WITH three-quarters of its surface covered bywater this is undoubtedly a blue planet – somuch so that acclaimed science fiction writer SirArthur C Clarke stated: “How inappropriate to callthis planet Earth, when it is quite clearly Ocean.”This viewpoint puts into perspective the immensescale of the global ocean which, for more thanfour billion years, has controlled the destiny oflife on the planet.

It is the very foundation of Earth’s life sup-port system, not only powering the climate andweather patterns of the continents, but supply-ing up to 80% of the planet’s oxygen and storing and cycling some 93% of its carbon diox-ide. The ocean is also a gigantic heat sink andreservoir of biodiversity, holding much of theplanet’s biomass.

Life on land is dependent on life in the ocean,yet only in our time have we begun to understandits importance or to extrapolate that what hap-pens in the ocean directly affects us on land.This awareness, however, has done little to prevent “sea blindness”, which has meant thatsubmerged out of sight marine habitats havelargely been out of the public’s mind. A“charisma gap” has also meant that many marinecreatures, lacking the appeal of their terrestrialcounterparts, have been overexploited to thepoint of extinction – extinction having reached anunprecedented rate with barely a whisper of pub-lic outrage.

Race to the bottom

All over the world pressure on the marineenvironment is increasing enormously. Sixty per-cent of the global population is settled in thecoastal zone, with urbanisation causing the rateof loss of vegetated coastal habitats such as mangrove forests, salt-marshes and seagrassmeadows, which are ranked among the most pro-ductive habitats in the world, to be four timesthat of rainforests, making them among the mostthreatened habitats in the biosphere.

Phosphate mining, oil and gas exploration,and bulk seabed extraction are negatively impact-ing on critical marine ecosystems. Globalisedmarkets, a growing human population andchanged consumption patterns have led toincreased trade in fish and fish products, which,combined with declining fish stocks on a world-wide basis, has led to a discernible “race to thebottom”.

Advances over past decades in fish-findingtechnologies such GPS positioning and sonarwhich can find fish in 1 000m of water, anincrease in the size and sophistication of fishingvessels and coordinated air-sea fishing effortshave increased relative effort exponentially.

This has meant that with a global fishing fleetof approximately 4.3 million vessels targeting awide diversity of marine species, the proportionof overexploited, depleted or recovering fishstocks increased from 10% in 1974 to 32% in2008, with 63% of assessed fish stocks currentlyrequiring rebuilding.

The problem with bycatch

Incidental capture of unwanted species nottargeted by fishing vessels, which is termedbycatch or trashfish, is considered one of thegreatest threats to the health of the marine envi-ronment.

An estimated seven million tonnes of bycatchis being caught and discarded each year. This isnot only a shocking waste of a valuable resource;it is causing dramatic declines in many marinespecies. And as many bycatch species are topmarine predators such as sharks, anthropogenicchanges to marine ecosystems through overfish-ing and destructive fishing practices could havesevere knock-on effects.

For 400 million years sharks have remainedlargely unchanged. They have survived five massextinctions, however as between 73 and 100 mil-lion sharks are killed each year for the growingshark fin trade, sharks now represent the great-est percentage of threatened marine species onthe International Union for Conservation ofNature’s (IUCN’s) Red List of ThreatenedSpecies.

Habitat modification through climate changeis also affecting species such as the Zambezishark, a partially estuarine-dependent specieswhich moves into estuaries to give birth to pups.

Because marine ecosystems and food webs areinterconnected and extremely complex, the lossof sharks as apex predators may cause dramaticshifts in the ecology of marine ecosystems withunexpected results and far-reaching implications.

Overexploitation of the world’s marine envi-ronment is putting fisheries at risk of collapse,which could mean that hundreds of millions ofpeople could be faced with food shortages andfood insecurity. The negative effects of overfish-ing would also adversely affect the approximately200 million people employed in the global fish-ing industry.

Pertinent South African statistics

Of South Africa’s 3 000km long coastline20% consists of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs);11% is protected by no-take MPAs and 0.4% ofthe South African Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ) is covered by MPAs.

The City of Cape Town administers a 300kmstretch of coastline, 60km of which is in theTable Mountain National Park, which is thelongest coastline of any municipality in the coun-try. It is also Cape Town’s single greatest economic and social asset.

O.5% of South Africa’s GDP comes fromcommercial fisheries. Of our commercially impor-tant marine species 48.1% are optimallyexploited; 29.6% are status uncertain; 14.8%are overexploited and 7.4% are underexploited.Approximately 25% of our commercially impor-tant species are reef-associated, making themdirectly linked to food security and job opportu-nities.

Long-term rights have been issued in 22 fish-ing sectors with more than 2 900 rights holdersand 1 788 vessels.

The only fisheries in South Africa to be cer-tified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)are the trawled deep- and shallow-water hakefisheries.

It is estimated that the illegal catch ofabalone exceeds the legal commercial catch bymore than 10 times.

Approximately 500 000 people participate inSouth Africa’s shore-based recreational fisherywith the estimated value of the fishery in 2011being R3 billion.

Of 550 species globally, South Africa has thesecond highest level of shark diversity in theworld, however, we know almost nothing about

most of the species. From 150 000 pairs in the 1950s, African

penguins are down to 20 000 pairs.

Positive sustainability initiatives

More than half of the global ocean lies beyondnational jurisdiction – 64% to be exact. Throughinternational organisations such as the RegionalFisheries Management Organisation (RFMO)which manage fish stocks on the high seas,attempts are being made to sustainably managefishery resources through international agree-ments. The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission(IOTC), which manages tuna and tuna-likespecies in the Indian Ocean and adjacent seas,also plays an important role, as do conservationorganisations such as BirdLife South Africa(BLSA).

With around 300 000 seabirds being caughteach year as bycatch, global tuna longline fleetsand the trawl fishery have been responsible formassive seabird population declines. As a result,27% of seabird species, including 17 albatrossspecies, have become threatened with extinction.

In 2006, South Africa became the first coun-try to establish an Albatross Task Force (ATF)team with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador,Namibia and Uruguay following suit. Throughpromoting various bycatch mitigation measuresthat include setting lines at night so that theseabirds can’t see the baited hooks, and weight-ing lines so that they sink, as well as construc-tive engagement with the longlining and trawlfisheries, the hooking of albatross has reducedfrom around 12 000 to 16 000 birds a year to“low hundreds”. There has also been a more than80% reduction in the catching of seabirds fromtrawl fleets in South African waters.

In a bid to chart a course towards a sustain-ably productive ocean, and to do it quickly, an

independent task force of international politicalfigures and leaders from business, economics,development and law formed the Global OceanCommission in February this year, with the Com-mission’s inaugural meeting having taken placein Cape Town in March.

The objective of the Commission is toanalyse threats, challenges and opportunitiesconcerning the high seas in order to developpragmatic, cost-effective recommendations,which, if adopted, will reverse degradation of theglobal ocean and restore it to full health and pro-ductivity.

Trevor Manuel, co–chair of the Global OceanCommission, and minister in the South Africanpresidency responsible for planning, says: “Ifsociety is to develop sustainably it’s vital that wemanage the ocean wisely, on two differenttimescales. In the short term, we need put theextractive industries using the ocean on a sus-tainable footing, whether that’s mining, fishingor anything else. If we get that right, we’ll feedand resource people better and help societiesdevelop sustainably. In the longer term, theocean is an integral part of the biosphere, whichis our life support system. You can’t risk that. Sowhat we’re doing in the Global Ocean Commis-sion is to look at these issues, talk to experts andpractitioners in all the relevant fields, and thendistil their expertise into a number of key reformsthat we have to implement as a global society ofseven billion people if we are to continue bene-fiting from everything the ocean provides”.

Recognising the increasing influence thatinformed consumers are having on markettrends and building on the success of the WWF-SASSI (Southern African Sustainable SeafoodInitiative) consumer awareness programme, theWWF-SASSI Seafood Circle, which is sponsoredby Pick n Pay, was launched in February thisyear. The purpose of the WWF-SASSI SeafoodCircle is to acknowledge committed restaurantsand chefs who are going the extra mile in termsof seafood sustainability by actively championingsustainable seafood practices in their restaurants.At the launch function in Cape Town, 12 restau-rants were recognised out of a field of 45 shortlisted candidates.

In April this year the SAMSA Sea Pledge Sus-tainable Seas Trust Saldanha to Sodwana Tour,with internationally-acclaimed ocean scientist DrSylvia A Earle as Patron was launched in CapeTown to promote coastal conservation, educationand empowerment for the many South Africanswho rely on coastal areas and the ocean for theirlivelihood. In some notable cases, the corporate

sector is also doing its bit by initiating sustain-ability programmes that are set to make a differ-ence to what is happening out at sea.

Seafood retail improvement plan

Pick n Pay acknowledges that there is globalconcern over the exploitation of seafoodresources and the environmental impact of fish-ery and aquaculture activities on marine andaquatic ecosystems. As a retailer and a signifi-cant role player in the seafood industry, it is committed to helping drive positive change infisheries by supporting and promoting sustain-able seafood choices from legal and responsiblymanaged sources.

Pick n Pay was a founding partner of theWWF-SASSI Scheme and, in 2010, itannounced that it had signed a partnershipagreement with the WWF Sustainable FisheriesProgramme in a bid to support the programme.

The three-year partnership in which Pick nPay is investing more than R6 million supportsthe WWF’s drive to promote an ecosystemapproach to fisheries (EAF), recognising the critical role that marine ecosystems play in main-taining resilient socio-cultural systems in the faceof growing threats of climate change and foodsecurity.

Pick n Pay defines sustainable seafood asseafood which originates from a fishery or farmwhich could continue to operate indefinitely with-out reducing the target species, or any otherspecies in the marine ecosystem’s ability to main-tain a viable population. A sustainable speciesshould:n Not be a species that is regarded as endan-

gered or threatened;n Be caught in a well-managed fishery by regis-

tered commercial fishers;n Be caught/farmed using responsible

fishing/farming methods; andn Be traceable from “boat/farm to plate”.

As such Pick n Pay commits to transformingits fresh, frozen and canned seafood operationsto ensure that by the end of 2015 it will only sellseafood products which are certified as sustain-able by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)for wild-caught products or the AquacultureStewardship Council (ASC) for farmed products,or equivalent standards, or which are categorisedas Green by WWF-SASSI.

The company’s overall goal is to increase the

availability of sustainable seafood and to promoteresponsible fishing practices and it recognisesthat a significant proportion of the world’s fish-eries/aquaculture facilities do not currently meetinternationally accepted standards of sustainabil-ity. Rather than simply discontinue sourcing, thecompany would rather use its buying power toprovide both an incentive and a path to becomesustainable for these operations. Thus, by theend of 2015, in order to continue supplying Pickn Pay, any fisheries/aquaculture facilities whoseseafood products do not meet Pick n Pay’s sus-tainability requirements must be engaged in acredible, time-bound improvement project. Itwill cease procuring all seafood products notmeeting these criteria by the end of 2015.

Pick n Pay believes that its consumers havethe right to sufficient and accurate informationabout any seafood product on sale, in order tomake environmentally responsible choices. Inthis regard it has committed to providing its consumers with information on the common andscientific name, as well as the country of originof all of its seafood products. Pick n Pay has alsocommitted to training its staff so as to help con-sumers to make more environmentally-awareseafood choices.

According to Dr Sylvia Earle we are seeing“geological change taking place before our eyes”.At this moment in history our conservation meas-ures could have a “magnified impact”. Thisnecessitates that we must urgently choose,“while we still have time, to protect what stillworks”, “shifting gears” in the interests of futuregenerations. It is up to each of us and the timeis now.

ReferencesWWF SA Report 2011 – Fisheries Facts and

Trends South AfricaUNEP Report – Blue Carbon: The Role of

Healthy Oceans in Binding CarbonPresentation by Dr Sylvia Earle – SAMSA Sea

Pledge SST Tour LaunchAAAccckkknnnooowwwllleeedddgggmmmeeennntttsss:::Richard Black – Global Ocean CommissionMeaghen McCord – SA Shark ConservancyMichael Marriott – MSCGreg Oelofse – City of Cape TownDr Samantha Petersen – WWF SADr Ross M. Wanless – BirdLife South Africa

Researched, written and co-ordinated by Carole Knight. Call 028 272-9171, email whiterock@worldonline.co.za or see www.caroleknight.co.za

OUR SUSTAINABLE SEAS

Looking after the foundation of life

What you can do

v If you are unsure that the fish you arewanting to buy either from a retailer or restau-rant is caught in a way that is environmen-tally friendly, you can text SASSI on 079 4998795 with the fish species and you willreceive an SMS back as to whether it’s in thered, orange or green category;

v See the WWF-SASSI website atwww.wwf.org.za/sassi for seafood species cat-egorisation or see www.dining-out.co.za for alist of WWF-SASSI participating restaurantsand retailers;

v Only buy fish with the MSC eco-label; v Join conservation organisations such as

BirdLife South Africa (BLSA) – wwwwwwwww...bbbiiirrrdddllliiifffeee...ooorrrggg...zzzaaa to add your voice to conservationefforts and/or volunteer for rehabilitationorganisations such as Sanccob (SouthernAfrican Foundation for the Conservation ofCoastal Birds) – www.sanccob.co.za;

v Celebrate World Oceans Day on June8 by attending the 40Fathoms Film Festivalon June 8 to 9 at The Whale House Museum,Hermanus – for more information, emailMeaghen at mmmeeeaaaggg@@@ssshhhaaarrrkkkcccooonnnssseeerrrvvvaaannncccyyy...ooorrrggg or call 028 312 3029;

v Become involved in initiatives such asthe SOS (Save Our Seabirds) Festival whichis being held from October 7 to 12, centeredaround the Iziko SA Museum – call ChristinaMoseley at BLSA on 021 419 7347 or emailchristina.moseley@birdlife.org.za;

v Write letters to the Minister of theDepartment of Agriculture, Forestry and Fish-eries (DAFF) about your concerns –www.daff.gov.za, or call 012 319 6000; and

v Become a member of organisationssuch as the IOTC – www.iotc.org.

Pictures: Carole Knight