World Ocean Summit 2014 Blog -- Tour the oceans' reef with Google's Ocean Street View
IntraFish is blogging up-to-the-minute information from the World Ocean Summit in Half Moon Bay. Keep checking here to get the latest information on each of the speakers and forums.
Wednesday, Feb. 26, 5:05pm PST
Bivalves and Chinese demand
Public understanding of aquaculture is “very low,” said David Rockafeller Jr., chairman of Sailors for the Sea.
“We need better understanding and communication,” he said. “We need to help the public and congress understand the importance of it.”
Bivalves may answer how to implement the explanation and ultimately create an economic solution for aquaculture ventures, group members of the aquaculture breakout session at the World Ocean Summit said.
To help with the sustainability, Oleg Martens, of World Wildlife Fund, said ASC certification of bivalves is already in the works.
“It’s about responsible aquaculture, not just sustainable aquaculture,” he said.
James Anderson, oceans, fisheries and aquaculture advisor for the World Bank, said mollusk aquaculture is already on the rise with many projects growing and harvesting mussels, clams and scallops.
“The supply high quality protein in the developed and developing region,” he said.
Both Anderson and Tony Haymet, professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography both agreed bivalves may be the solution to help aquaculture grow, but the projects, like all aquaculture projects, need to be sustainably.
“If one can grow seafood sustainably it takes the pressure off overfishing,” Haymet said.
Anderson said the answer of sustainability has to come from China.
“What the younger people in China decide to eat will dictate the global food system,” he said. “China wants traceability. If China demands traceability it’ll make it sustainable.”
--Josh Stilts
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Wednesday, Feb. 26, 11:20pm PST
Aquaculture needs a unified voice
By 2030, two-thirds of the world’s food fish will come from aquaculture and members of the breakout sessions from the World Ocean Summit said it doesn’t just need to be done sustainably, but responsibly.
James Anderson, oceans, fisheries and aquaculture advisor for the World Bank, said to achieve this goal, it’s imperative that vaccines are developed to battle disease, the largest risk factor when assessing value to an aquaculture project.
“For aquaculture to grow, projects need to have disease management,” he said. “Otherwise the industry is going to continue in a rollercoaster.”
Those in the breakout sessions agreed, saying funding and governance, either a unified certification or unifying voice, needs to be established and agreed upon if aquaculture is going to be implemented sustainably.
“It’s a silo effect,” one attendee said. “Everyone is working independently, so in Mexico they have no idea what they’ve been working on in Thailand and vice-versa.”
--Josh Stilts
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Wednesday, Feb. 26, 12:12am PST
Enforcement through naming and shaming
The former President of Costa Rica, Jose Maria Figueres and David Milibrand, former member of Parliament and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in Great Britain debated whether its actually possible to govern the high seas.
Figueres remained optimistic about the potential of a world ocean coalition saying the laws of the seas shouldn’t be the end but just the beginning and that the world should set its sights higher.
“There is no planet B,” he said.
Milibrand suggested instead of instituting a world ocean organization to regulate and enforce the seas, which could wreak havoc when two countries battle over enforcement as a means to institute political will, “naming and shaming” the countries who are degrading the oceans is a much better solution.
“If you address the economics and environment together you’ve got a cocktail to make progress,” he said. “We need the right mix of workable and ambitious.”
Both agreed government subsidies being paid to fishers should end as they only encourage overfishing.
--Josh Stilts
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 11:52pm PST
Where there's a will there's a ... not it politics are involved
There was an overwhelming majority of attendees of the World Ocean Summit who would support a world ocean organization to regulate the seas, but that wasn’t the case a few decades ago, according to Michael Lodge, deputy to the secretary-general, and legal counsel for the International Seabed Authority.
Lodge told IntraFish although the idea is supported, it doesn’t mean it’ll work.
“The problem is the enforcement,” he said. “All the tools are available to eliminate the IUU fishing problem, but there’s a failure of political will to make it happen.”
Christopher Connor, CEO of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics, a shipping company with more than 55,000 commercial vessels, agreed with Lodge, saying the only way to implement change is through “shaming and naming.”
According to Connor, only one in every 500 vessels is tested for sulfur fuel regulations and roughly 50 percent of the those tested fail.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if there was a technical solution to this,” he said. “I would invest in a technology if it would make that happen, but only if the enforcement was there.”
--Josh Stilts
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 11:37pm PST
A long way off from MPA goals
HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco said the world is still far from achieving its target of increasing the Marine Protected Areas to 10 percent by 2020, saying there needs to be a balance between researching and developing solutions for the planet’s energy needs while increasing preservation efforts of the ecosystems.
“Hydro-carbon resources would be a short term solution and only intensify global warming,” he told the crowd.
He also said a sustainable strategy for humanity and the sea can only be achieved by addressing food, energy and politics.
“There should be more collaboration between science, industry and stakeholders,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”
--Josh Stilts
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 11:33pm PST
Cleaning up the North Pacific Gyre and incentivizing the blue economy
The massive plastic island floating in the Pacific Ocean isn’t going to be clean up anytime soon, according to Mark Tercek, president of the Nature Conservancy.
Tercek said it would take trawlers working continuously for more than 80 years to remove the mass known as the North Pacific Gyre.
To help combat the problems and others facing the ocean, Tercek said it’s imperative to provide capital to pay fishers to “fish differently, fish less,” and by doing so it’ll allow the stocks to grow paying back investors with a higher ROI than other many other investment sectors.
--Josh Stilts
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 11:31pm PST
Fossil fuels and oceanic drilling
Shell’s Vice President Environment, Rupert Thomas, said the world’s energy demand could only be met with fossil fuels and natural gas, which will undoubtedly lead to more offshore drilling efforts, he said.
Despite the events of Deepwater Horizon and the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Thomas said there were “many lessons learned,” but now the challenge is utilizing those and how to assess economic value in those and other areas.
--Josh Stilts
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 4:55pm PST
Chile's need for better technology
The Chilean Minister of the Environment, Maria Ignaia Benitez Pereira, told attendees of the World Ocean Summit there's a great need for better technological tools to help improve its waters, but said it doesn't end there.
"We need to know the value of the ecosystems," she said. "Sometimes we have the tools but we don't know how to use them ... the we lose those tools."
Using those tools will help the country provide better scientific results and therefore create better political results, she said.
--Josh Stilts
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 4:54pm PST
China's dependence on the oceans
Jia Guide, deputy director-general for the Department of Treaty and Law Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the People's Republic of China said the country is making strides to make its sea waters more sustainable.
According to Guide, 60 percent of China's GDP comes from 17 percent of the country's coastlines, while 40 percent of its population lives along the coast.
--Josh Stilts
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 3pm PST
Too many acronyms, not enough efficiency
Jeff Ardron, senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), gave a lighthearted "lighting round" talk on the alphabet soup of ocean governance.
You likely know FAO, UNESCO, CITEP and RFMOs, but when you get into CMS, CBD, UNCLOS, ISA and LC/LP, Ardron’s guess is that you get confused.
What's even more confusing are the groups’ remits, and how many of their missions are overlapping or redundant.
Worse, Ardon said, "none of these international groups are very transparent, I'm sorry to say."
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1:07pm PST
Google unveils Ocean Street View
This week Google launched its newest additions to the Ocean Street View, a virtual tour of 24 of the world’s oceans using more than a million images to create 300,000 panoramas.
Steven Silverman and Jenifer Austin, of Google, told IntraFish, the mapping application gives people a 360 degree image to be able to visit locations they’d never have an opportunity to otherwise.
“Less than 0.01 percent of the population has ever been on an ocean dive,” Austin said.
The project has two main goals, Silverman said, recording scientific data, records to monitor changes in the coral reefs and also to engage a global audience in what’s occurring in the oceans.
“It’s an amazing way to bring the world together,” Silverman said.
This August, the program, which partnered with Catlin Seaview Survey to map the oceans, will work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to survey parts of the Florida coast.
--Josh Stilts
Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1pm PST
High impact and high return?
Bill Campbell, president of Equilibrium Capital, spoke about the trade-off asked the audience of NGOs, politicians, business leaders how many of them had a retirement account. Not a hand in the room wasn't raised.
"When you talk about why investors invest the way they do, don't look at a faceless person on Wall Street, look to yourself and the money you're managing," Campbell said. "You're the one objecting to the profits that you want so much."
While investors are looking after returns, Campbell sees a new "generation three impact investing" emerging.
"The more impact you have, the better your returns," he noted of the new emerging models. "We're talking about a whole new class of investing."
Sound too good to be true? The Economist Political Editor and Bagehot Columnist James Astill thought so.
Campbell conceded that there is still a problem of scale to bring investors return on high-impact investing, but it can be done, particularly when you connect investors away from a "black box" and to their investment.
"What they really value is human values," Campbell said.
He noted organic tomatoes cost 40 percent more at retail, but 15 percent more to grow.
"That's not a bad margin," he noted.
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 12:45pm PST
Treating a problem differently
PriceWaterhouseCoopers is using what it calls "Total Impact Measurement and Management" to apply solutions to business challenges.
Orginally developed for other sectors, Malcolm Preston, partner for global sustainability at PWC, said the model is now being applied for ocean-using companies.
A pilot project at a poorly-performing Scandinavian wastewater treatment plant showed interesting results. By measuring impact on environmental, social, economic and tax repercussions, the group looked at a range of changes the company could take to make to become more financially viable by improving its treatment operations.
The options ahead of them were basically to upgrade the existing plant, or find an ecosystem solution. One unusual option not initially considered -- the use of rope-grown mussels to aid in the treatment of the water -- emerged, and using the PWC model, the company found that indeed it was not only the most environmentally-friendly option, it also had the highest business impact as well, boosting payroll, exports and the company's profits.
"A tool like this gives chief executive a tool for looking at things in a more rounded way, a more holistic way," Preston said.
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 12:12pm PST
A drop in the ocean?
One audience member challenged the panel on the ocean as a new economic frontier: how do we get the broader population to care about ocean health issues?
Peter Seligmann, CEO of Conservation International, noted that it is a big problem indeed. Humans have not gotten the real message -- that we need oceans to be healthy -- largely due to poor communication on behalf of groups working with oceans.
The community of environmentalists has "used language that is impenetrable" to explain the problems, Seligmann said, rather than appealing to a more primal understanding.
"[These issues are] actually about our survival," he said.
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, Noon PST
Not so fast, Maria
UN’s Steiner made a riposte to Maria Damanaki's sunny comments about Europe's ocean policy, noting that while the Common Fishery Policy (CFP) and other reforms may have helped the EU achieve some of its fisheries sustainability goals, it has in some cases pushed EU vessels into African waters on "rapacious" fishing trips.
Damanaki defended the EU later in the panel for recent requirements that EU vessels operate under the same standards in overseas waters as they do in the EU.
"And that was not easy for me," she said of the political process to reach the deal.
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 11:50am PST
More overseers, more problems
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said creation of another trans-national group to determine key goals for ocean governance – and idea suggested by several groups -- isn't a good use of time or effort.
"It's easy to create an institution around the problems," Steiner said, but added that existing programs -- such as regional fisheries bodies and the International Marine Organization (IMO), and the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea, should be made more use of, and given more focus.
These bodies are testing the logic of cooperation, so if those don't work yet, there's no sense scaling it, he said.
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 11:30am PST
Africa’s forgotten oceans
Jorge Silva, chief executive officer of Mozlog, noted that of all the attention paid to the world's oceans, the Indian Ocean is the one that needs it the most, and gets it the least.
All of the continent, in fact, is typically left out of the global debate.
"In all of Africa, we have one oceanographic institution -- in South Africa," Silva said. "We kindly request deeper attention for the misuse of our shores. Nature does not tolerate excesses."
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 10:20am PST
'Blue growth'
Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Maria Damanaki was extremely confident about the EU's 'blue growth agenda.'
"Yes, the situation is terrible [with ocean health]," she said. "But we can do it, and we have done it in Europe."
The Economist Executive Editor Daniel Franklin was skeptical, as were many murmuring in the audience.
Damanaki went on: the new Common Fisheries Policy, the ending of subsidies and new science-based management systems are just a few examples of European fisheries reform that have been a global success story.
"We can have sustainability and 'blue growth' together," Damanaki reiterated. "The EU has done it."
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 10am PST
A royal concern
HRH Prince Charles is passionate about seafood issues, and like this year, he joined The Economist World Ocean Summit in 2012 via videolink. Two years later, he’s not optimistic about the progress.
"I remain just as concerned about finding ways to secure the future of our oceans," he said.
"The ocean economy -- or the 'blue economy' -- is in a fragile state," the Prince said. "This should be a major concern for us all."
Even so, global ocean health is "well within our reach," he added.
In particular, by bringing investment capital and natural capital together, real progress can be made.
"Financing these changes could lead to higher, more valuable [fisheries] that could pay back on investment with interest."
--Drew Cherry
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 9:25am PST
US Secretary of State: “We need international dialogue to protect our oceans”
Meeting the current problems facing the planet’s oceans are “complex,” but despite knowing what the threat is and how to battle it, nothing is going to get done until everyone is on the same page, US Secretary of State John Kerry told attendees of the World Ocean Summit.
“We need international dialogue to protect our oceans,” he said. “Every human on earth depends on the oceans for the air we breathe and the food we eat … the essentials of life.”
The three major challenges facing the oceans right now are illegal and unreported fishing, pollution and ocean acidification, he said.
Kerry said the $5 billion global economy dependant on the world’s oceans for fishing is still facing “too much money chasing too few fish,” and called for an end to government subsidies, which he said encourage overfishing.
Seafood imports to the US may also have to prove it was captured legally and traceably, Kerry said, to help battle overfishing.
He also spoke about the immediate need to reduce pollution in the oceans and the “unseen” pollution coming from nitrogen, phosphorous and green house gases to minimize the oceans acidification.
“The hope is there are solutions,” he said, pointing to three tangible ways to improve the oceans.
Solutions won’t come however, until there’s a global voice detailing the regulations and enforcing those rules, he said.
“There’s an urgent need for a global solution for a global problem,” he said. “Every country on earth has to do whatever it can. We need clear and effective policy.”
This summer, the State Department will host another World Ocean Summit, he announced during his address. The two-day conference, will be designed to build significant political efforts to save the oceans.
“We need some kind of global understanding,” Kerry said. “How we’ll enforce regulation and what rules we put in place to manage our oceans, preserve our ecosystems.”
-- Josh Stilts
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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 8:11am PST
More oceans-related events on the way?
When the first World Ocean Summit was put on by The Economist in Singapore in 2012, "it felt a bit lonely," Editor-in-Chief John Mickelthwait told attendees at the opening of the 2014 World Ocean Summit in Half Moon Bay, Calif.
It's likely we'll see another oceans-related event soon.
People have been have been "pleading" for us to do it, Mickelthwait said, and pleading us to do it again.
--Drew Cherry
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Monday, Feb. 24, 8:11pm PST
'Concrete actions,' focused vision
MSC Chief Executive Rupert Howes told IntraFish he was impressed and excited about how the World Ocean Summit has brought together such a unique and vast group of people to discuss the future of the world's oceans.
"I really hope we can come up with results and concrete actions," he said.
When asked about the state of the MSC's search for a new North American director, Howes said the search is ongoing and interviews are still being conducted.
-- Josh Stilts
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Monday, Feb. 24, 7:30pm PST
Know when to throw a punch
Panetta, who has attended many meetings such as the World Ocean Summit, told IntraFish they can end up being a lot of talking without much action.
"We need tight, limited goals to focus on and implement," Panetta said. "There are a number of issues we have to confront but we have to educate the world about the oceans first."
-- Josh Stilts
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Monday, Feb. 24, 7:25pm PST
It's all about people
Leon Panetta, former CIA director and Secretary of Defense, who hails from the Monterey Coast originally, told attendees he watched the local sardine industry of Steinbeck lore whither and die, and said other coastal communities can avoid the same fate if oceans are protected. "Fishermen understand fisheries need to be sustainable," Panetta said. "It's their livelihood."
Panetta noted that 1 in 6 American jobs are dependent on ocean activity, and that by 2020, 75 percent of the population will live in coastal areas.
--Drew Cherry
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Monday, Feb. 24, 7:10pm PST
MSC: A public-private success story
Julie Packard, of the Montery Bay Aquarium said the MSC eco-label has been successful because of the coordinated work of Unilever and the World Wildlife Foundation.
Retailers have embraced sustainable seafood, which represents 97 percent of the market share in North America and 76 percent of the market share globally.
-- Josh Stilts
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Monday, Feb. 24, 6:55pm PST
Coming together for change
So what's the ultimate goal of the three-day conference? In his opening remarks The Economist's Charles Goddard said attendees should take a cue from nearby Silicon Valley and do some "disruptive" thinking about the health of our oceans. With prominent online companies such as Google supporting and attending the event, Silicon Valley is already interested in taking part.
--Drew Cherry
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Monday, Feb. 24, 6:50pm PST
World Summit kicks off
Some of the oceans most influential people are gathering in Half Moon Bay, California for the World Ocean Summit, a three-day event filled with experts covering topics that directly affect the future of the planet's water, sea life and habitats.
Stay tuned to IntraFish for live coverage throughout the event and follow @drewcherry and @intrafish_josh for tweets during the forums.
-- Josh Stilts
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