As leader of a campaign being unveiled this week, the ex-foreign secretary says exploitation of the seas has led us to a crisis point
An environmental catastrophe with greater economic impact than the global financial crash is occurring on the high seas, according to David Miliband. The former foreign secretary is to lead a new, high-level international effort to end the lawlessness of the oceans, which will be unveiled this week.
The high seas, which lie beyond any national jurisdiction, cover almost half the Earth’s surface and decades of over-exploitation have caused trillions of dollars’ worth of fish catches to be lost. Pirate fishing, often using slave labour and linked to cocaine and weapons smuggling, is rife and the damage caused to life in the oceans is harming the habitability of the whole planet. Future risks include sea-floor mining and rogue geoengineering.
“The worst of the current system is plunder and pillage on a massive scale,” Miliband told the Observer. “It is the ecological equivalent of the financial crisis. The long-term costs of the mismanagement of our oceans are at least as great as long-term costs of the mismanagement of the financial system. We are living as if there are three or four planets instead of one, and you can’t get away with that.”
Miliband, in an unpaid role, will lead the new Global Ocean Commission, along with Nelson Mandela’s former finance minister, Trevor Manuel, and the former president of Costa Rica, José María Figueres. The launch in London on Tuesday will introduce further commissioners, including more former heads of state and senior ministers from leading G20 nations.
“We are coming to a crunch time: 2014 needs to be the year when we reverse the degradation of the high seas,” said Miliband, referring to the deadline set at the UN’s Earth Summit in 2012 for the first ever laws to protect biodiversity in the open oceans.
Miliband knows from personal experience the difficulty of the task. In 2009, as foreign secretary, he established the world’s biggest marine reserve in which no fishing is allowed: more than 640,000 square kilometres around the Chagos archipelago in the Indian ocean. However, last month a bitterly fought legal challenge from Mauritius was allowed to proceed at the international court of arbitration in The Hague.
Professor Callum Roberts, a marine biologist at the University of York, said protection for the open oceans was desperately needed: “The high seas are the last and most neglected of all natural spaces. They are home to some extraordinary species, for example, the leatherback turtle. It comes from a lineage 100m years old, but has declined by 95% in the last 20-30 years due to our depredations. Dolphins and sharks are in freefall.
“The oceans make up 95% of the living space on the planet and what happens there is extremely important for the habitability of our planet, from oxygen production to dealing with carbon dioxide and other pollution. Our impact means the oceans will do that less well, with serious consequences for humanity.”
