ONLINE CURRENTS VOL3 - Flipbook - Page 21
conflict can be mitigated through protocols, like CAMLR, which uses scientific understandings
to create fishing standards to sustainably manage marine stocks, it all curtails into two
fundamental bottlenecks - integrity and consensus. The reasons for this are much due with
the continent being physically so far out of the public eye, allowing full exposure to the naked
forces of geopolitical interests. And, already in an ever-polarizing world, consensus between
nation-states continues to be an ever-receding utopia. What feels like a breaking point
between states, experts argue it's nothing new: “The geopolitical situation is more difficult
now than it was in 2016, but I can’t imagine that it is more difficult than in 1959,” said
Cassandra Brooks.
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“Antarctica is a space
where we can do extraordinary things, and we’ve
seen what countries can do when they come together in the face of crisis”.
Advocacy in a Blue and White Planet
Water covers more than 70% of the planet and produces over half the world’s oxygen, yet our
ocean’s health is degrading at alarming rates. Plastic and chemical pollution continues to
acidify the ocean at rates 100 faster than in pre-civilization times.49 At the same time,
unprecedented levels of overfishing are destroying biodiversity, where now a third of all
global fish stocks are being overfished.50 Marine ecosystems and fish stocks everywhere are
deteriorating dramatically, with the finger of blame often being pointed at human
mismanagement “where fisheries management is not in place, or is ineffective”. 51
Certainly, there can be little doubt that protecting marine and isolated environments
necessitates increased, improved data collection and monitoring of human activities. Marine
Protected Areas - 7.5% of the worlds’ oceans - cover an oceanic area the same size as North
America. The sheer size of these spaces has done much to expose the true difficulties of
policing such vast areas, out of sight from civilization. At this point in history, their policing
almost exclusively hinges upon the solitary work of fishery observers, or ‘guardians of the
ocean’, to gather data on fishing practices and catches.
And yet, with tragedies like the death of Keith Davis a commonality in the industry, question
marks reside over the legitimacy of observer safety, ultimately undermining the notion that
data can be collected with assured integrity, and that MPAs can be effectively policed.
Nevertheless, there is confidence that in the future surveilling technologies like Global Fishing
Watch 52 can displace frontline observing with remote-based alternatives to increase
monitoring capabilities, but until the technological solution becomes clear, the priority for
advocacy is to ensure it positions itself at the forefront of action and discussion.
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