ELC Partner Delivers Speech Advocating for Ocean Rights
Earth Law Center has partnered with groups and individuals across the Pacific, including Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and Conservation International Pacific Islands Programme plan to create a Convention on the Rights of the Pacific Ocean.
In November 2018 the first meeting of partners and groups produced a Statement from the Collective Thinking of those present to be used to invite communities, businesses, and governments to redefine their relationships with the ocean at local, regional and global scales.
One of our key partners advancing Ocean Rights forward is Jacqueline Evans, the former Director of the Marae Moana Coordination Office at the Cook Islands Office of the Prime Minister. Her lifelong commitment has been to the protection of the marine environment in the Cook Islands and received the 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize for Islands and Island Nations for her work to establish Marae Moana, the Cook Islands Marine Park, over the entire Cook Islands ocean territory.
Photo by: Julius Silver, Aitutaki, Cook Islands
Jacqui recently presented the Keynote Address at the Pacific Workshop on Marine Priorities Leading for the CBD Post-2020 Biodiversity Strategy in Apia, Samoa. Below is her speech.
“With the lessons humanity has learnt about our environment over the last five decades and the more recent awareness that has been raised about the plight of our ocean, the importance of marine conservation is obvious. The impact of our ever-growing, ever-demanding human species has been devastating on the rest of nature. Since the 1950’s we have removed 90% of all large predatory fish in the oceans . It’s estimated that around 10 million tonnes of plastic reaches the ocean each year . That works out to be 300 kilograms of plastic per second. Climate change is transforming our ocean’s chemistry leading to weaker coral reefs and coastlines more vulnerable to the impact of storms.
Following the growth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 70s, we can celebrate some successes in the battle to save the planet. The implementation of the Montreal Protocol has turned back the tide on ozone depletion . Many countries are now putting in place policies and legislation to reduce their use of single-use plastics. Two years ago the world’s marine protected areas had increased in size by 25 times since the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was declared in 1975. But we must do more.
The response to this crisis by the way of such things as Environmental Impact Assessments, protected areas, conventions and legislation has been so grossly inadequate that we now find ourselves asking that the international community recognise that the ocean has rights. The right to perform all of her natural functions, the right to have a voice in all of the decisions that affect her health, the right to clean water and a healthy existence.
We are proud in the Cook Islands that our communities and traditional leaders convinced our parliament to fully protect 50 nautical miles around each of our 15 islands. The percentage of our ocean territory protected from industrial fishing and seabed mining under the Marae Moana Act is 16%, or an area of 324,000 square kilometres, about the size of the country of Malaysia. As for the remaining 84% of our ocean territory, the Act states that any economic or research activities in our ocean territory must be consistent with protection and conservation of our marine biodiversity and environment. This means that with current technology, it is illegal under the Marae Moana Act to conduct seabed minerals exploration activities such as the testing of mining equipment. The only types of seabed minerals exploration activities that can legally be done under the Marae Moana Act are species inventories, low impact geological studies, and non-invasive measurements of oceanographic parameters and marine biological studies. It is illegal to mine the seabed under the Marae Moana Act using mining technology that has been developed to date.
But the effectiveness of this law on protecting the remaining 84% of our ocean territory, is dependent on its implementation. This is an important point, in light of setting our post-2020 targets. We must ensure that we invest in the implementation of marine managed space. For example, unless the Marae Moana Act is enforced precisely, using whole-of-society engagement, we are at risk of unravelling the effectiveness of protections under the Act.
The proposal to set a post-2020 target to protect 30% of our coastal and marine areas by 2030 has arisen from multiple studies. A review of 144 scientific studies of marine protected areas concluded that the required coverage to achieve, maximise or optimise biodiversity conservation objectives is 37% . Another review by IUCN found that the minimum percentage to protect a narrow subset of biodiversity values is 30% but that protected areas need to be selectively located, properly designed, well governed and effectively and equitably managed to achieve biodiversity outcomes.
I know that protecting more of our marine and coastal areas is very difficult to contemplate as a marine manager. I know that as Pacific Islanders when we consider our limited opportunities for economic development and the demands on our governments for sufficient budget to support health, education and infrastructure that protecting such a large proportion of our marine environment is a daunting prospect. But the evidence demonstrates that we need radical change if we are to achieve ecologically sustainable development of our marine resources. The alternative is to undermine the years of effort we have already put into managing them.
What is certain is, if we adopt a 30% marine protected areas target, we need to have clear standards for the remaining 70%. We need to invest in the protected areas that we have established and we need to clearly define what is permitted within those areas.
In the face of globalisation, biodiversity has suffered immensely. The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate. The impact of our activities are so enormous that scientists have named this geological period the Anthropocene. The driver of the Anthropocene is human population growth combined with our insatiable appetite for excess. Global meat production is increasing and is the single most important source of the greenhouse gas, methane. Agriculture uses more freshwater than any other human activity with nearly a third required for livestock. The demand for seafood has led to enormous pressure on fisheries. The over-consumption of material goods is driving the mining of minerals and fossil fuels. Even the growth in renewable energy is hurtling us towards a potential future of seabed mining because of the increasing demand for minerals like cobalt and rare earth elements.
In the Cook Islands, as with much of the world, we see our youth becoming increasingly angry about this. Our youth are angry that my generation has failed to deliver on climate change policy. These millennials, growing up in a society that over-values so called “economic development”, are angry that we have failed to reverse the trend of biodiversity decline. But because of this anger, I see a new culture on the rise. This new culture calls for greater transparency and accountability in decision-making. They value a plant-based diet, they value local vs imported produce. They value minimalism and condemn the wasteful, throw-away society that my generation has cultivated. These are the changes that are needed to reverse the horrendous statistics I’ve referred to earlier because they address the never-ending demands of the global economy on our natural resources. We must perpetuate these values.
Let’s use this spark of youth action that defies the culture of over-consumption to ignite a global movement. Let’s push for an increase in protected areas and invest more in their implementation and management. Let’s change the economic framework so that pollution is penalised and sustainability incentivised. Let’s take this opportunity to review our biodiversity targets to reflect the radical and transformative change upon which the survival of our species, and all species on this planet depends.”
ELC held a joint-webinar with the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and the Ecological Law and Governance Association (ELGA) on June 18th, 2018 on the emerging movement of Ocean Rights. Presenters included Michelle Bender, Ocean Rights Manager at ELC, Jacqueline Evans, and Barbara Lausche, an international environmental lawyer with over 30 years of experience. You can watch the webinar here.
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