a sharp declinein coral reefs, but they are not all gone – not yet!

There is still a chance if we mobilize our mindsand our power and do something to change ourattitude to fish. It is not possible to feed someseven billion people with wildlife from the sea, anymore than it is possible to feed our growing num-bers with wildlife from the land. Had we not learnthow to cultivate the land, we would not be heretoday. Most of what we consume comes from plantsor from animals that eat plants. Half a dozen kindsof grain form the great bulk of the calories thathumans consume, and this holds also for the ani-mals that we breed and that are grazers. We donot raise carnivores to eat because it is economi-cally inefficient. But we do take carnivores out ofthe ocean to eat. Each tuna, every pound of sushior sashimi comes from the ocean at a high price. If we go back through a twisted food chain thatmay involve 20 steps– de pending on how manycarnivores have eaten other carnivores that haveeaten other carnivores – right down to the plank -tonic stage, we get through many stages of eatand be eaten. Wildlife in the sea: it is estimatedthat there may be 100,000 pounds of plants in -vested in every pound of a six-year-old blue fintuna, a high-speed, high-energy creature. We are not feeding large numbers of people when weconsume tuna and swordfish and other carnivores.

Sharks are also in big trouble. I used to worry aboutsharks when I first started diving in the 1950s.People said, watch out for the man-eaters. But thenI thought, I don’t qualify, so I am not worried. Andthen, as I got more experienced underwater, I real -ized that even the men did not have to worry. Weare not on the menu of sharks. Once in a while, ashark would take a bite out of us, but today we aretaking bites out of some 100 million sharks every


year. Sharks are in trouble because we are eatingthem, that is the big problem! Even the biggest fishin the sea is not safe, like the beautiful whale sharkwhich we saw last night in Frank Schweikert’s film.You see their fins in restaurants around the world,not just in Asia or New York; all over the world youcan go to restaurants and get your expensive andnon-sustainable dose of shark fin soup. In formertimes the consumption of such luxuries was con -sidered to be a special treat once in a while in certain Asian countries. Now you can get it every -where, though not for long, because the source ofsupply will soon be extinct if we do not change ourattitude to wildlife in the sea right now! It is not justfish that will be in trouble, not just coral reefs. Weare in trouble as a consequence of what we aredoing to our life support system.

Take a look at fish that nobody ate half a centuryago because nobody could catch them in theirdeep sea habitats – 2,000 feet down, offshore, fur -ther out than fishermen used to go. Today you cancatch them, not by traditional fishing methods butwith high-powered vessels, armed with the techno-logy to find and capture them and send them todistant markets. Some of these fish take about 30years to mature and may be more than two centu-ries old by the time they reach your plate. Think ofthe investment in a fish that has been around for somany years. Compare it with the investment in a ten- year-old child and think what a child has consumedin the course of ten years. And then think again ofthe ultimate investment in 100-year-old carnivores.

But as we have heard during the course of thisconference, it is not just the amount of wildlife thatwe are taking from the sea that is alarming; it is the

destructive techniques, the trawling operations thatscrape the seafloor. It is as if you used bulldozerson land to catch songbirds or squirrels. We areseeing the loss of the ocean’s resilience, from shal-low water and now to increasingly deep water areasall over the world. In all the working groups andpanels of this symposium we have been listening toconcerns about what we have done to this ancientplanet in just half a century – the discarded plasticin the Pacific Ocean is one particularly frighteningaspect. Some of these piles of plastic debris, likethe discarded fisher nets, are creating problems asecond time because they keep on fishing; otherplastic particles are mistaken for food and are eatenby fish or sea birds and enter the food chain.

There is good news, nevertheless, because thereare some motivated volunteers who have gone outto the northwest Hawaiian Islands, and have divedto retrieve some of those discarded nets, but it isgoing to take a long time to extract what is already

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in the ocean, and we are still putting more thingsin. Again, a change is possible. The oceans are notdead – not yet! And this is another “good news”story. This is the chance we have at the moment,and this is the time to make a difference. We learn -ed that there is still hope for creatures that youwant to protect if you stop killing them. Take thewhales, for example. Not all of the whales that westopped killing about half a century ago have reco-vered, but some of them have. If we apply this sameattitude to other wildlife in the sea, restoration isstill possible. We will never restore things to theway they were 1,000, 500 or even 50 years ago. Butwe can make things better than they are, althoughthe windows of opportunity are closing.

I want to show you one other reason why I havecause for hope. Two years ago, I attended a con -ference in Spain and met the man who startedGoogle Earth. Can you imagine life before Google?Being able to search out information that relates towhat ever it is that you want to explore, to see whatyour backyard is like, to visit your neighborhoodStarbucks, to find a special pair of shoes or to findout the history of Lübeck. Whatever it is, you cangoogle it and get the answers, or at least some ofthe answers. Google Earth makes it possible togeo-reference your queries and lets you see theworld with new eyes; you can hold the world in yourhands and turn it around and see how we are con-nected. With Google Earth we are able to actuallyzoom in on any place around the world we choose.Let’s just take a quick trip down south to Californiaand zoom into Monterey Bay, home of one of themost famous aquariums. We can learn a lot fromlooking at aquariums which help us understandwhat it takes to keep fish alive in a place that we

monitor and control ourselves. The ocean is a hugeextrapolation of an aquarium; it is also vulnerable tothe small and big changes that are taking place.We can dive into the oceans in little submarines inorder to explore the impacts of these changes, buteven for submarines there are constraints. We arelimited to about half the ocean’s depth. There areonly four submersibles in the world that can go to6,000 meters, and at present there is no way to goto the deepest place in the sea.

Using Google Earth, you can look at the land andthe oceans and identify problems on land that haverepercussions on the oceans, such as the coalmining operations in West Virginia, for example.You can watch what it means to lop off the top of amountain and dump it into the valleys and the riversnearby that run into the ocean. Until Google focus -ed on this, people were not as aware of what wasactually happening. And what is happening getssome people upset. Google Earth lets us also seethe exploitation of the oceans – not only mining forminerals, but also for fish. We can zoom down onChinese shrimp trawlers, for example. Shrimp boatsall over the world are dredging and trawling the seafloor and plowing up a huge bloom behind them. Agreat swath of sediment and debris is swirled up inthe ocean as a consequence of this intensive fishingactivity. And through Google Earth we can getinformation on this and can start acting.

We can also go look at the Arctic through the eyesof Google Earth. Let us dive under the ice withsome of the creatures whose only home is the highArctic. We have one chance – now – to make de -cisions that will resound forever more. What happens to the Arctic is not just a matter of what


its surrounding countries have to say. One of thegreat discussions in the course of this meeting isabout governance: Who should govern the Arctic?Should it be just the countries that are adjacent tothe Arctic Ocean, a place that all of us have a vastinterest in? And talking about stakeholders – whatabout the creatures who live there, the narwhals,the polar bears, all the creatures, even the littlearthropods? They are not at the table; we have tobe their voice.

I want to alert you to just one more thing. You haveseen pictures of the changes to the Arctic ice coverbefore, but I am going to leave you with an imageof New York and what will happen to Wall Street

when the polar ice melts. Think what will happen tothe economy if Wall Street is financially under water.What if the whole city ends up under water, if theworld continues the trends that are now takingplace? On this note, I want to add my final messageabout this being a unique point in history. Neverbefore have we been able to identify that we have aproblem. Knowing that we have a problem is a giantfirst step toward solving that problem. But we haveto communicate this knowledge to the people. Asscientists and policy-makers we know somethingthat most of the world does not. We know what theproblems are. Having new means of communicatingour knowledge is perhaps a giant step toward beingable to solve these problems as it allows us to bringthe world to the table and to understand that wehave to do something more than sit back and passively watch these changes. “Business asusual” does not work any more. With knowingcomes caring! Even if you know, you might notcare, but you cannot care if you don’t know! However, we do know as we have never known be -fore, and increasingly people do care. I thereforethink there is hope that we will find an enduringplace for ourselves within the natural systems thatkeep us alive and sustain us. But this is the pointright now! The next ten years may be the mostimportant in the next 10,000 years. But I am an optimist, largely because of you. Thank you.

With knowing comes

caring


Plenary DiscussionHow to Reach a Global Compacton Ocean Sustainability – Further Steps?

Andreas Ernst, ModeratorHost and Anchor, Phoenix, Bonn, Germany

Professor Colin Devey

Dr. Sylvia A. Earle

Dr. Kenrick R. Leslie

Professor Daniel Pauly

Professor Martin Visbeck

Dr. Reinhard Priebe Director MAREIC, DG for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium

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One aspect of the final discussion about the sustain -ability of the oceans concerned the question ofhow existing knowledge about the ocean ecosystemcan be disseminated. How much environmentaleducation do we need? If we want to bring aboutlong-term changes in our behavior, and if we wantto change our consumer behavior with respect toour oceans and our climate, we must get the mes-sage across to our children. The children mustunder stand how to shape the future. One partici-pant proposed introducing the subject of ‘environ-mental studies’ at schools. Martin Visbeck referredto the YouTube ocean videos now produced in Kielby children for children, which are aimed at arous -ing the interest of children in ocean research. Children are taken along on research trips with aview to increasing their environmental awareness.

Sylvia Earle agrees that we should talk to childrenabout our oceans: “You might think there is no timeto invest on a one-by-one basis, but I think that onlyindividuals make a difference, so we must also investin the next generation. I can imagine them speakingto us sometime in the future and asking why didn’tyou do something? You had a chance. You werethere when there was still time, when there still werecoral reefs and when there still were big groupersin the ocean and you let them go. Why did you dothat? Can you just hear them saying that? We shoulduse every means we have to convey to others whatwe understand”, Earle said.

What can politicians do about overfishing of theworld’s oceans? Has everything been going wrongin EU fishing policy for years? This was anotherquestion raised. Reinhard Priebe from the Euro -pean Commission’s Directorate General for Fisheriesand Maritime Affairs takes a more nuanced view ofthe situation, while at the same time point ing to themassive problems with which the Commission isconfronted in the domain of fishing po licy: the num-ber one problem are the excess fleet capacitiesthroughout the European Union – albeit to differentextents in the individual countries – and which,despite EU subsidies aimed at reduc ing fleet sizes,are not reduced in all countries and adjusted to thepotential fishing volumes.


The number two problem are the complex decision-making processes in the EU. Key fishing policy de -cisions are taken by 27 ministers. “One of my dailyfrustrations is that very little is often left of the Com -mission’s proposals once they have been throughthe Council of Ministers”, regrets Priebe. All dis-cussions begin at the level of science and end atthe level of governance issues, though these arenot an internal EU problem but an international one.Fish move around with no consideration for econo-mic zones and fishing areas, nor for internationaland national fishing organizations, and to date therehave been no regulations in this area. However, theproblem will not be resolved for as long as decisions in EU fishing policy remain laborious consensus-

based decisions. What is needed is an internationaladministrative decision-making level where individualquota decisions follow scientific knowledge, as isalready the case to some extent in the USA andCanada. Furthermore, it is not only politicians whomust act. The market power of consumers shouldnot be underestimated. If large supermarket chainsinsist on purchasing only fish from sustainablesources, this will have a greater impact than anylaw ever could.

A great deal of attention is also devoted in the EUto the fight against illegal fishing. The main pro-blem here is less to do with legislation and more todo with enforcing existing laws. There is a lack ofsanctions to punish violations of fishing regulations.Such violations must not be dismissed as trivialoffenses. Once again, what is needed here is inter-national consensus. Reinhard Priebe shares theview of Daniel Pauly that there is probably no needfor a global fishing council, even if there is often atendency in crisis situations to call for new institu -

“Formal analyses of long-term global marine fisheries prospectshave yet to be performed, because fisheries research focuses on local, species-specific management issues“, said Daniel Pauly.

What will

you do?

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tions and new treaties. We do not need a securitycouncil for tuna in the style of the United Nations,says Priebe, but rather an international network ofNGOs. The EU, for example, will be defining itsinterests in the Arctic more precisely in a fewweeks, but will not be proposing any new institutionor an Arctic treaty along the lines of the AntarcticTreaty, but instead will contribute to the discussionpractical and pragmatic models of cooperationwhen it comes to “governance in the Arctic”.

Colin Devey agrees that no global institutions areneeded. Although there is a worldwide UN organi-zation in charge of fisheries – the FAO, founded in1945, which has provided guidance in a transitionwhich we now call “ECO System Based Manage-ment”, and which has developed a code of conductfor responsible fisheries management – it has beenunable to manage fisheries at local levels. The FAOrepresents the world community, but fishing is notglobal. And although the FAO created local com-missions in charge of regional fisheries in the1960s, its member countries did not give these “We have a chance, but it is now or never”, said Sylvia A. Earle

organizations the authority that they would haveneeded to manage fish stocks locally in a sustaina-ble way. However, there are some very efficientregional fisheries management policies in Europe -in Iceland, for example. What we need is the will tolearn from these experiences.

We also have to take care that we prevent the cor-rosion of coral reefs and the destruction of shelfregions caused by fisheries, Daniel Pauly adds.Destruction should no longer be supported by sub-sidies of any kind. We have to intervene wheredestruction is already on a large scale, and wehave to identify other areas as Marine ProtectedAreas in order to conserve the ocean’s biodiversity.

List of Participants

A

Ahlmann, Hans-JuliusManaging PartnerACO Severin AhlmannBüdelsdorf, Germany

Ahlmann, JohannaACO Severin AhlmannBüdelsdorf, Germany

Alvik, SverrePersonal Assistant to the CEODet Norske VeritasHøvik, Oslo, Norway

Ambsdorf, JensChief Executive OfficerLighthouse Foundation-Foundation for the Seas and the OceansKiel, Germany

Antia, Dr. Avan N.HeadIntegrated School of Ocean Sciences;Cluster of Excellence “The Future Ocean”, Christian-Albrechts-University of KielKiel, Germany

Armstrong, Prof. ClaireDepartment of Economics and Management Norwegian College of Fishery Science,University of TromsøTromsø, Norway

B

Banthien, Christy AnnOcean Futures SocietyDavenport, CA, USA

Baumanns, Dr. MarkusExecutive Vice PresidentZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd BuceriusHamburg, Germany

Beaudoin, Dr. YannickProject Geoscientist UNEP Shelf Programme UNEP/GRIDArendal, Norway

Bechthold, Dr. Hans-C.Head of Environmental ManagementDrägerwerk AG & Co. KGaALübeck, Germany

Bednorz, Dr. MichaelDirectorLandesamt für Kultur und Denkmalpflege Mecklenburg-Western PomeraniaSchwerin, Germany

Berbalk, DagmaraHead of DivisionProtection of the Marine Environment Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear SafetyBonn, Germany

Bergmann, Dr. MatthiasMember of the BoardVALOVIS BANK AGEssen, Germany

Bernitt, UlrikeCoordinator Kiel Earth InstituteIFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

Besserer, DirkOwnerSCIO mediaMoscow, Russian Federation

Bilger, HartmutEttlingen, Germany

Blanco-Bazán, Dr. AgustínSenior Deputy DirectorUN International Maritime Organization (IMO)London, United Kingdom

Bleich, Prof. Dr. MarkusManaging DirectorInstitute of Physiology Christian-Albrechts-University of KielKiel, Germany

Block, Prof. Dr. Hans-JürgenMember of the BoardInnovation Foundation of the State of Schleswig-HolsteinKiel, Germany

Boetius, Prof. Dr. AntjeHead of Research GroupMax Planck Institute for Marine MicrobiologyBremen, Germany

XVII MALENTE SYMPOSIUM | LIST OF PARTICIPANTS94 |

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Bohlmann, KatrinNDR Studio Lübeck - HörfunkLübeck, Germany

Borgerding, SebastianLifecycle Services, Deerberg-SystemsOldenburg, Germany

Boyken, Dr. FriedhelmHeadDepartment for Political PlanningState Chancellery of Schleswig-HolsteinKiel, Germany

Brandt, Dr. AngelikaProfessorZoological Museum, University of HamburgHamburg, Germany

Brensing, Dr. KarstenConservation Manager GermanyWhale and Dolphin Conservation SocietyMunich, Germany

Brügge, Dr. BerndHeadDepartment of Marine Sciences Federal Maritime and Hydrographic AgencyHamburg, Germany

Bruyne, Marnix deJournalist Foreign DeskDutch daily ‘de Volkskrant’Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Burian, SylviaExecutive EditorARD-TagesschauBoostedt, Germany

Butzkies-Schiemann, SvenChief Executive OfficerScandex AGBüdelsdorf, Germany

C

Cieslak, AndrzejChief SpecialistMaritime Office in GdyniaGdynia, Poland

Cochonat, PierreDeputy Director and in charge of “Deep Sea Research”Department of Prospective and Scientific Strategy, IFREMERIssy-Les-Moulineaux, France

Coelho, Vera M.P.Office Manager/Policy OfficerSeas At RiskBrussels, Belgium

Colijn, Prof. Dr. FranciscusHeadInstitute for Coastal Research GKSS Research Centre in GeesthachtGeesthacht, Germany

Corbett, Dr. James J.ProfessorMarine Policy Program, College of Marine andEarth Studies, University of DelawareNewark, DE, USA

Corcoran, EmilySenior Program OfficerOne Ocean Program, UNEP-WCMCCambridge, United Kingdom

Cornell, Dr. SarahResearch Fellow-QUESTDepartment of Earth SciencesUniversity of BristolBristol, United Kingdom

D

Deerberg, JochenCEODeerberg SystemsOldenburg, Germany

Deimer-Schütte, PetraChairwomanSociety for the Conservation of Marine Mammals Quickborn, Germany

Devey, Prof. ColinDeputy DirectorIFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany


Dillig, BurkhardSpokesmanDrägerwerk AG & Co. KGaALübeck, Germany

Dräger, Dr. ChristianMember of the BoardDräger FoundationLübeck, Germany

Dräger, Hartwig CEODräger Grundstücksgesellschaft mbH & Co. KGLübeck, Germany

Dräger, LisaLübeck, Germany

Dräger-Rose, IsabelLübeck, Germany

Duckert, RalfManaging Directordsn ProjectsKiel, Germany

E

Earle, Dr. A. SylviaPresidentDeep Search International;Member of the BoardMarine Conservation Biology InstituteBellevue, WA, USA

Eisenhauer, AntonHead of Research Dpt. “Marine Biogeochemistry”IFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

Ekau, Dr. WernerMember of the BoardGerman Society for Marine ResearchInternational Ocean Institute;DirectorOperational Centre GermanyHamburg, Germany

Ernst, AndreasHost and AnchorPHOENIXBonn, Germany

F

Feddersen, Prof. Dr. Dieter H.Member of the BoardDräger FoundationLübeck, Germany

Feeley, Dr. Mary H.Chief GeoscientistExxonMobil Exploration CompanyHouston, TX, USA

Fehrecke, Dr. HerbertChief Operations OfficerDrägerwerk AG & Co. KGaALübeck, Germany

Fentis, John M.PresidentAlgalita Marine Research FoundationLong Beach, CA, USA

Ferraro, Dr. GianlucaResearcherPublic Management Institute Catholic University of LeuvenLeuven, Belgium

Froese, Dr. RainerCoordinator incofishIFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

G

Ginzky, Dr. HaraldSenior ScientistFederal Environment AgencyDessau, Germany

Gnärig, Dr. BurkhardExecutive DirectorBerlin Civil Society CenterBerlin, Germany

Gross, Dr. OnnoPresidentDEEPWAVEHamburg, Germany

Grothe, ThiesPresidentRegional Youth Council of Schleswig-HolsteinLübeck, Germany


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H

Hagstrom, OlleAdvisorDG Mare, European CommissionBrussels, Belgium

Hanelt, Prof. Dr. DieterHead Dept. for Cell BiologyUniversity of HamburgHamburg, Germany

Hanisch, DieterFreelance JournalistNeues DeutschlandNeumünster, Germany

Hein, Dr. JoachimPolicy AdviserFederation of German Industries (BDI)Berlin, Germany

Helzel, ThomasManaging DirectorHelzel Messtechnik GmbHKaltenkirchen, Germany

Hempel, Dr. GotthilfProfessor EmeritusChristian-Albrechts-University of KielMolfsee, Germany

Henderson, CasparJournalistOxford, United Kingdom

Herzig, Prof. Dr. Peter M.DirectorIFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

Hogrefe, Dr. LüderManaging DirectorRaytheon Anschütz GmbHKiel, Germany

Holthus, PaulExecutive DirectorWorld Ocean CouncilHonolulu, HI, USA

Hoseas, SimoneProject ManagerMaritimes Cluster Schleswig-Holstein Business Development and Technology TransferCorporation of Schleswig-HolsteinKiel, Germany

I

Isciel, EmineHigher Executive OfficerMinistry of the EnvironmentOslo, Norway

J

Jantzen, KatharinaPh.D. StudentGLOMAR, University of BremenBremen, Germany

Jenisch, Dr. Uwe K.Honorary ProfessorWalther-Schücking-Institute of International LawKiel, Germany

Johannsen, UweOfficerWWF GermanyHamburg, Germany

Jung, Dr. KristineCommon Wadden Sea SecretariatWilhelmshaven, Germany

Jungfer, Prof. Dr. EckhardtHead of Department Climate/Energy Ministry for Rural Development, Environment and Consumer Protection of the State of BrandenburgPotsdam, Germany

K

Kaita, Muntari A.MinisterEmbassy of NigeriaBerlin, Germany

Keeling, Ralph F.Professor of Climate ScienceScripps Institution of OceanographySan Diego, CA, USA


Kieslich, Prof. em. Dr. KlausFormer Scientific DirectorHelmholtz-Centre for Infection ResearchBuchholz, Germany

Kirk, Dr. AnnetteHead of Public RelationsMeteorological Institute HamburgHamburg, Germany

Klein, Dr. Hermann J.Member of the Executive BoardGermanischer Lloyd AGHamburg, Germany

Kleinert, Dr. HeidrunDesk Officer GermanyDG Environment – Nature and BiodiversityEuropean CommissionBrussels, Belgium

Klepper, Prof. Dr. GernotDirectorExcellence Cluster “The Future Ocean”The Kiel Institute for the World EconomyKiel, Germany

Klüver, NathalieFreelance JournalistKieler NachrichtenLübeck, Germany

Korzycki, Dr. WlodzimierzHeadEconomics Department Polish Consulate GeneralHamburg, Germany

Kraemer, R. AndreasDirectorEcologic InstituteBerlin, Germany

Kraus, Dr. GerdDirector, Institute for Sea FisheriesJohann Heinrich von Thünen InstituteFederal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forestry and FisheriesHamburg, Germany

Kremer, Dr. Hartwig H.CEO, International Project Office“Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone”Institute for Coastal ResearchGKSS Research Centre Geesthacht GmbHGeesthacht, Germany

Krost, Dr. PeterDirectorCoastal Research & ManagementKiel, Germany

Krottnaurer, Hans vonManaging DirectorAdvertising Agency von KrottnaurerLübeck, Germany

Kuznik, HaraldGlobal Head ShippingHSH Nordbank AGHamburg, Germany

L

Langenberg, Dr. HeikeChief EditorNature GeoscienceLondon, United Kingdom

Langhammer, Prof. Dr. Rolf J.Vice-PresidentThe Kiel Institute of World Economics Christian-Albrechts-University of KielKiel, Germany

Leeuw, Prof. Dr. Jan W. deMember of the Executive CommitteePartnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO)Den Burg, The Netherlands

Leinfelder, Prof. Dr. ReinholdGeneral DirectorNatural History Museum, Humboldt UniversityBerlin, Germany

Lender, Hans-JoachimFreelance JournalistHS-KulturkorrespondenzLübeck, Germany


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Leslie, Dr. Kenrick R.Executive DirectorCaribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC)Belmopan, Belize

Ljungquist, NinaManaging DirectorMan & Water International Network Inc.Stockholm, Sweden

Lochte, Prof. Dr. KarinDirectorAlfred Wegener Institute for Polar and MarineResearch in the Helmholtz AssociationBremerhaven, Germany

Lomeling, AnnaCustomer Consultant MunicipalitiesInvestitionsbank Schleswig-HolsteinKiel, Germany

Lupp, StefanieNidda, Germany

M

Maak, KlausManager Marine & DieselAlfa Laval Mid Europe llcGlinde, Germany

Mahnke, PetraManaging Director & Member of the BoardGesellschaft für Maritime Technik e.V.Hamburg, Germany

Markus, TillAssociate ScientistGLOMAR – University of BremenBremen, Germany

Marnette, Dr. Werner MinisterMinistry for Science, Economy and Transport of the State of Schleswig-HolsteinKiel, Germany

McGlade, Prof. JacquelineExecutive DirectorEuropean Environment AgencyCopenhagen, Denmark

Menn, Dr. IrisBiologistGreenpeace Oceans CampaignHamburg, Germany

Meuss, MarinaWater Sector AdvisorDeutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)Eschborn, Germany

Mitsatsos, Dimitris C.Director GeneralHellenic Marine Environment Protection AssociationAthens, Greece

Möller, Dr. ChristianeHead of Internal CommunicationsDrägerwerk AG & Co. KGaALübeck, Germany

Monbart, Claudia vonSenior CounsellorWorld Bank BerlinBerlin, Germany

Murphy, Dr. Richard C.DirectorScience & Education, Jean-Michel Cousteau’sOcean Futures SocietySanta Barbara, CA, USA

N

Nausch, Dr. GüntherSenior ScientistLeibniz Institute for Baltic Sea ResearchWarnemünde (IOW)Warnemünde, Germany

Nemitz, Paul F.Head of Maritime Policy Development and CoordinationEuropean CommissionBrussels, Belgium

Newlove-Eriksson, LindySenior AnalystSwedish National Defence CollegeStockholm, Sweden


Niebergall, Hans JoergLawyer, President & CEOEuropean American Trade AssociationHamburg, Germany

Nies, Prof. Dr. HartmutDirectorFederal Maritime and Hydrographic AgencyHamburg, Germany

Nixon, Dr. DennisAssociate Dean & ProfessorDepartment of Marine Affairs College of the Environment and Life Sciences University of Rhode IslandKingston, RI, USA

Nyman, Dr. LennartSenior Scientific AdvisorMan & Water ABHölö, Sweden

O

Ohnesorge, BettinaBerlin, Germany

Opitz, DanielOcean MindKiel, Germany

Orbach, Dr. Michael K.Professor of Marine Affairs and PolicyMarine Laboratory Nicholas School of the Environment Duke UniversityBeaufort, NC, USA

P

Parrilla Barrera, Dr. GregorioMedio Marino/Head of AreaSpanish Institute of OceanographyMadrid, Spain

Pauly, Prof. Dr. DanielDirectorFisheries Centre Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory (AERL)The University of British ColumbiaVancouver, Canada

Perner, DetlefEditorGüterwagen-CorrespondenzBerlin, Germany

Piepenburg, Dr. DieterAssistant ProfessorInstitute for Polar Ecology Christian-Albrechts-University of KielKiel, Germany

Pissulla, PetraDirectorDräger FoundationLübeck, Germany

Prekezes, ChristianaHeadMaritime Training CenterHellenic Marine Environment Protection AssociationAthens, Greece

Priebe, Dr. ReinhardDirector MAREIC DG for Fisheries and Maritime AffairsEuropean CommissionBrussels, Belgium

Proelß, Prof. Dr. AlexanderDirectorWalther-Schücking-Institute for International LawChristian-Albrechts-University of KielKiel, Germany

Pruss, Dr. DieterCEODräger Safety AG & Co. KGaALübeck, Germany

Q

Quadfasel, Dr. DetlefProfessorCenter for Marine and Atmospheric Science Institute of Oceanography, University of HamburgHamburg, Germany


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R

Ratter, Dr. Beate M. W.ProfessorDepartment of Earth Sciences University of HamburgHamburg, Germany

Rayner, Dr. RalphDeputy DirectorU.S. National Office for Integrated and Sustained Ocean ObservationSilver Spring, MD, USA

Reichert, Dr. ChristianDirector and ProfessorDivision Geophysics, Marine and Polar ResearchFederal Institute for Geosciences and NaturalResources (BGR)Hanover, Germany

Reid, Prof. Philip ChrisSenior Research FellowSir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean ScienceMarine Institute, University of PlymouthPlymouth, United Kingdom

Requate, Dr. TillProfessor for “Innovation, Competition Policy and New Institutional Economics”Department of EconomicsChristian-Albrechts-University of KielKiel, Germany

Rimdap, Abdul K. BinAmbassadorEmbassy of NigeriaBerlin, Germany

Rohwer, Prof. Dr. BerndManaging DirectorChamber of Commerce and Industry LübeckLübeck, Germany

S

Sawicki, DanielaLübeck, Germany

Sawicki, OttoActorLübeck, Germany

Schäfer, Dr. KirstenScientific CoordinatorExcellence Cluster “Future Ocean”IFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

Schelwart, HeinzManaging DirectorSea & Sun Technology GmbHTrappenkamp, Germany

Schinzel, Horst Managing EditorHS-KulturkorrespondenzEutin, Germany

Schriever, Dr. GerdManaging DirectorOktopus GmbH & Biolab Research InstituteHohenwestedt, Germany

Schröder, MartinPolicy AdviserFederation of German Industries (BDI)Berlin, Germany

Schrottke, Prof. Dr. KerstinScientific Head of the Department “Sea-level-rise and coastal erosion”Institute of Geosciences Christian-Albrechts-University of KielKiel, Germany

Schultheiß, InaLegal AdvisorIFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

Schultz-Zehden, AngelaDirectorSustainable Projects / Plancoast CoordinatorBerlin, Germany

Schulz, Dr. CarstenProfessorMarine AquacultureChristian-Albrechts-University of KielKiel, Germany


Schumm, AlfredDirectorMarine Programme World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF)Hamburg, Germany

Schwarz, Heinz-WernerMember of the Supervisory BoardBWE AG – Hamburg-Breslau-Malmö-LondonHamburg, Germany

Schweikert, FrankBiologist and JournalistALDEBARAN Marine Research & BroadcastHamburg, Germany

Shewchuk, MichaelOcean Affairs and Law of the Sea OfficerOffice of Legal Affairs, United NationsNew York, NY, USA

Siemers, HaitzeCoordinatorDG MARE, European CommissionBrussels, Germany

Söding, Dr. EmanuelProject ManagerCluster of Excellence “The Future Ocean”, IFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

Sommer, Dr. MarcosDirectorOceanographers Without Frontiers (ONG)Kiel, Germany

Speyer, Dr. BernhardHead of Banking, Financial Markets, RegulationDeutsche Bank ResearchFrankfurt, Germany

Stricker-Berghoff, UndineCoach and ConsultantPRO ECONOMYTravemünde, Germany

T

Thiele, TorstenHead of Telecoms Project FinanceInvestec BankLondon, United Kingdom

Treves, Dr. TullioJudgeInternational Tribunal for the Law of the Sea Hamburg, Germany;Professor, University of Milan, Italy

U

Uhlig, AntjeProject Director ‘Governance’ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd BuceriusHamburg, Germany

Unger, BerndHeadDepartment of Shipping Divisions and HarboursMinistry for Science, Economics and Transport of the State of Schleswig-HolsteinKiel, Germany

V

Visbeck, Prof. Dr. MartinDeputy DirectorIFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

Vopel, RonaldPolicy OfficerMaritime Policy Development & CoordinationEuropean CommissionBrussels, Belgium

W

Walker, JohnRadio JournalistRadio Deutsche Welle – English ServiceStockelsdorf, Germany

Wallaschek, AnnikaEventmanagerCluster of Excellence “The Future Ocean”Kiel, Germany

Walter, JörgNaval Architect MDInec llc.Schwentinental, Germany

Welina, ReinholdDeputy DirectorGerman Institute for Standardization (DIN)Berlin, Germany


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Welling, IngoDrägerwerk AG & Co. KGaALübeck, Germany

Wesnigk, Dr. Johanna B.Executive DirectorEnvironmental & Marine Project ManagementAgency, EMPABremen, Germany

Wilenius, Prof. Dr. MarkkuSenior Vice PresidentGroup Development, Allianz SE;Member, Club of RomeMunich, Germany

Willke, ThomasCorrespondentBild der WissenschaftLübeck, Germany

Winkler, Prof. Dr. WolfgangDirector Fuel Cell LabDept. of Mechanical and Production EngineeringHamburg University of Applied SciencesHamburg, Germany

Wrage, StephanChairman of the Executive BoardSkySails GmbH & Co. KGHamburg, Germany

Z

Zeller, Dr. MartinaCoordinator Kiel Earth InstituteIFM-GEOMAR Leibniz Institute of Marine SciencesKiel, Germany

Ziebarth, NadjaPolicy Officer“Marine Protection“Bremen, Germany

Zimmermann-Timm, Dr. HeikeScientific CoordinatorPotsdam Institute for Climate Impact ResearchPotsdam, Germany

Editorial

© 2010Dräger FoundationMunich/Lübeck

Responsible:Dipl.-Volksw. Petra Pissulla

Design:Werbeagentur von KrottnaurerLübeck

Print:Dräger + Wullenwever p + m Lübeck GmbH & Co.KG

Photographs:Axel Kirchhof, HamburgFrank Schweikert, Hamburg

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