European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has announced the Commission wants to develop a new Ocean Pact in order to ensure coherence across all policy areas linked to the ocean. The EU Ocean Days were a good occasion to seek inputs from different stakeholders into the on-going discussions within and across the institutions at different levels.

The agenda has the elements necessary, though it may sound at first glance as just another wish list when confronting it with some of the sobering ground truths: Ensure a healthy and productive ocean by protecting biodiversity, all the while boost the EU’s sustainable blue economy. Expand the EU’s marine knowledge framework that should underpin these efforts together with the reinforcement of international ocean governance for developing resilience and opportunities for coastal communities. Knowledge and the resilience of coastal communities are intended as cross-cutting issues.

Charlina Vitcheva speaking both on behalf of Commissioner Costas Kadis and in her function as head of DG MARE emphasised that as a result of the political guidelines of the new Commission it was important to collect views, experiences and efforts across Europe and beyond in a broad brain storming process. That would help underpin to put the ocean firmly on the political agenda with a recognition of the enormous scale of the ocean economy and a desirable investment of almost €60 billion per year.

According to Charlina Vitcheva, the Ocean Pact should ascertain a commitment with strategic goals ranging from competitiveness for the blue economy in the region, restoration of ocean health, productivity and resilience, strengthened diplomacy and global ocean governance, all enabled by a robust marine knowledge framework.

MEP Christophe Clergeau, Chair of the SEARICA Intergroup in the European Parliament (EP), took a prompt from Charlina insisting to go beyond aspirational talks. He admonished that none of the top political leaders was present casting doubt on the real priority attributed. As far as the group in the EP was concerned, he demanded to get ready not as much for an Ocean Pact, but an Ocean ACT. He listed the areas in which he was expecting particular efforts for a credible action oriented agenda:

  • enforcement of existing legislation;
  • review of the Marine Framework Directive in order to place stronger emphasis on adopting an ecosystem approach everywhere;
  • more decisive efforts to decarbonise maritime traffic, where European owned companies were major players;
  • get 20% of renewable energy from the ocean;
  • equal protection of workers in maritime industries across all of Europe.

In his brief welcome statement, Starfish Mission Chair Pascal Lamy placed all the emphasis on the need to learn and communicate broadly about the resources and ecosystems under the water surface.

In the political arena his principal demand was to get all members of the European Commission together behind an impactful Ocean Pact.

Four panel sessions covered a lot of ground throughout the day, though presentations dominated the agenda, leaving discussions almost exclusively to networking breaks.

It started out with ‘Ocean Health, Productivity and Resilience’.

Monica Verbeek, Executive Director of Seas At Risk, recalled the commitment to achieve 30% protection of ocean spaces with emphasis on doing better than the largely nominal marine parks declared on paper, but hardly enforced. As much as possible these spaces should become strictly protected to restore a tired ocean to a healthy state again. She also cautioned that such protection should not be interpreted by imply that 70% of the ocean could continue to be mismanaged. Instead, 100 of the ocean and adjacent land areas should be restored too and achieve good environmental status. That would mean to finally implement and enforce the Marine Framework Directive, so that the benefits would accrue to marine ecosystems and all citizens.

There were many areas, including renewable energy from the ocean and cleaning up toxic port environments, which required a concerted efforts. The necessary funding should come from an Ocean Fund which could be well-endowed by cutting harmful subsidies. She passionately argued for a ban on bottom trawling, particularly in so-called Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), where all destructive activities should be off limits. Instead, curbing plastic pollution and regenerating fish populations should provide healthy and nutritious seafood most of which should not have travelled half the globe to reach our plates.

Joachim Hjeri, founder of Havhǿst in Denmark, argued in favour of putting regeneration at the heart of all interaction with the ocean. Just reducing the level of harm of ongoing activities while pursuing a logic of short-term profit was inacceptable and would prevent reaching the restoration objectives. He cited several examples of civil society initiatives, where citizens were practising e.g. low trophic level aquaculture (rather than unsustainable high trophic salmon fattening) and other regenerative activities. The challenge was, of course, first to scale down industrial-scale use with many negative side effects, then to scale up and scale out successful citizen initiatives and inspire others to take similar action adapted to their context. Blue gardens were a case in point, which doubled up as incubators for local entrepreneurship and support for small-scale fishers. The diversification of activities provided valuable learning spaces that were low risk, but helped to identify what worked and what didn’t.

Sylvain Blouet, Deputy Director of the Marine Protected Area Côte Aganthoise in France, cautioned that involving citizens step-by-step in developing, monitoring and enforcing protective measures took time. Building the trust necessary to create readiness for behavioural change was a rather intensive process involving regular interaction that underpinned collective learning. It was important to engage with the professionals, but also recreational ocean users and politicians. The use of mediators was highly recommended to facilitate the co-construction of understanding and management measures. Maintaining trust and engagement required continuous effort. It was advisable also to engage with the education system to ensure longer-term continuity as well as nurturing partnerships with research.

Sylvain Blouet also emphasised the importance of continuity in finance. In their case, an 8-year LIFE project had provided essential planning and management security. More engagement of the private sector was an area needing more attention, while local ecotaxes could perhaps also become a source of financial support. Small financial or other incentives warranted thought to encourage nature friendly practices.

There were more panels and comments than we can report here. But we should at least cover a few key points from the two afternoon panels on International Fisheries and Ocean Governance. Though ocean governance is a lot broader than fisheries governance, most of the comments still referred to fisheries as one of the major if not THE major impact factors on the ocean at this point in time.

Joao Aguiar Machado

MARE Director General Charlina Vitcheva pleaded strongly for coherence between different international policies, from fisheries, to environment and trade, not to forget labour rights. She argued that ocean diplomacy needed more efforts, not the least through more intensive exchange and collaboration with African and Asian countries individually and on a regional basis.

Joao Aguiar Machado, currently EU ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, recalled that global fishery production was declining as a result of widespread overfishing, exacerbated by the impact of climate change and pollution. To put things into perspective, he mentioned that there were an estimated 4 million fishing vessels on the water, most small. The EU flagged vessels represented about 5% of the total and accounted for 5% of global fishery production.

He singled out China as the country with the highest level of harmful subsidies, particularly for its long distance fleet, number of ocean-going vessels and production. Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RMFO) covered large chunks of the ocean. Many of them actively used research inputs into their management approaches. The European Union was investing heavily into most of them and promoted zero tolerance to illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fisheries, including in its market access. Adopting this and other sustainability criteria was important for the EU as the largest global seafood market, though it was all but easy to implement on all fronts.

Curbing IUU fishing needs a strongly coordinated international effort, including vis-à-vis ports and flags of convenience, the implementation of the Port State Measures agreement, which was only minimally enforced, and investigation of beneficial ownership of vessels with doubtful track record.

In the evolving international landscape a balancing act was required between the promotion of resource recovery, maintenance of EU capacity to source imports under criteria compatible with striving for sustainability and understandable demands of developing countries to gain more control, including under the BBNJ high seas treaty.

Most exchange took place during breaks for intensive networking.

The WWF representative on the fisheries panel, Odran Corcoran, had a long list of demands:

  • Enforce existing legislation, do not change it. It’s good.
  • Seafood traceability needs improvement as 20% of imports are estimated as coming from IUU fishing;
  • Make beneficial ownership of vessels public in the EU and elsewhere;
  • Supress port hopping to evade regulations;
  • Gear up against widespread labour abuse;
  • Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) is the limit, not the target;
  • Implement high seas inspections;
  • Improve data collection and availability.

There were also outspoken demands to practice the ecosystem approach to fisheries effectively and not hamper it through what external partners in RFMOs often perceive as a ‘fractured’ response, brought about by some 22 DGs in the Commission dealing with international aspects.

Ocean Governance panel from left: Monica Verbeek, Sheila Heymans, Hans Stausboll, Stefan Asmundsson, Kestutis Sadauskas (chair)

Among the very few questions for which there was time, Raissa Kamadou of CAOPA in Côte d’Ivoire asked how the essential access of small-scale fishers to resources would be ensured in the face of declaring 30% of marine spaces as protected areas. She demanded reserving a coastal strip to them to ensure their livelihoods. She complained that their voices, in Africa, Asia and Europe, were not heard in the concert of powerful investors in the ‘blue economy’ and the big industrial push for fisheries, energy, minerals and port and other infrastructures – all with barely any regard of the millions of people, men and women, in coastal small-scale fisheries.

Former MEP Karleskind noted that the political context was changing and EU operations were less welcome in some countries. He argued that this should not lead to withdrawal but the EU should rather be firm in applying its principles of seeking to exploit only surplus resources through international fishing agreements. As further justification he warmed up the mantra that if the EU with its commitment to transparency would leave, others would take over with lower standards.

The point raised by Raissa Kamadou remains a challenge as European small-scale fishers face similar challenges. These do not diminish when data scarcity is used as an excuse for delaying rule enforcement that could work in their favour.

Monica Verbeek of Seas At Risk was seated next to Sheila Heymans, Executive Director of the European Marine Board

During the ensuing ocean governance session Monica Verbeek of Seas At Risk focused particularly on the ratification and enforcement of the High Seas (BBNJ) Treaty under the Law of the Sea. She pleaded for developing implementation plans without delay and the revival of the ‘High Ambition Coalition’. As shipping had a major impact on the ocean she demanded that the EU stand strong at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) meeting to push for the zero emission objective in the foreseeable future.

Likewise, the EU should work harder in favour of an international plastic treaty which would significantly reduce production, not only for one-way use, but on a much broader front and substitution of fossil feedstock by biomaterials. Moreover, the EU should strongly oppose any form of dangerous marine geoengineering.

Will the political leadership of the EU listen to the many pre-cautionary voices and their advice for the Ocean Pact? The majority of participants seemed to argue in this direction and Mundus maris could ascertain such prevalence of positions during networking breaks. It would certainly also make good business sense.

Mundus maris supports the demands and recommendations of Seas At Risk and WWF.

The programme with additional information is available here. Text and photos are by Cornelia E Nauen.