OCEAN ISSUES

 

By Hardy Mpanano

 

 

We trash it, we proceed useless and destructive experiments in it, we treat it like our own refrigerator by taking everything carelessly. We simply destroy the oceans.

 

 The current important issues that affect the oceans because of mankind are the following: overfishing, acidification, destruction of coral reef, rise of dead zones (area in the ocean that don't support life due to a lack of oxygen), mercury pollution (a dangerous element that affects fish in the oceans and end up on our plates when we eat them, and affect us as well), oceans are now big plastic dumps that perturb the whole ecosystem.

All these issues require that we act fast in order to save the oceans before it is too late. Effectively, even if we can’t see those issues from the beach when our eyes glance at the horizon, we are indubitably killing the oceans.

I’ll specially focus on the overfishing that affects the entire food cycle within the oceans. As a matter of fact we barely realize that the whole ecosystem is a chain in which each species is a part of the mechanism that allows other species to live and maintain the equilibrium of life in the oceans. We are definitely not aware of that but our greed for particular species of fishes make us use the most efficient and destructive mean of fishing to get them on our plates and other purposes. For instance, we kill one of the most important predators of the oceans, sharks, only for their fins to cook costly meals. However we forget that these species we fish out of our needs are important for other species which depend upon them for their survival. According to some specialists we are engaging a process of starvation in some species which can no longer survive. Incidentally, with the death of these ones, other species that depend upon them are going to disappear as well, and so on. That is how we unconsciously destroy the food cycle upon which we also depend.

Furthermore, fishermen use destructive means of fishing that grab from the oceans different species of fishes even when they are not  appropriate to consumption. Moreover they usually don’t make a difference among the fishes. I mean that it often happens that, in the same species, they fish both small ones and the adults, while they should just get the bigger ones and let to the smaller ones the time to grow up an to reproduce.

According to me, the only way to change this situation that will be destructive not only for oceans, but also for mankind, is to come up with some more compulsory rules of fishing that will oblige require all the fishermen from all the countries to respect the ecosystem. In fact a treaty should be created and will give directives on the conditions that fishermen should observe in order to practice their activity in accordance with the ecosystem. Also, the means of fishing should be severely regulated to save some species. Such a treaty should be established by an international organization and signed by all the countries which practice intense fishing in seas and oceans. Economic sanctions should be applied to those countries that don’t respect the terms of the treaty. In the end, as it would be difficult to control all the means of fishing used by fishermen, I would rather think of a control institution of the market. In any case, it will be difficult for illegal fishermen to sell illegal products in a market under a strict control. Currently, the “United Nations Convention on the law of the Sea” and the “United Nations Agreement on Straddling an Highly Migratory Fish” are the treaties that are the foundation of international fisheries governance, when the “United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)” has developed agreements to reinforce international legal instruments by providing elements that will be added into national and regional fisheries management activities. Unfortunately, these treaties and agreements still don’t reach the prospective yielded because of, according to me, the lack of sanctions that would have certainly obliged the countries to be more cautious in their activities.

These new rules will have the advantage of providing enough food to humans in a way that will be sustainable for the oceans and the different species of fishes. However it is quite difficult to constrain all the countries to submit to such rules, especially when their economies depend upon fishing activities. Sooner on later they will have to understand that future generations will depend on the implementation of these rules.