US Secretary of State, John Kerry, cares
about the ocean. He grew up with the sea and backed many progressive ocean
policies while in the US Senate. You could feel that emotional connection at
the OurOcean conference, which he
hosted over the last two days in Washington, D.C.. This was not like most
political conferences I have been to.
There was a tight agenda, and there was – by the standard of political
conferences, anyway – a lot of action:
The United States announced a significant
extension of the Pacific Marine Sanctuary and actions to stop illegal
fishing in US waters; the Bahamas committed to making 20% of their oceans ocean
sanctuaries by 2020 (and 10% already this year) and put forward 200 million to
improve the management of their protected areas; Palau and Kiribati both
declared huge new areas off limits to commercial fishing in order to help (especially)
tuna stocks to recover; Norway will invest 150 million in sustainable fisheries
research; Togo pledged to join Senegal and fight illegal fishing of their
coasts – a move that could have significant
positive impacts for local fisher communities; the list goes on. The devil
with many of these announcements will be in the detail – and just because good
words were spoken in Washington, of course, does not yet mean that there will
be real change out on the ocean. Still, in a situation where less
than 2% of the oceans are currently protected and fishstocks are being
overexploited everywhere, this list is heartening. And Chile committed to host
a follow up meeting next year to check whether the words have indeed resulted
in action.
Kerry´s approach was refreshing. His
speeches were funny and forceful – reminding us all that without the ocean
there can be no security or development in future. He also freely admitted that
there was not enough being done yet. He even called on the audience to create a
global mass movement to force politicians to take ocean protection (more)
seriously.
We definitely want to be part of that! But how
come Kerry at the very same time ignored the strong movement that already exists
to protect the High Seas? OurOcean
shamefully ignored the tens of thousands of you who called for urgent
protection of 64% of the ocean – the High Seas. It´s not that the need to
protect the High Seas wasn´t mentioned. No one less than Leonardo di Caprio called for an
urgent end to the “Wild
West” exploitation of the High Seas and said, that people want to see
governments taking action. But on the twitter feed in the conference hall, not a single one of the over 10000
tweets calling for High Seas protection ever showed up! And while John
Kerry called for a “global political plan for the Ocean” – he failed to mention
the High Seas even once.
I know why. If Kerry had talked about the
High Seas he would have revealed a giant contradiction in the US position on
ocean protection. Because while OurOcean was happening in Washington, global negotiations to create a
rescue plan for the High Seas are ongoing not so far away: at the United
Nations in New York. And while Kerry was proud at the amount of actions he
could announce in Washington, his own negotiation team is shamefully failing to
back ocean action at the United Nations. That´s pretty untenable, and has left no
one less than my boss, Kumi Naidoo, very confused.
After the last two days, and despite the
infuriating censorship of the issue, I am inclined to give Kerry the benefit of
the doubt. Kerry may have ignored and buried the High Seas issue because he is
indeed embarrassed by the inconsistency of the approach of his government. So,
we will give him a little bit more time to change the United States position on
the High
Sea Biodiversity Agreement we so urgently need. But he better get working
with the same efficiency that he and his team delivered the OurOcean conference,
on fixing the US´s position on the High Seas. If he does not, the very ocean
movement, which he called a “hard ass
group of folks” will come back to haunt him (and his behind).
It´s obvious that we can never protect our
Ocean, if we ignore 64% of it. So let´s take John Kerry by his word and help
build a movement he cannot ignore. Join
our call for Ocean Sanctuaries now!
First published on greenpeace.org
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