Raül Romeva i Rueda

Els mars i oceans han esdevingut alhora escenari i causa de conflictes. La rivalitat per accedir o controlar els recursos marins és sens dubte un dels motius que expliquen molts dels conflictes actuals. Ser conscients d’aquest fet és fonamental a l’hora d’abordar-ne la gestió i resolució, especialment perquè si algú no té precisament cap culpa són, precisament, els mars i oceans mateixos, i especialment els ecosistemes vius que conformen, els quals pateixen de manera implacable la irresponsabilitat humana. Per a molta gent, governs i actors econòmics: els mars i oceans són una font inesgotable de recursos, un abocador sense límits, i un espai comú, que a més ‘no és de ningú’, per on podem moure’ns i contaminar sense límits, així com ‘jugar-hi a la guerra’ sense importar el mal que puguem fer-hi. La conseqüència de tot plegat és que hem entrat en (segueix…)

una nova era de competència feroç per fer-se amb uns recursos marins que s’esgoten a una velocitat de vertigen, i per controlar un espai cada vegada més geoestratègic. Conflictes i mars van, malauradament, cada cop més de la mà, si no hi posem remei. I els pirates moderns no tenen res a veure amb els enigmàtics personatges de Salgari o Stevenson: alguns encara van amb mocadors al cap i descalços, és cert, però molts d’altres van amb uniforme i fins i tot n’hi ha que van de vestit i corbata. L’article de Susan Wells (de WWF) que adjunto a continuació és una bona descripció de la realitat actual:

Threats and conflicts – 20,000 Worlds Under the Sea – competition for marine resources

Susan Wells (WWF)

In the rivalry for marine resources, environmental concern should not be seen as just another competing use of the oceans.

We tend to view the marine world as an infinite food supply, a bottomless pit for waste and a “common space” where we can play and fight, as and when we please. However, this is quickly changing as the world metaphorically “shrinks”, as the oceans no longer present the obstacle they once were to travel or communications and as we explore their furthest depths. We have entered a new era of fierce competition for marine resources and space.

Sixteen of the world’s 23 mega-cities (with over 2.5 million inhabitants) are on or close to the sea. In China about 100 million people have moved from land-locked provinces to new coastal economic zones since 1990. Coastal tourism, fisheries and offshore petroleum industries are major sources of revenue for many countries, particularly small developing island states.

Despite air travel, the oceans are still the great highways for trade, with ships transporting 80 per cent of international cargo. Indeed, the oceans largely make economic globalization possible by offering a cheap means of moving commodities around the world. Tens of thousands of vessels are at sea at any one time, all needing a shore to dock, load, unload and dispose of waste. Until recently the oceans were the obvious solution for waste disposal in general. Whole industries have been built up around dumping domestic sewage, industrial waste, decommissioned oil rigs and nuclear waste at sea.

Governments and their military forces, multinationals and local industry all have a major stake in the marine world. So it is not surprising to find increasing conflict between and among these actors. Some of the most heated disputes have occurred in the fisheries sector. As stocks collapse after decades of overfishing, vessels from different nations are chasing the remaining fish in a cut-throat competition that has in some cases escalated into violence. The North Atlantic “cod wars” between Canadian and Spanish trawlers in the early 1990s have probably attracted the most attention. In a heated dispute ten years earlier, a Danish vessel deliberately sailed into UK waters to catch forbidden fish and face arrest by the Royal Navy.

The real culprit in all these clashes is the over-capacity of the world’s fishing fleet, which grew twice as fast as catches between 1970 and 1990, largely due to huge government subsidies. Artisanal fishermen in developing countries in West Africa, for example, now find their resources plundered by “distant-water” fleets from the European Union which pay scant regard to the needs of local communities or ecosystems. The EU now has a network of fishing access agreements with nineteen African countries, for which licence fees often represent a tiny proportion of the value of the catch. Fishing conflicts have even reached the World Trade Organization; recently the United States tried to exclude tuna and shrimp imports from certain countries using catch techniques which kill dolphins and sea turtles.

Perhaps the greatest conflict to be resolved is that between human activities and healthy seas. The environmental community and its nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are often seen as separate “stakeholders”, interested in simply preventing anyone from using the oceans. They are viewed as animal “huggers”, especially given the attention paid to sea turtles or whales. And yet, the major role of most NGOs is to develop ways of ensuring the long-term health of the planet.

Environmental concern must cease to be seen as a competing “use” of the oceans, and be recognized instead as a fundamental component of all marine activities. Aside from a few exceptions like military exercises and shipping, human activities which depend on the marine environment require a healthy ocean. Marine parks and reserves, for example, may appear to compete with space for resorts and marinas, yet they play a vital role in protecting habitats on which fisheries depend and tourism is based.

Most of the issues covered by the media as conflicts between opposing camps are really about basic questions over access to and sustainable use of the ocean, from the public outcry over French nuclear testing in the South Pacific to NGO clashes with multinational oil companies such as Shell over oil spills and the disposal of rigs on the seabed. A similar “conflict” is brewing over developing new submarine fossil fuel sources, which flies in the face of all that we know about climate change.

In some cases, the damage predicted has not materialized or the potential impacts have been impossible to prove. But the concerns are still valid. We know so little about the oceans that it would be foolish to take anything other than a precautionary approach. This is clearly reflected in the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, although it is important to note that work remains to be done because the convention ignores a crucial issue of the future: genetic resources of the high seas.

Yet international agreements and regulations can only go so far. We need to build a broad public constituency through initiatives like the International Year of the Ocean. The momentum is growing. A 1997 poll in the USA, for example, found that 55 per cent of Americans believe that ocean exploration should take precedence over space exploration.

At the same time, economic dependence on marine resources opens the way to creating social and economic incentives for their sustainable use. Eco-labels on products and services are starting to make a difference to consumers. Companies, NGOs and international agencies are looking into new ways of certifying fisheries management and aquaculture, in particular.

Moving beyond consumers, we need to shift the balance of power between all stakeholders so that coastal communities can reassert their rights to their marine resources. This is not just a pipe-dream. In the Pacific, authorities are formally recognizing the traditional structures and techniques revived by local communities to manage their marine resources. In Mauritania, the Imraguen (a fishing community) now have exclusive fishing rights in the resource-rich Banc d’Arguin Marine Park.

The time has come to bridge these scattered initiatives by reinforcing international and regional co-operation. This is not simply a question of good intentions but a realistic strategy for resolving the myriad of marine conflicts. The stakeholders have everything to gain in respecting what may well be the world’s last wilderness.

COPYRIGHT 1998 UNESCO
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

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