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Columns::April 29, 2002
It’s a girl!
Faculty members look ‘Towards 2010’ an annual symposium
Trumpet virtuoso Fred Mills named first Prokasy Professor
Vehicle registration begins May 1 for university’s new parking system
Academic Assistance changes its name to Academic Enhancement
Convocation opens new academic year
Executive director of international education closes out ‘abroad career
Animal, dairy complex named for Rhodes, former regents chairman
Kudos
Whither the humanities?
A better mousetrap
Campus News
Setting the agenda
Sea Grant College Program director helps identify issues for upcoming environmental summit
By David Bryant
bryantd@uga.edu
One of the most important features of international environmental governance is the United Nations-sponsored sustainability summit held each decade. The resolutions of the still-controversial 1992 Earth Summit on Environment and Development in Rio
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| A fisheries biologist, Mac Rawson was a delegate to the U.N. Global Conference on Oceans and Coasts this past December in Paris. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
de Janeiro are nearly 10 years old now, and the international community is looking forward to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development this September in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Mac Rawson, director of the Georgia Sea Grant College Program in the School of Marine Programs, recently helped identify the issues for the upcoming summit. The summit’s resolutions will have far-reaching impact on national and local law and policy.
Rawson, a fisheries biologist, was selected as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration delegate to the U.N. Global Conference on Oceans and Coasts--called Rio+10--that was held in Paris this past December. The purposes of the conference were to assess progress on ocean and coastal issues since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and to guide discussion for the next round of global deliberations in Johannesburg.
“Four hundred participants from more than 50 countries represented national governments, intergovernmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations,” says Rawson, “and we found much of great urgency in the state of the world’s ocean and coastal environments.”
The concluding statement produced at the conference made this urgency clear: “Ocean and environmental conditions have continued to decline and unless oceans and coasts are given high priority by the world’s governments, under present conditions and trends, the outlook for the year 2020 leaves little room for optimism.”
According to Rawson, a substantial body of scientific evidence was presented at the conference in support of the urgent call to place coastal and ocean issues squarely on the World Summit’s agenda.
“More than half of the world’s population currently lives within 100 kilometers of the coast,” says Rawson, “and by 2025 it’s estimated that 75 percent of the world’s population, or 6.3 billion people, will live in the coastal zone.”
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations says that in the last 40 years demand for fish has been increasing at twice the rate of population growth. This demand places enormous pressure on coastal and ocean ecosystems, as more and more people look to the sea for food.
Furthermore, according to the conference’s final report, more than 500 million people depend on coral reefs for food and income, and 70 percent of the world’s reefs are threatened. Several are close to perishing. The Paris conference was divided into working topical groups addressing issues such as marine biodiversity, harmonizing international agreements, and oceans and coastal management. Rawson served on the Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture working group.
The working group found that, since the 1992 Earth Summit, the situation has improved for some fisheries but has worsened for many more. A study presented to the group found that of the 441 fish populations for which there were adequate statistics, 4 percent were underexploited, 21 percent moderately exploited, 47 percent fully exploited, 18 percent overfished, 9 percent depleted and 1 percent recovering. The working group concluded that “it is apparent that we have exceeded the limits of these natural systems to support the levels of exploitation to which they are being subjected.”
As director of Georgia Sea Grant, which channels NOAA funds into research and outreach regarding the health of Georgia’s coastal environment and culture, Rawson sees international trends played out locally, so he supports the conference’s statements of concern, particularly with regard to population and fishing pressures.
“Ever-increasing fishing pressure and demand for seafood are rapidly exhausting fishery resources locally and globally,” says Rawson. “Frankly, there is little hope of significantly expanding natural fisheries. With creative science and good social and economic policy, the decline can be stopped, but existing habitat destruction will make it difficult to rebuild in the short term. At best, we will see incremental increases in natural production.”
There was much discussion at the Rio+10 conference of the promise of aquaculture as a means of increasing the seafood supply. While encouraged by this promise, Rawson cautions that aquaculture, too, has negative environmental consequences if not managed properly.
“Though this sounds bleak,“ says Rawson, “better science, education and creative approaches to resource management can improve conditions--but we should waste no time in pursuing local and global solutions.” |
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