Former body builder-turned film star and now Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, could become the face for the protection and safety of the
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor Schwarzenegger, who is known for his strong environmental policies, especially on climate change, is being sought after by planners of a new initiative to be known as the “Pacific Ocean 2020 Challenge.â€
This challenge, which is being coordinated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature based in
At the partnership meeting of stakeholders at the
He said all countries involved in this new initiative included the entire Pacific Ocean region and recognized Pacific Rim countries and States like
Being a vocal advocate for the reduction of Ocean Pollution, hopes are high that Governor Schwarzenegger will accept the invitation.
There are also plans to approach world famous search engine, Google, to be a partner in the communicating of the Pacific Ocean 2020 Challenge.
Before the challenge is taken on by stakeholders, Mr. Taholo said the State of the Pacific Ocean Report needs to be completed as early as possible so that it could form the basis for the Pacific Ocean 2020 Strategy.
â€The report will be the basis for developing the Pacific Ocean Report 2020 Strategy which will identify new actions and build on the significant work that is essential to the future of the Pacific,†Mr. Kami said.
He said the State of the Pacific Report should focus on (i) the sustained use of natural resources including fisheries and habitat and the capacity to manage these resources, (ii) environmental conservation, and (iii) the dimension of climate change. It is estimated that the budget for the completion of the report could reach US$970,000.
While the plan may be an ambitious one, Mr. Kami believes it is possible and the first opportunity is for the owners of the report to say “we can do somethingâ€.
In
It is also a wealth of resources and used by locals and around the world but needs to be sustainably managed.
It is also the engine room of the world’s climate because it stores a large proportion of the incoming solar energy and the atmosphere.
The Pacific Ocean is also the source of many natural disasters and influences the lives of millions around the globe through global impacts of events.
While China may be United States' biggest exporter of seafood, it gets most of this from the Pacific Ocean. If the fishing industry collapses, it would not affect those small countries in the Pacific but several million people around the world, said Mr. Kami.
He said that although there had been initiatives like the Coral Triangle, and the Micronesia Challenge, which covers a little bit in the Northern part of the Pacific, it was important to raise the scale to cover the whole Pacific Ocean.
â€This whole challenge, instead of working in bits and pieces, we tie up the bigger pieces of what we are doing and develop the kind of partnerships and get new kinds of commitments,†he said.
â€The issue of security of our EEZs to border them and the lack of our capacity in our countries and the lack of capacity with only two or three patrol boats to look after our EEZ like Kiribati.â€
â€And we are all aware that if we are going the way we are going, we are losing. And the challenge is what else we could do in terms of up-scaling.†According to IUCN, about 50 per cent of the region's total biodiversity is now at risk and the threats continue to grow with climate change and over-harvesting of resources, including the now accessible deep seabeds. Rapidly declining tuna stocks and increasing pressure on coastal and marine habitats are depleting the ocean, impacting on Pacific island countries' economics, livelihoods of people in the Pacific and food security around the globe.
Climate change is another issue and has added to the ocean's vulnerability of the people who depend on it. In small-island nations in the Pacific, coral bleaching will reduce its GDP by 40 to 50 per cent by 2020.
Some of the problems in the Pacific highlighted by another conservation organization, The Ocean Conservancy, are the acceleration of climate change and the world cannot slow the building emissions of greenhouse gases which will cause future sufferings for those living in the Pacific.
Ocean Conservancy also identified those who face the brunt of climate change would be the poorest people and nations and those least responsible for creating climate changes, which will alter their lives.
However, the first to suffer would be those in the northern extremes of the Pacific where warming is fastest with severe impact on their coastal communities and marine food resources. Also affected are those in the tropical Pacific who depend on coral reefs for protection, tourist dollars and sustenance.
The melting of sea ice is also leading to coastal erosion, the shifts of resources like fish and marine mammals and the decline in population of key species like polar bears and walrus.
Coral bleaching is alarming and is the cause of diminishing biodiversity, and the reducing stocks of exploited fish and invertebrates and the protection of its coasts and also in the tourism economies.
If it continues in the next 50 years there could be a 100 per cent bleaching and deaths of coral reefs. Without the reefs, there will be no food for those living in coastal areas because they depend on the sea for most of their nutrition. Acidification will also increase with the erosion of the reefs and the erosion of coastal areas would cause a rise in the sea levels, especially in low-lying islands, which is already happening.
Pollution, coastal development, agricultural and forestry practices and fishing, all reduce the resilience of coral reefs and lead to greater mortality in thermal leaching events. Poorly planned coastal development damages and removes buffering habitats like marshes and mangroves which stops the impacts of storms and cyclones of coastal human-built environments.
It is our initiative to stop this.
