Sustainable Development of the World's Large Marine Ecosystems during Climate Change

248 Pages·2011·4.21 MB·English

Sustainable Development
of the World’s Large
Marine Ecosystems during
Climate Change
A commemorative volume to advance sustainable
development on the occasion of the presentation of
the 2010 Göteborg Award

Citation: Sherman, K. and S. Adams editors. 2010. Sustainable Development of the
World’s Large Marine Ecosystems during Climate Change: A commemorative volume
to advance sustainable development on the occasion of the presentation of the 2010
Göteborg Award. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. (xii + 232 pages).

This publication was made possible through support provided by the International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the US DOC National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Cover image credit:
Front and back cover image of Earth from space, courtesy of NASA from Apollo series.

2010© International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)
ISBN 978-2-8317-1321-2

The designation of geographical entities in this book, and the presentation of the material, do not imply
the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of IUCN. The views expressed in this publication
do not necessarily reflect those of IUCN concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of
its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

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Preface

The people of Sweden have an abiding commitment for advancing toward
sustainable development and promoting actions to reduce and control global
warming. This commitment has long tradition. In 1972 the UN's first major
conference on international environmental issues was held in Stockholm,
Sweden. As a nation we have adopted in our Parliament forward-looking
environmental policies to advance sustainable development. Our overall goal
in Sweden is to solve major environmental problems within one generation.
To attain this goal requires the sincere commitment of a wide range of bodies
and organizations such as county administrative boards and local authorities.

In Göteborg (Gothenburg), the city also has a long tradition to work
proactively with sustainable development together with academia and
business. The city of Gothenburg recognizes that the challenges of
sustainable development require new and unconventional solutions. To
encourage new solutions we have established the Göteborg Award for
Sustainable Development.

The Göteborg Award is the city’s international prize that recognizes and
supports work to achieve sustainable development. In the Göteborg region
and from a global perspective, the Award, one million Swedish crowns, is
administrated and funded by a coalition of the city of Göteborg and twelve
companies. The Göteborg Award is considered the “environment equivalent
of the Nobel Prize.”

This year, the Göteborg Award is recognizing the serious degradation of our
oceans, and the outstanding contributions being made for sustainable
development of ocean goods and services. The oceans are essential to all
life on Earth, and yet mankind’s most ruthless exploitation is taking place in
the seas through overfishing, pollution and other environmental impacts that
damage biological diversity and the very basis for life both underwater and for
humans on land. For this reason, the Göteborg Award for Sustainable
Development in 2010 goes to two prominent persons who have in different
ways strongly contributed to solutions for sustainable development of our
oceans. The Göteborg award will be divided equally between Kenneth
Sherman from the United States and Randall Arauz from Costa Rica.

Recognizing the importance of promoting global efforts underway for
sustainable development of the oceans, the Göteborg Award Selection Jury is
pleased to distribute a special volume, Sustainable Development of the
World’s Large Marine Ecosystems during Climate Change on the occasion of
the presentation of the 2010 Göteborg Award.

In keeping with the sustainable development theme of the Göteborg Award,
contributors to the commemorative volume are focused on actions proposed
and underway by high profile public figures, scientists, and policy experts for
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reducing climate warming and advancing sustainable development of marine
goods and services.

Prof. John Holmberg
Chair of The Göteborg Award for Sustainable Development Selection Jury
UNESCO Chair
Vice-president
Chalmers University of Technology
Göteborg, SWEDEN
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A Message from the Director of
the Environment & Energy Group,
United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP)

Climate change is a critical global issue. Without
action, climate change could negate decades of
development progress and undermine efforts for
advancing sustainable development.
As the UN’s global development network, UNDP recognizes that climate
change calls for a new development paradigm—a paradigm that mainstreams
climate change into sustainable development planning at all levels, links
development policies with the financing of solutions and helps countries move
toward less carbon intensive sustainable economies.
The integrity of all 64 of the World’s Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) and the
livelihoods of billions of people that depend upon them are under threat not
only from climate change, but also from overfishing, toxic pollution, nutrient
over-enrichment, invasive species, habitat degradation, and biodiversity loss.
The large majority of these LMEs are shared by two or more countries,
underscoring the need for regional cooperation to advance sustainable LME
management. The UNDP Environment and Energy Group is pleased to partner
with the Global Environment Facility, other UN agencies, intergovernmental
organizations, and US-NOAA in providing capacity building and scientific and
technical assistance in 75 developing countries executing ten Large Marine
Ecosystem (LME) projects in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Through
these and other projects, UNDP also provides technical support to strengthen
the capacities of developing coastal countries bordering LMEs to adapt to the
effects of climate change on vital LME resources.
A firm scientific basis is essential in developing options for mitigating and
adaptive actions during the present period of global warming. The LME
approach recommends a baseline of information at the LME management
scale of changing states of productivity, fish and fisheries, pollution and
ecosystem health, and socioeconomic and governance conditions. This
time-series information provides for assessment of the extent of overfishing,
nutrient over-enrichment, habitat loss, and the progressive warming rates of
surface water in LMEs around the globe, against which the success of climate
change mitigation and adaptive actions to advance sustainable development of
marine goods and services can be measured.
UNDP welcomes this approach as a key contribution toward meeting the
Millennium Development Goals for reducing poverty, alleviating hunger and
sustaining the environment. The world’s LMEs contribute an estimated $12.6
trillion annually to the global economy. LME goods and services provide
employment and incomes to billions of people, many among the world’s
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poorest, living in coastal population centers in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and
eastern Europe. Through the continued cooperative efforts of UNDP and its
partners, a growing number of countries have initiated joint LME management
projects and gained support from the international community to develop and
sustain vital economic assets of LMEs for present and future generations.
UNDP welcomes this volume on the sustainability of the world’s Large Marine
Ecosystems as a key contribution to advancing the needed paradigm shift in
LME management in a changing climate. The papers featured cover a range of
key issues, from the impacts of climate change on LMEs to new policy and
institutional tools for LME governance. UNDP wishes to express its sincere
thanks to the distinguished group of contributors to this volume for their
leadership and commitment to sustainable human development.

Dr. Veerle Vandeweerd, Environment & Energy Group,
UNDP
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Foreword

The book’s opening three chapters by world renown leaders argue for
coalitions of industries, governments, and citizens to lead actions for
promoting sustainable development of world resources and implementing
reductions in greenhouse gases. Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime
Minister of Norway, former Chairman of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development, and Göteborg Laureate (2002) puts forward
the cogent argument that, “The responsibility for solving the greatest
challenge of all, the climate crisis, rests not only with political leaders, but with
each one of us as representatives of businesses, as consumers, and as
voters.” Former Vice President, Nobel Laureate, and Göteborg Laureate
(2007), Al Gore, in his call for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
provides convincing evidence of the harmful effects on the planet of GHGs,
indicating that, “the solution to global warming is as easy to describe as it is
difficult to put it into practice. Emissions of six pollutants—CO , methane,
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black carbon, halocarbons, nitrous oxide, and carbon monoxide (and volatile
organic compounds)—cause the problem and must be reduced dramatically.
Simultaneously, we must increase the rate at which they are removed from
the air and reabsorbed by the earth’s oceans and biosphere.” The third call to
action by the US Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere,
Jane Lubchenco, in a chapter with Laura Petes of NOAA, argues convincingly
that, “degraded marine ecosystems cannot provide key ecosystem services,
such as production of seafood, protection of coastal areas from severe storms
and tsunamis, capture of carbon, and provision of places for recreation. The
accelerating pace of change presents daunting challenges for communities,
businesses, nations, and the global community to make the transition to more
sustainable practices and policies.”

The chapters that follow describe actions underway in a global movement to
restore and sustain the world’s Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) and their
multi-trillion dollar annual contribution to the world economy. Substantial
financial support to the global effort by the Global Environment Facility is
described in Chapter four by Alfred Duda of the GEF.

Examples of the effects of accelerated global warming on the fisheries
biomass yields of LMEs is given in Chapter five by 2010 Göteborg Laureate
Kenneth Sherman and co-authors. In Chapter six, the scientific assessments
of carrying capacity of LMEs for marine fisheries around the globe by Villy
Christensen of the University of British Columbia, and associates, indicates
that an astounding one billion metric tons of fish biomass is produced
annually in the LMEs of the world. The contribution in Chapter seven by Sybil
Seitzinger, Director General of the International Geosphere and Biosphere
Program at the Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm, with Rosalynn
Lee of Rutgers University, cautions that without mitigation actions, the level of
nutrient over-enrichment from continental drainage basins of dissolved
inorganic nitrogen (DIN) into LMEs is likely to double by the year 2050,
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leading to increases in oxygen depleted areas and dead zones in LMEs
around the globe.

Jan Thulin, ICES Senior Advisor, writes in Chapter eight about the successful
application of ecosystem-based assessment and management practices
leading to a large investment by the European Union of approximately 100
million Euros to support continued assessment and management of the
goods and services of the Baltic Sea LME. In the case of the Benguela
Current LME, Dr. Michael O’Toole of the Marine Institute in Galway, Ireland,
describes in Chapter nine the establishment of the world’s first LME
Commission for the transboundary management by three countries (Angola,
Namibia and South Africa) of the goods and services of the Benguela Current
LME, based on integrated ecosystem-based assessment and management
practices.

Chapter ten describes the extraordinary actions underway by the People’s
Republic of China and the Republic of Korea in a joint effort supported in part
by the GEF to reduce environmental stress in the Yellow Sea LME. Both
countries have agreed to reach ecosystem recovery and sustainability
objectives stated in their Strategic Action Programme (SAP). The historic
document, signed by representatives of the People’s Republic of China and
the Republic of Korea, supporting the actions described in the SAP is
reproduced in the Annex to the chapter.

Processes contributing to the sequestration of carbon within the boundaries of
the world’s LMEs, and the importance of taking actions to implement planning
to ensure augmentation of carbon sequestration, are described by Jerker
Tamelander, Dorothée Herr and Dan Laffoley of IUCN in Chapter eleven.

In Chapter twelve, Barry Gold of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation,
stresses the importance of marine spatial planning as a framework for
systematic restoration and sustainable development of LME goods and
services.

The importance of the work by Randall Arauz, Director of PRETOMA in Costa
Rica and 2010 Göteborg Laureate, in taking actions to eliminate shark finning
and reduce and control the catch of marine sharks is described in a
Commemorative Commentary entitled, Sustaining Shark Populations, to
complete the volume.

The Editors
Narragansett, RI
October 2010
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