As we know, the transition to renewables will not come without an environmental cost. Batteries, EV, solar panels and many other products require rare metals - many of which are to be fund in the Ocean.

Companies keen to scrape the ocean floor 5,000 to 6,000 metres below sea level stand to earn billions harvesting manganese, cobalt, copper and nickel. Currently, about 20 research institutes or companies hold exploration contracts in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

However, mining - wherever it happens - often comes with very high social and environmental impacts. Some Pacific countries have expressed their concern at the UN Ocean Conference. Palau and Fiji - backed by Samoa, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands - have initiated an uphill battle against the deep-sea mining of unattached, fist-sized rocks rich in rare earth metals.

To many's surprise, French president Macron seemed in favour of a total ban on deep-sea mining.

I had a chance to participate in the BRS COP last month and learn about the success story on tackling the illegal use of lead-acid batteries in Trinidad and Tobago and how the country responded to the situation by enhancing national legislation as called for in the Basel Convention, to minimize their generation and ensure their environmentally sound management.
New legal instruments were developed, which later also contributed to preparing a regional development strategy for Central America and the Caribbean to support the sound management of used lead-acid batteries.

Please read the full story here:

Let me introduce you to the Moana Taka Partnership (MTP)

It is a public private partnership signed between Swire Shipping and SPREP, under which Swire Shipping vessels carry containers of recyclable waste from Pacific island ports to ports around the Pacific Rim to be sustainably treated and recycled in accredited facilities.

It was first signed in 2018 and grown from just 3 shipments to 100 traveling to multiple countries in the Asia Pacific.

The ISLANDS Programme aims at expanding this success story on a global scale, making it a reality in other SIDS regions too.

The General Manager Sustainable Development Division SWIRE Shipping, Mr Simon Bennett said: “Tell us what you've got. Tell us where you want to send it to because we, as a shipping company, have no knowledge or expertise in that area. There is nowhere on our route network that we cannot ship from and there is nowhere on our route network that we cannot ship to. So, if you know where you can ship it to, we will provide the container for free, and we will ship it for free to a place where it can be responsibly recycled.”

It was a good day at #UNOC2022 and one of the points of discussion was improving the implementation of international law, specifically the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Law is pretty unfamiliar to me (as is following rules!), but let’s give it a go.

UNCLOS establishes all the rules about the use of oceans and their resources. It essentially highlights the extent of different territorial waters, what can happen in those waters, and the regulations that govern those activities, including shipping safety, pollution prevention, and fisheries management. One of the most controversial issues is seabed mining, which UNCLOS says is to be carried out ‘for the benefit of mankind as a whole’. What this means, and to who, is very much up for debate.

Steps have been taken to strengthen implementation of UNCLOS, but as always, it’s difficult to do, especially when economic interests are at stake. In an interactive dialogue it was clarified that we have laws for three reasons: to be fair, to ensure activities are done peacefully, and to be practical. While this overview is simple, implementation remains incredibly complex.

So how do we do it? Programs and activities to enhance institutional and human capacities are important, as well as all the usual things: increasing participation, strengthening intersectoral collaboration, coordinating information and access to technology, and establishing a dedicated financial mechanism to facilitate these activities. It’s all the things we already know, and to put it simply: we need to get better at governance in general.

The day ended with this poignant reminder: the ocean was here before we existed and it will still be here after we are gone. So when we talk about ‘protecting the ocean’, we are really talking about protecting the well-being of humankind.
To achieve the well-being of mankind we need to do one thing: firmly establish unity amongst all people. I am amazed that even when trying to understand the complexity of the law, this simple truth resonates through it all.

#OceanAction #SaveOurOcean #SDG14 #BecauseOceans #livingfiercely

It was a busy day today at #UNOC2022. A key topic was making fisheries sustainable and providing access for small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets. Fish is a key source of food and nutritional security. It ensures livelihoods for 59.5 million people and you might be surprised to learn that small-scale fisheries account for nearly half of global seafood catches - half a billion people are at least partly dependent on them for food, employment and income. They are the largest group of ocean users, which is why they are incredibly important to global food security and livelihoods, as well as being socially and culturally important in many regions.

Despite this, however, small-scale fisheries are often overlooked or ignored, especially in government policy and regulations. They also directly feel the impacts of climate change, are threatened by competition from other industries, lack alternative livelihoods, have weak representation, little control over how diminishing resources are managed, and are typically excluded from decision-making.

In short, the sea and its resources are governed by policies crafted in offices far from coasts and coastal communities, and this needs to change.

A lot needs to happen. We need to address overfishing, and unreported, unregulated and illegal fishing, which means improving overall fisheries management. We need to promote the co-management of resources, equitable and sustainable business opportunities, education and services, and legal measures to protect this. In particular, we need to focus on women - they comprise half the global fisheries workforce yet have less access to resources and services, and bear the brunt of discrimination, as usual.

It's also a personal topic to me: a big part of my PhD research looked at the relationship between the fishing industry, local communities and decision-making processes, investigating how power dynamics influence decisions for sustainability.

So yes, a lot to discuss and a lot to change.

#Fishers #OceanAction #SaveOurOcean #SDG14 #BecauseOceans #onassignment #livingfiercely

‘When we look at the Earth from space, we see that we are truly a blue planet - the ocean connects us all,’ said António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, at the opening of the UN Ocean Conference.

So here’s how it’s going to work. Over the next four days we’ll have two sessions in parallel: plenary and interactive dialogues. The plenary sessions are for country statements, where countries make voluntary commitments to protect the oceans. The interactive dialogues cover a variety of themes from marine pollution to ocean-based economies, conservation, science and technology, and implementing ocean law.

Let’s be frank: the state of the oceans is not looking good. Over the last century we’ve seen a significant drop in biodiversity, with more than 2.9 million whales killed by the commercial industry, a 35% drop in marine species, with 100 million marine animals dying annually due to pollution, and 320 fish species under threat of extinction.

Marine pollution is one of the biggest problems, both in terms of chemicals and rubbish. Chemical pollution mainly comes from fertilisers in agriculture and other unsustainable waste management (see my #Minamata coverage), leading to algae bloom that is toxic to people and the environment. And rubbish, well, it’s #plastics again: 13 million tons of plastic enter the ocean every year, there are about 50-75 trillion pieces of plastic and microplastics in the water, and research shows that by 2050, plastic will outweigh fish.

There are two solutions: prevention and clean up. We have to stop using single-use plastics and we fundamentally need to change our relationship to plastic as a society. We need policy change, product change, and all the support that comes with that. At the same time, we need to start cleaning up. A lot of plastics are already lost in deep waters, but we need to start cleaning our rivers, waterways and beaches, and we certainly need to address the 1.6 million square km of rubbish known as the Pacific Garbage Patch.

It's time to clean up our act in so many ways.

#UNOC2022 #OceanAction #SaveOurOcean #SDG14 #BecauseOceans #livingfiercely