Researchers warn about the need to protect oceans

Marine Pollution Bulletin will publish an article co-authored by Brazilian and Uruguayan researchers.

By José Tadeu Arantes

Agência FAPESP – According to studies, an estimated 41% of the planet’s oceans and seas are significantly impacted by human action, a serious problem that has not received the attention it deserves. One example is the pace of the implementation of guidelines relative to the marine protection defined by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Some 193 countries plus the European Union approved these guidelines during the 10th meeting of the Conference of Parties, which was held in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010. This directive established that at least 10% of the coastal and marine areas, particularly those with significant biodiversity, should be protected by 2020.

However, almost one third of the 10-year period has passed, and the so-called Marine Protection Areas (MPAs) do not cover more than 1.17% of the surface of planet’s oceans and seas. Indeed, the world’s most powerful country, endowed with extensive coasts both on the Atlantic and Pacific, did not sign on to the protocol.

This urgent alert is sounded in the article Politics should walk with Science towards protection of the oceans ("A política deve caminhar com a ciência na proteção dos oceanos"), penned by Brazilian Antonio Carlos Marques, an associate professor at the Bioscience Institute at the Universidade de São Paulo, and Uruguayan researcher Alvar Carranza of the National Museum of Natural History. Submitted to Marine Pollution Bulletin, the text will be published as an editorial in the print version of the periodical and is available online at www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X13004530.

The article also highlights that only 1.5% of the Brazilian coast, which is one of the world’s most extensive (spanning 9,200 kilometers, including protrusions and recesses), is protected by MPA. Furthermore, 9% of the areas considered a priority for preservation were granted to oil companies for exploration. The majority of the country’s oil reserves are concentrated near the highly populated coasts of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The data published are derived from two FAPESP-funded projects coordinated by Marques: a Regular Research Grant, which supports the National Network of Research in Marine Biodiversity (Sisbiota Mar), and a Thematic Project to research the factors that generate and regulate evolution and marine diversity.

“To expedite the fulfillment of the goal, some governments have created vast marine protection areas around essentially uninhabited islands or archipelagos very distant from the continental country,” explained Marques.

“The largest MPA in the world, located in the Chagos Archipelago, comprises more than a million square kilometers. It is an enormous area, which easily and abundantly fulfills the United Kingdom’s goal,” he said. The archipelago is a British territory in the Indian Ocean.

“The population of this area consists of a rotating British military base and no one else. Furthermore, the characteristics of the area, which is located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, does not correspond to the biodiversity of the United Kingdom,” he continued.

Although he recognizes the value of such MPAs, Marques argues that their creation is not necessarily effective in terms of environmental preservation. According to Marques, it fulfills a quantitative aspect but not qualitative aspect; in other words, it does not offer effective protection to the country’s coast where the majority of the population resides. Moreover, according to Marques, the same tactic was used in all other large MPAs recently created.

“We verified and reported in our article that the average population of the 10 largest MPAs, as computed in radii of 10 kilometers, only includes 5,038 people,” stated Marques. This average was increased by only two MPAs, the Galapagos Marine Reserve (Ecuador) and the National Grand Barrier Reef (Australia), both with more than 25,000 inhabitants. The total population of the other MPAs is under 4,000 individuals, and some MPAs have no inhabitants at all.

“For governments, it is a very easy to create environmental protection areas in such regions as these because the socioeconomic toll of this implementation is very low. No one will complain very much except perhaps for the fishing industry. It is a very different situation from what would occur if the MPAs were created on the coasts of the respective countries,” Marques said.

The researcher stressed that remote areas, such as the MPAs of the Galapagos and the Grand Barrier Reef, are useful because of the ecosystems protected. However, these MPAs are not representative of the diversity of the country’s environments.

Weaknesses and successes

“Our main intention in writing the article was to highlight the need for protection, which can only be partially met by the 10% goal; yet, this protection must respect the real environments of countries. It is useless to reach a number with little correspondence between quantity and quality,” said Marques.

The researcher explained that one of the objectives in submitting the article to Marine Pollution Bulletin was to establish a dialog with the editor of the periodical, Charles Sheppard of the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. Sheppard is one of the world’s greatest authorities on marine conservation and was one of the mentors of the British MPA in the Chagos Archipelago.

“Professor Sheppard’s response was more positive than I could have imagined, so much so that he decided to publish our article as an editorial in Marine Pollution Bulletin.”

According to Marques, the basic data and analysis generated by the scientists are vital for the better use of resources when establishing preservation areas.

“It is necessary to understand whether the area is ideal for protection from evolutionary, genetic, biogeographic and ecological standpoints. There are examples of success in which this was observed and examples of failures when this was observed. The best possible scenario is that in which scientists, technicians and politicians participate fully in the process,” he said.