Borgese (1995) defined the basic meaning of the term sustainable development as that of
“Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
The UN development goals were set out on 25th of September 2015 to be achieved by 2030, originally 17 goals were set out to cover a wide range of issues such as environmental, political, social that were aimed to make changing sustainability internationally achievable.
Out of the 17 goals, I believe that goal 14 is one goal that will become ever more important and the issues raised will need to be resolved in the coming years. Goal 14 ‘Life below water’ set out to conserve & sustainably use the oceans, sea and marine resources for sustainable development. The goal set out to achieve reduced pollution of human land based activities such as oil spills. Also, to protect marine and coastal ecosystems this will strengthen the resilience and making healthy productive oceans. Also, to minimise the impacts of ocean acidification. Effectively regulate harvesting of the oceans, to end overfishing and illegal and unregulated fishing. To restore the fish stocks in the shortest time possible. Also, to increase scientific knowledge, and implement international laws to increase the economic benefits to small developing island communities.
Another problem that countries will have to deal with in the near future will be the pollution that is caused by human activities, such as oil pollution and other environmental accidents such as oil spills which can catastrophic effect on the local marine environment.
Sustainable ocean management and development will become ever more increasing important due to the ever rising population and the growing population of the coastal communities in less developed countries and more developed countries. As the coastal community grows the depend on the oceans and subsequent fish stock in the ocean will become ever more strained to deal with the rising dependency on the ocean provisions.
One major issue with these targets set was that, to quantify the numbers of fish stocks in all the oceans of the world is near impossible due to the contents movement of inputs and outputs of fish stocks. The oceans must be divided up into segments that could be monitored by the local governing bodies. This also causes issues as some water, as water that is over 200 miles off land are considered to be international waters, meaning that no country individually is responsible for the conservation and monitoring of fish stocks in the area.
Another problem with monitoring fish stocks and attempting to measure the amount of life in the oceans is that many fish and mammals in the oceans are migratory so the movement of stocks between international waters can cause problems when tracking and monitoring animals.
Another problem with the UN goal for ’life below water’ is that it may be difficult to gain interest and in turn funding from landlocked countries that do not mainly depend on fish stocks or economic activity at the coast. That means that many of the responsibilities of conservation and sustainable development will fall to countries that mainly depend on marine activities such as fishing. Fishing also falls into many different categories such as domestic fishing usually in LEDCs (Less Economically Developed Countries) is mainly for small villages and communities to fish for domestic use, or it can be on a more industrial scale this is where the problems of overfishing come into consideration. Many fishing trawlers cast out nets that catch many fish which may or may not be beneficial to the sale of fishing. These extra fish are then caught in nets and lines which then die on the trawlers these dead fish are cast back into the ocean, this will be depleting fish stocks unnecessarily and the trawlers may be unknowingly catching already endangered fish. With the different scales of fishing, it becomes hard to monitor the amount of fish being taken out of the oceans illegally and legally
As a case study, I looked at the Caribbean’s effort consisting of many countries named CARICOM which is the Caribbean community which has taken a large interest in the oceans an ocean management since the 1980s the CARICOM states began to divide the oceans surrounding the islands into EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zones).
The major problem with the EEZs is that the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) would encounter problems due to the migration of fish that could be effectively fished for produce and the some of the SIDS would have overlapping EEZs that could cause problems with fishing and management of fish stock in the overlapping zones. This migration of fish created a need for regional management of fisheries. This new approach considered the regional aspects of an area, CARICOM developed the Fisheries Resource Management Program (CFRAMP). This overlapping of the EEZs causing issues with fish migrations would mean that the goal to reduce over fishing and illegal unregulated fishing, could be hard to monitor and to quantify the effectiveness of the CARICOMs efforts. The problems that CARICOM would encounter would lead to the development of ‘A strategy for Cooperation in Sustainable Oceans Management and Development, Commonwealth Caribbean’.
Another case study I looked at was the way Canada approached the fishing and coastal usage around Canada. Canada has many uses for the vast coastline, C L Mitchell (1998) found that Canada’s ocean industry, consisting of tourism, manufacturing, shipping, oil and gas and fishing has been hindered due to economic, environmental and management problems that have affected Canadas ability to make a maximum contribution to Canadas economic growth.
In 1997 Canadas government passed the Canadas ocean act which was designed to provide a framework to achieve sustainable ocean development, and to deal with Canadas approach to sustainable ocean management aiming to accommodate and develop services that are active around Canadas coastline to achieve a more sustainable coastline and surrounding oceans.
The UK, being made up of islands means that coastal management and sustainable ocean development is very important to an island nation, as coastal activity is highly important and holds the base of the economy. London for example began as a port town with materials and ships bringing in products and the same being exported away from the UK.
The UK has invested a total of £900 million per annum for the construction and maintenance of new treatment plants helping to maintain the levels of pollution that are in the North Sea. The operating costs of these plants has been estimated at £300 million per annum.
Davidson et al (1991) found that sea level rise and other climate change related issues could have a huge impact on the UK and strain on the UKs economic sources. The UK could be severely affected if the sea levels surrounding the UK, sea level rise would affect the lower lying parts of the country, such as the south-east of the country due to the glacial uplift after the last ice age. This means that many parts of south-east such as London and the lower lying Norfolk Broads would become flooded and tide ‘levels will be much higher if the sea levels were to rise further. This means that coastal defences such as the Thames flood barrier will become more essential and will also require more economic input to create more coastal defences. “4300 kilometres of coastal defences works currently cost around £300 million per annum to maintain” (do reference later)
In conclusion to this I have found that this UN development goal was set out to achieve more sustainable ocean development and more sustainable coastlines that were more manageable for all countries that are relying on the coastline and all that the surrounding ocean provide.
However, many problems were encountered due to measuring the effectiveness such as measuring the fish stocks and the number of mammals and fish due to the migratory nature of some fish, making monitoring difficult. Also, international borders and waters of ocean make it difficult when communicating between countries that will have to contribute money to sustainability managing the oceans.
Some countries such as Canada and the UK have the economical ability and resources to come up with strategies to develop sustainable sources. However, it is also a case of communication between countries of less economic development and diving u the economic resources. Thee more developed countries have managed to effectively change policies and work well with the environment to make the coastline more sustainably developed.