For me, the open ocean used to be no more than an expanse of blue colour on the world map.
That was until March, when I posted a story on this blog about the importance of open oceans for our food. The research I did for that story convinced me otherwise.
The following is a bit about what I learned from that research, and why I feel the role of the open ocean may soon become more prominent in conversations about global food supply.
To begin with, the focus of the Global Oceans Commission, a group created to give focus to this poorly understood portion of the world and which includes former Prime Minister Paul Martin, is currently focusing on the role of the open ocean.
The open ocean is the portion of the ocean that is not coastal, and traditionally considered by many people as simply something to be crossed in order to get somewhere more important.
The Commission recently published a major report entitled, “The High Seas and Us” that urges us to recognize the importance of the open ocean in the health of the earth, including the remaining fish stocks.
This contradicts the way the open ocean has traditionally been viewed.
For a long time, the world’s governments have thought that the shallower waters of the coastal areas were the most, important, since they were the most productive of fish.
That’s the reason why countries like Canada have claimed ‘Exclusive Economic Zones’ next to their coasts.
But the Commission’s report shows that the open ocean has always played an unrecognized role in most fisheries and is becoming increasingly more important as catching fish off the coastal areas becomes harder and harder.
The report’s research shows that the open ocean is responsible for nearly half of the biological productivity of all the oceans. The rush to exploit the open ocean fisheries threatens the survival of most other fisheries.
Nearly half of the kinds of fish in our supermarkets spend part of their lives in the open ocean. But only 1% of supermarket fish (mainly tuna) live exclusively in the open ocean.
For these reasons, the Open Ocean Commission is recommending that the open ocean fishery be closed, arguing that the benefits for the coastal fisheries will more than make up for the loss of the open ocean fisheries.
But the importance of the open ocean doesn’t stop with its role for fish. It provides several key ‘services’ to the entire globe, including our weather.
The open ocean is a huge sponge for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. As a whole, each year the ocean absorbs and stores about half the carbon dioxide produced by all burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas).
Ensuring that the open ocean continues to do this through biological activity will be an important part of preventing runaway climate change.
The Commission also calls for the linking up of the various existing international agreements affecting the open ocean (for example shipping, fishing and seabed mining) to ensure that all the services provided by the open ocean are protected and the benefits derived are shared as a common heritage of all humanity.
Like other global challenges, the solution will require a degree of cooperation between countries that doesn’t yet exist, but that more and more people are realizing.
The question for Canadians is: Will Canada be part of the solution, or part of the problem?
