The world has made lacklustre progress in meeting most of the commitments it made 20 years ago to safeguard the oceans, says a report.
At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, agreements were made on issues such as sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, capacity building, and biodiversity; later, the Johannesburg Summit in 2002 in South Africa set targets and timetables to achieve those goals.
But a report entitled ‘Oceans at Rio+20′ has rated both the effort and the achievements to date in protecting oceans and meeting these commitments as ‘low to medium’.
Meanwhile a separate, UN report says that at least 40 per cent of the global oceans are ‘heavily affected’ by human activities and that 60 per cent of the world’s major marine ecosystems have been degraded or are being used unsustainably. It makes ten proposals for improvement.
The report will be presented at the ‘Sustainable Use of Oceans in the Context of the Green Economy and Poverty Eradication’ workshop in Monaco this month (28-30 November), which should feed into the negotiating document that will be produced next year prior to the Rio+20 meeting.
It was produced by the University of Delaware, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Ocean Forum (composed of experts on oceans from over 100 countries) with the contribution of 30 international experts who participated at five global ocean conferences.
The second report, ‘Blueprint for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability’ presented during the 36th session of the UNESCO General Conference this month (1 November) in France, makes ten proposals under the categories of reducing stressors; supporting the ‘blue-green’ economy; reforming ocean governance; and supporting marine research, capacity building and technology transfer.
Links and Source:
Link to full ‘Oceans at Rio+20’ report
Related articles
- UN agencies to present plan for sustainable future of oceans (environmenteng.wordpress.com)
- Rio+20: A Blue Print for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability (terragaia.wordpress.com)
- A Blueprint For Ocean Sustainability (gcaptain.com)
- “If the Oceans go down, it’s Game over” Dr Alex Rogers (politics.ie)
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