What could ecocide law do for the ocean?
This series of guest blog posts is intended as a dedicated space for the many movements/campaigns around the globe confronting ecosystem destruction to share their stories, narratives and perspectives.
This guest blog was written by Deborah Rowan Wright, an ocean conservation policy expert and author of ‘Future Sea: How to Rescue and Protect the World’s Oceans’.
The global ocean is our greatest ally in the face of the climate crisis, soaking up billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, producing over half of the Earth’s oxygen and absorbing excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, keeping the planet cooler. Billions of people rely on the ocean to provide a potentially continual supply of food and employment from fishing and related trades. And most remarkable, it is home to an unimaginable wealth and diversity of life, with some estimates surpassing ten million marine species.
No matter where you are or what you are, the ocean makes all life possible. But it faces serious human-caused threats from chemical and plastic pollution, mining, dredging, oil extraction, industrial fishing, habitat destruction and CO2 emissions, which are making seas warmer and more acidic.
So where does our current approach to marine protection fall short and how could ecocide law help fill the gaps?
Marine Protected Areas – The ocean’s champion?
Sargassum frogfish in mangroves, Lac Bay, Bonaire. Lorenzo Mittiga/ Ocean Image Bank.
The marine conservation strategy favoured by many coastal states is to designate more marine protected areas. Over the years, the protection target has been steadily rising and an international alliance of scientists, journalists, activists, conservation NGOs and some governments is now calling for 30 percent of the global ocean to be kept safe within a global network of protected areas by 2030 (30 x 30).
But there are drawbacks and incongruities in creating marine protected areas to tackle the troubles at sea and three stand out in particular.
Firstly, although it is important to recognise how beneficial 30 percent protection can be, over-extractive, cruel and destructive practices will be able to continue beyond the boundaries of every protected area – in the far greater part of the ocean. Creating marine protected areas is a strategy that accommodates the ocean’s destroyers and even facilitates them.
For example, although it’s difficult to believe, harmful activities like dredging and bottom trawling are still permitted in many alleged ‘protected areas’, which makes them a mockery of marine conservation policy. It leads us to believe that governments are tackling the ocean problem and that we can rest easy, when in fact their policies are perpetuating the harm.
A more effective and more logical solution would be to create ‘marine commercial areas’, instead of marine protected areas – places where industries such as fishing and mining are carefully controlled to ensure they operate responsibly, leaving the rest of the ocean out-of-bounds to exploitation and able to replenish and recover.
Secondly, marine protected areas are a flawed model because water and marine life move constantly. They are unpredictable and mostly unseen. Applying land-bound thinking to the sea as a conservation strategy has limited success. The plastic waste and pollutants we want to keep out of a protected area or the wildlife we want to keep in, pay no attention to boundaries drawn on a map.
Nor do we really know what goes on under the water. With an incomplete understanding of marine ecosystems, it’s often unclear where best to designate a protected area. For instance, the life stages of many species occur in different locations. An example is the Caribbean Spiny Lobster, which lives in various habitats during its life, including mangroves, reefs, and the open ocean. Other animals, like Leatherback Turtles and Manta Rays, migrate huge distances to feed and breed, travelling far beyond the safety of a protected area.
Leatherback sea turtle, Coral Bay, Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia. Emelie Ledwidge/ Ocean Image Bank
Thirdly, we already have international legal protection for the whole global ocean and marine life – both within coastal states’ Exclusive Economic Zones and on the high seas. Several conservation agreements are in place, including the Convention on Biodiversity; the UN World Charter for Nature; the UNFCCC; the International Whaling Commission; the Antarctic Treaty; and most notably, since 1994, the United Nations Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – which is legally binding. UNCLOS obliges states to protect and preserve the marine environment, outlaw over-exploitation, and provide special protection to the most fragile and endangered marine ecosystems.
You may be wondering why the ocean is facing an ecological crisis if we have the law to protect it. The answer is that almost all the participating countries disregard the conservation elements of the Law of the Sea and haven’t implemented or enforced them. This is despite the existence of readily available technologies and expertise to enforce the law across the globe, even in the remotest seas.
What can we do differently?
In 2009, when I was working on the campaign to have more marine protected areas around the UK, it was clear that making a few pockets of ‘safe’ water could never effectively protect British seas and their wildlife. This was tokenism, designed to maintain the status quo. Since then, I’ve talked to many fellow campaigners and published policy proposals (the first in 2010), written articles and a book, wanting to convince NGOs, journalists and scientists that we should aim for and expect the whole ocean to be free from harmful over-extractive industries, and not just parts of it.
At an event recently, I was asked, ‘What can we do to protect the ocean better than we’re doing now?’ ‘So many things’, I thought, but here are my top three.
1. Use the Law.
For thirty years we’ve had the law to protect the ocean from over-exploitation, damage and pollution – so let’s use it. The conservation community can unite to pressure governments to implement and enforce the marine protection obligations of the Law of the Sea.
Well-managed protected areas can be seen, not as a panacea, but a stepping-stone fix on the way to a much bolder, longer-term goal of 100 percent ocean protection. People will still be able to fish waters, ship cargo across them, and take minerals and oil from beneath the seabed, but only in judicious, responsible ways.
2. Educate and enlighten to encourage a cultural shift in favour of nature
Sharing knowledge and promoting understanding about the incredible wealth and diversity of marine life, how the ocean sustains us, and what we can do to help protect it will encourage people to value the ocean and to care. And when we care about something we look after it.
The conservation community can urge educational authorities to include ocean studies in school curricula, from primary level through to higher education. It can also ramp up ocean awareness-raising campaigns to win over the wider public, using the power of the media.
The Rights of Nature, which are granted to protect rivers, forests,wetlands and lakes, for example, can fast-track such a change in people’s hearts and minds by obliging citizens to have greater respect for wild places and their wildlife. Formalising a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights will give the ocean a metaphorical voice, bolstering its position at the negotiation table and highlighting the importance of maintaining and restoring its health and vibrance.
3. Make ecocide an international crime
Destructive and excessive fishing, marine plastic and chemical pollution, deep sea mining in biodiversity-rich areas, most marine fish-farming, and detrimental coastal development happen as a result of individuals, or groups of individuals in positions of power making irresponsible decisions, often in full knowledge of the damage their actions cause.
When ecocide, the mass destruction of nature, is made an international crime, those high-level decision-makers, whether they are in government, industry or the financial sector, could be made criminally accountable. Ecocide law will enable them to be charged and sentenced if found guilty.
Let's say a fisheries minister sets catch limits for several commercial-value fish species that are far above the scientific advice they are given, because the minister bowed to pressure from the fishing industry to keep quotas high. As a result, those fish populations plummet, and many other forms of dependent marine life, including seabirds, mammals, crustaceans and other types of fish are left without sufficient food.
A few people in positions of authority created a completely avoidable ecological breakdown in the sea. If ecocide law were in place, the fisheries minister and the CEOs and senior managers of the fishing corporations could potentially be prosecuted. And, even if they were not found guilty, the possibility of prosecution and a custodial sentence alone would be enough to make other decision-makers think twice about continuing with nature-wrecking policies and practices.
There is a way to go before the mass destruction of nature is outlawed at an international level, but with a formal proposal to criminalise ecocide now having been submitted to the International Criminal Court by Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa, ecocide law is firmly on the court’s agenda. For the ocean, ecocide law can be a powerful tool to help safeguard the marine world from further harm and enable it to recover from decades of damage and over-exploitation.
You can join the growing global movement to make ecocide an international crime by endorsing our Ocean Open Letter.