14 nations commit to protect oceans

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2020/12/in-rare-show-of-solidarity-14-key-nations-commit-to-protect

by hassanahmad • 6 years ago

357 120 6 years ago

nationalgeographic.co.uk

ClosedPistachio2• 6 years ago

The 14 members are Australia, Canada, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Portugal, and the island nations of Fiji, Jamaica, and Palau.

ClosedPistachio2• 6 years ago

Also from TFA:

Combined, they represent 40 percent of the world’s coastlines, 30 percent of the offshore exclusive economic zones, 20 percent of the world’s fisheries, and 20 percent of the world’s shipping fleet.

hobofan2• 6 years ago

40 percent of the world’s coastlines

At what resolution? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 6 years ago

Does this mean that Japan will now stop their “research” whale hunts?

If it doesn’t, I am worried about how much this commitment is real.

jbay8082• 6 years ago

Some Japanese people I speak with who work in the marine industry believe that whales are a major threat to fish stocks and are gobbling up all the fish so that not enough is left for humans.

I don't believe that's true and make an effort to persuade them otherwise. But at the very least I'm sure that many Japanese people (based on what they have been taught) earnestly do not see an incongruity between whaling and a desire to protect the oceans.

valarauko• 6 years ago

Japan has resumed commercial whaling since July 2019

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/asia/japan-first-whale-catch-...

qart2• 6 years ago

Why single out Japan? Canada, Greenland, Faroe Islands, and Norway all exceed it. Canada and Norway are signatories of this new commitment.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Whaling_catches_by_loc...

Thlom5• 6 years ago

What is the problem with whaling if done in a sustainable way?

pstuart2• 6 years ago

I imagine the US will come on board some time after January 20.

sweetlucipher• 6 years ago

Just as Japan is about to dump a million ton (or more?) of radioactive water (from Fukushima) into the ocean.

xwdv4• 6 years ago

Radioactivity isn’t really a big deal for animals and non-sentients. It mostly prevents humans from entering certain areas, which in this case maybe it’s good that humans will avoid them so animals could thrive there.

vbezhenar• 6 years ago

What about caught radioactive fish that humans will eat?

mrlala• 6 years ago

A million tons doesn't even sound like that much?

1 million metric tons = 1 million cubic meters. That's only a 100m cube of water..

kvgr• 6 years ago

It is gonna dillute so much it will not be a problem at all...

guscost• 6 years ago

“Radioactive water” in this context means “normal water with trace amounts of tritium, which emits radiation that is less harmful than sunlight”.

Apes• 6 years ago

Don't panic! Don't worry! China is more than willing to pick up the ocean destroying slack from these 14 nations! They're already doing around 80% of the damage, how could they not just do a bit more?

Darmody• 6 years ago

It's crazy how activists never point at the ones who do the most damage.

PradeetPatel• 6 years ago

Can finger pointing really solve anything though?

Starting a wider conversation and raising awareness will probably help a lot more in the long run.

wincy• 6 years ago

I don’t know what a China embargo would look like, but I know that any first world government who tried it would find themselves promptly removed from power and a newer Chinese friendly government installed amongst rabid cries for new iPhones and gadgets.

Kluny• 6 years ago

China is indeed doing most of the damage, but you may not realize that they're actually aware of it and they do care. China is also doing the most research into recycling and sustainability and making the most progress. It's a big country, a lot of things can happen all at once.

CapitalistCartr• 6 years ago

These are not the "key" nations. Those are USA, China, India, Japan, EU, Britain. Until they get on board, it's still too little (and probably too late).

comeondude• 6 years ago

Can’t build a better future with cynicism.

KiranRao0• 6 years ago

Can't built a better future with blind optimism either

fogetti• 6 years ago

You mean the cynicism that the nations producing the most waste (UK, US, etc) are not part of the effort? Yes, that's very cynical of those nations indeed.

Mountain_Skies• 6 years ago

When it comes to the oceans, add France to the list. Due to their island holdings around the globe, they have the world's largest maritime exclusive economic zone, covering 8% of the surface of the Earth.

pferdone• 6 years ago

You may have missed that he mentioned the whole EU :)

dundarious• 6 years ago

The 14 members are Australia, Canada, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Portugal, and the island nations of Fiji, Jamaica, and Palau.

So at least Japan is on board.

aplummer• 6 years ago

Australia is comfortable doing their per capita bit plus extra destroying arguably one of the most valuable biological assets in the world (the Great Barrier Reef), so it’s kind of sad to see the hypocrisy.

lhorie• 6 years ago

Well, Japan is one of them.

The group of 14 looks nothing like the usual assemblage of international leaders recruited for global initiatives. France, with its vast array of overseas territories that gives it one of the planet’s largest ocean footprints, was not invited. Nor were the powerhouse players of Russia, China, or the United States.
“Negotiation with that category of country isn’t all that easy,” says Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s former Minister of Climate and Environment and the driving force behind the project. “We decided to get a group where high politics wouldn’t get in the way and we could be focused on the task.”
The idea, Helgesen says, was to gather a coalition of the willing—a like-minded group of countries with the ocean deeply embedded in their culture and history—to conduct discussions that would be underpinned by science.

I think this looks like a good move. IMHO, a big problem with environmental challenges is this idea that a solution has to be some all-or-nothing affair, and because of the perceived insurmountability, nothing gets done politically. Getting a group of nations to do something because they _need_ to seems like a good fire under people's asses to get the ball moving.

throwaway8943452• 6 years ago

It might also serve as a proof of concept that makes it easier for larger countries to sign on.

aerovistae• 6 years ago

Disagree! This is a smart way to go about this. As they say in the article, “Negotiation with that category of country isn’t all that easy,” whereas they can form effective policies in their absence and then gain momentum to pressure others to join.

SquareWheel• 6 years ago

They address this in the article. Smaller nations were chosen to focus on the issue at hand, and not to get caught up in politics.

throwawaysea• 6 years ago

I don't see how any commitment to protect the oceans can be taken seriously without China committing to it. See this prior comment I made in a different discussion, concerning China's distant fishing fleet, which is ravaging ocean environments worldwide: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25120998

freewilly1040• 6 years ago

A great recent book that touches on the topic of overfishing and ecological damage to the oceans is: The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier by Ian Urbina.

frEdmbx• 6 years ago

I'm still surprised the "99%" haven't made a pact to all use a cryptocurrency. I can understand why the 5 wealthiest nations that all want to be the one with a world reserve fiat global enslavement system would oppose such a thing.. but the bottom 190 nations with no chance of theirs being the world reserve currency should all get together and agree to use, contribute to, and defend Bitcoin. These allied nations could agree to contribute at least some minimum, and not exceed 25% of the mining power, with each nation limited to 1/195th of that total. Any attempt at corrupting should be seen as a crime, and act of war, against humanity.

sjs382• 6 years ago

Since it's buried a little:

The 14 members are Australia, Canada, Chile, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Portugal, and the island nations of Fiji, Jamaica, and Palau.

liminal• 6 years ago

I like this approach of coalitions of the willing. If the willing can gain critical mass they can hopefully apply enough trade pressure/incentives for the unwilling to join too. These sorts of efforts seem to need momentum. Everything seems impossible until it's done.

renewiltord4• 6 years ago

Nations can only control their sovereign seas. The majority of the world oceans are unpoliced. And honestly, I don't see why I, as a developing nation, shouldn't overfish the seas. The developed nations (excluding perhaps the US for being so young) are where they are because they chopped their forests, killed their wildlife, and burned what else they could find.

England isn't going to reforest. Germany isn't going to reintroduce all the wildlife they hunted. And the peoples of neither nation have paid reparations to the Earth (for good reason, they can't afford to). If I were running China, the right thing for me to do is to strip the Earth dry, and then a century later when I'm rich demand that "All nations must do their part".

After all, it's not like anyone will make me pay for everything that happened a century ago. So you'll either have to make me not do this or you're going to have to suck it up. China's navy doesn't have the ability to protect her shipping fleets so that's her problem.

triceratops2• 6 years ago

I don't see why I, as a developing nation, shouldn't overfish the seas.

Developed nations should pay them not to.

renewiltord4• 6 years ago

Economically, I agree that this is how the resources should flow. Practically, I suspect there is an enforcement problem.

sgift• 6 years ago

We tried this with Brazil. Result: They continued to remove forests and said "and if you don't pay anymore we will accelerate it". So, sounds good in theory, is not in good in practice.

maxerickson• 6 years ago

Most of the forest in the US has been cut at least once.

We also reduced the Bison population from tens of millions down to ~150,000.

So no different really.

renewiltord4• 6 years ago

Haha, okay, there we go then.

Perhaps the best way for us to preserve land for trees in America is to buy Weyerhaeuser stock.

yongjik• 6 years ago

That's like saying "As a developing nation, I don't see why I should mandate fire code. Developed nations are where they are because workers burnt to death in gruesome preventable disasters."

And, mind you, in any developing nation, there will be people who raise these rhetorics and try to make it an issue of national pride or something. Because these people have much to gain by keeping workers in dangerous buildings, bulldozing national forests, or depleting fisheries.

renewiltord4• 6 years ago

Sure. If I were running a developing nation I would do precisely those things: burn my people in a furnace that accelerates overall development. Every single success story of the last century has taken this strategy. Because it turns out that the best way to make life better for future citizens is to throw some smaller number of present citizens in the furnace.

China didn't raise 400 million out of poverty by accident. Lives were paid. Intentionally.

FirstLvR• 6 years ago

as a Chilean, I'm a bit sceptical

Kharvok• 6 years ago

Posturing. Almost all of the plastic pollution in the ocean comes out of 5 river systems in Asia

jimmaswell• 6 years ago

Wait, I thought banning convenient shopping bags and drinking utensils was supposed to fix everything.

aledalgrande• 6 years ago

"not the usual gang of suspects" ehr, Canada is there ;)

markdown2• 6 years ago

Australia, the country destroying its own Great Barrier Reef on the altar of resource extraction (coal, etc), is promising to protect oceans? This commitment isn't worth the paper it's written on.

raytracer• 6 years ago

The Great Barrier Reef will continue to deteriorate until the problems of global warming and ocean acidification are resolved.

But these aren't the only problems the ocean is facing. Resolving other issues will help maintain the health of ocean ecosystems.

It's likely wishful thinking but possibly it will be harder to justify new coal mines etc if enough of these individual agreements are accepted. :shrug:

markdown2• 6 years ago

The Great Barrier Reef will continue to deteriorate until the problems of global warming and ocean acidification are resolved.

Yes and Australia has been actively working against that while laughing about the plight of the islanders who're most affected by climate change "time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door" - Home Affairs Min. Dutton https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joki...

At COP25, it was Australia (along with Saudi Arabia and Brazil) who were blocking progress.

kleer0012• 6 years ago

I hope this might be the start of a solution to the planet wide tragedy of the commons of the ocean. I do not have high hopes. The territory is too large and the criminals too small.

Danieru2• 6 years ago

Since no one has mentioned the elephant in the room: this appears to be a lobby of countries not happy with the current absolute ban on whaling. Norway never signed, Canada has always had natives continuing to hunt, and Japan dislikes how the treaty meant to restore whale populations has become a treaty to forever ban. Thus we see the world's pro whaling group. Plus the smaller nations who can be bought to the table.

One should expect sustainable whaling to be top of this groups agenda.

jaspax2• 6 years ago

And good on them! I like whales and I think nations should coordinate to ensure that they stick around, but this doesn't have to mean that we ban whaling forever. As with most natural resources, managed harvest is a better long-term policy than an absolute ban.

ficklepickle2• 6 years ago

Um, no. Whales are sentient creatures. We should not be slaughtering commercial quantities of whales. I'm fine with the northern aboriginal people killing their 7 whales, but I'm not down with Japan killing thousands because the meat is a delicacy, oh I mean "research".

I'm willing to make a compromise though. If we can hunt human children, your children, then I think that would be fair. Either we can kill any sentient animal for money/sport or none of them.

I'll see myself out.

WalterBright2• 6 years ago

If I was President, I'd declare some offshore zones as National Parks. No fishing or motorized boats would be allowed in them.

pstuart2• 6 years ago

I imagine our next president may be sympathetic to this issue.

oriettaxx• 6 years ago

I saw "The Cove" a couple of days ago (in streaming here, btw https://azm.to/movie/the-cove ) where Japan is portrayed pretty bad: the worst is how they "engage" small/poor countries to support their national policy over fishing: the list of these 14 reminds me that a bit.

Anyhow, as some of you said: it's probably better then nothing

14 nations commit to protect oceans

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