NEW YORK, Sept 23 (IPS) – The United Nations General Assembly this week marks nearly 20 years since the body’s founding first solved to limit bottom trawling on the world’s seamounts, which rise thousands of metres above the seabed and are among the world’s most biologically rich marine ecosystems.
Led by Palau and other small island states with generations of ties to the ocean, the decades that followed saw a series of successive agreements extending protection to a wider swath of the deep sea – the dark, cold waters below 200 metres – culminating last year in the adoption of a treaty to protect marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
These are major achievements that should be celebrated. But we have been involved in diplomacy long enough to know that such agreements are often just the beginning of a long and winding journey toward full implementation.
For example, fishing is now taking place not only on seamounts but also in increasingly deeper waters, despite scientific evidence of the serious damage it is causing to coral and other habitats. The most recent World Ocean Review found that “fisheries, particularly bottom trawling, currently pose the greatest threat to seamount ecosystems”.
A similar story plays out elsewhere in the deep sea. Not long ago, the crushing pressure and near-total darkness of the ocean’s mesopelagic layer, sometimes called the “twilight zone” (200-1,000 meters deep), was thought to be inhospitable to life.
However, technological advances such as submarines and remote-controlled vehicles now offer a window into a world teeming with deep-sea fish, squid and shrimp. estimated that this marine kingdom is home to up to 95 percent of all ocean fish by weight and as many as 10 million different species—a level of biodiversity comparable to tropical rainforests.
We now also know that the deep sea environment critical for the health of the broader ocean food chain, including the fish stocks on which countless people around the world depend for food and employment.
In addition, there are new research has shown that the enormous biomass of the mesopelagic organism plays a vital role in the climate system by keeping enormous amounts of heat-trapping gases out of the atmosphere. This process is known as the carbon pump.
But as overfishing, pollution and rapidly warming waters continue to take a toll on global fish stocks, countries are increasingly look at allow their fleets to exploit the deep sea to meet the insatiable demand for fish products used in fertilizers, aquaculture and nutritional supplements.
The danger of overexploitation doesn’t stop at 1,000 meters. Mining companies have long tried to extend their reach from land to the deep sea. Today, for example, the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authoritywhich regulates deep-sea mining, is working to finalize rules for managing commercial activities on the ocean floor.
It has already allowed exploratory mining expeditions into the vast Pacific Ocean Clarion Clipperton Zonewhere ships dredge the seabed 4,000-5,000 meters below the surface for nickel, manganese, copper and cobalt nodules that would never be profitable without government subsidies.
As elsewhere, the activities could cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem and potentially release carbon that has been safely stored for millennia. If approved, large-scale mining could begin within a few years.
Remarkably (and not without irony), research funded in part by a corporate mining interest recently discovered the presence of “dark oxygen” in the same area of the seafloor. It has long been known that oxygen was created by living organisms in the presence of light through the process of photosynthesis.
However, a study published in the summer suggests that the electrochemical properties of the aforementioned nodules can generate oxygen in total darkness. The findings could have far-reaching implications that help us understand the origins of life and demonstrate the high stakes of mining.
As we have begun to unravel the mysteries of the deep sea over the past two decades, the wisdom behind the international community’s commitments to protect it is clearer than ever. Our imperative today is to implement them fully before it is too late.
Surangel S. Whipps Jr. is the president of Palau and Helen Clark is the former Prime Minister of New Zealand.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
