Looks can be deceiving
Many of us are filled with a great sense of wonder and awe when we have the opportunity to experience the ocean. It can excite and calm, mystify and inspire. The ocean stimulates all of our senses. We can see it, hear it, touch it, smell it and taste it. We can completely immerse ourselves in it.
As much as I love tramping through rainforest, admiring mountain views, watching rivers meander through impressive landscapes and discovering all kinds of plants an animals on land... there's something about the ocean that grabs me every time I'm near it.
This boundless blue life force seems mostly unaffected by the passing of time although it is always being pulled towards the moon on one side and pushed out by the rotation of the Earth on the other. The land may undergo frequent changes at the hands of man but the ocean remains reassuringly constant - at least on the surface. As a result most of us are unaware of just how much the ocean has deteriorated in the last hundred years.
I have never liked boundaries that prevent access to places where I have wanted to explore but out here on the ocean there are no fences or walls, no locked gates or signs saying "Keep Out!"... "Trespassers WILL be Prosecuted". Out here you can go for many miles in any direction without coming across anything that is man made. Out here on the high seas there is no ownership, nobody telling you where you can and can't go, nothing to get in your way. Out here you can be truly free. Yet the very reasons why these areas of the planet are so appealing are the same reasons why they are being so tragically abused. International waters belong to nobody and everybody at the same time.
Between the territorial waters of Pacific island countries exist three areas of ocean where everyone can help themselves to all that nature has to offer. These are the Pacific Commons and it's first come, first served out here. That may seem fair to those who are able to come and take what they want but when closer, less privileged nations have their hands tied behind their backs how can they get their fair share? What is to stop those that can, from taking too much?
Very little.
There is barely any enforcement of what few rules exist out here and greedy nations continue to block any moves to conserve and protect these areas.
Nature reserves exist all over the world. Most of us can probably name a few close to our homes that we visit on occasion. These reserves protect ecologically valuable areas of land so that their value can benefit everyone without being unfairly exploited and destroyed. But how many of us can name a marine reserve? Luckily some have been designated within national waters and more are being created every year but there is not one drop of ocean protected as a no-take marine reserves in international waters.
In the past, vast tracts of our seas were simply inaccessible to fishermen and other human activities. These areas were essentially marine reserves, providing natural refuges for many marine species. But modern technology has enabled fishing practically anywhere now - even down as far as 2000 meters.
The Pacific Commons are home to intricate and fragile oceanic ecosystems that are currently suffering from overfishing. Critically endangered leatherback turtles roam the waters in the north section of these three regions where the ocean is divided north to south by the volcanic Earipik Rise. This seamount remains relatively unstudied, but given the biological characteristics of the area, scientists expect that it exhibits a rich array of deep sea life with many species existing only there and nowhere else in the world. There are chains of seamounts in the Pacific Commons that lie east of Papua New Guinea that are probably also rich in life that is yet to be discovered. Both regions are likely to be important spawning areas for commercially important species of tuna (skipjack, albacore and especially yellowfin).
We have more maps of the moon than we do of the deep sea. There is so much we don't know about the ocean but one thing the scientists are sure of is that we are catching too many fish and as a result there are less fish to catch and the ones that are left reach a smaller maximum size with each generation.
As I look across these Pacific waters from our ship, they seem so peaceful and pristine that it's easy to forget the tragedy that occurs out here every day thanks to the lack of protection. From above, the ocean appears breathtakingly beautiful but... looks can be deceiving.
Slideshow images © Greenpeace/Paul Hilton
Comments
Awesome post, Lisa. It´s the Pacific Commons Manifesto.
Posted by: brian | May 18, 2008 8:02 AM
wow those pictures are so beautiful..as a pacific islander we are so blessed with so much natural beauty...its amazing how much we (pacific)have yet do not appreciate it and take it for granted that it will always be there, when reality is we are helping selfish hungry money making companies destroy marine life completely...thank you so much for reminding us of this with beautiful illustration as well as fantastic write -up!!!it is my prayer that all pacific islanders wake up and take up the good fight against anything that tries to deprive the next generation the same beauty we enjoy today...thank u greenpeace
Posted by: daniel loo | May 18, 2008 3:34 PM
What a message!
It really touches me...I felt I was that vast, blue and boundless nature that really looks beautiful in any angle of view (but, looks can be deceiving-as you put it).I loved nature so much and Im glad people like you were there to open up the eyes of everyone to see how human activities destroyed our marine ecosystem.if WE don't act to save our nature, who else will do it?if we don't act Now, WHEN-if the time comes that our children will have no more fish to see?
Mabuhay Greenpeace!
Posted by: manny lauresta | May 19, 2008 4:36 PM
thank you lisa for sharing such beautiful pictures of the ocean with us. please help us to protect these ocean for us and our future generations to come. please do not destroy these oceans they belong to all of us.
one big hurray for green peace.
Posted by: leonard | May 21, 2008 8:03 AM