Common Currents : Examining How We Manage the Ocean Commons

Abstract

The world’s oceans are both vast and mysterious.1 They cover over 70 percent of the planet, and hold roughly 97 percent of its water. Measured by volume, they provide 99 percent of the living space on the planet. It is estimated that they remain more than 80 percent unexplored, unmapped, and indeed unknown, and it is commonly accepted that although we have identified several hundred thousand marine species, that represents only a small proportion of the ocean’s biodiversity. The oceans provide humanity with a staggering array of goods and services. They furnish protein to feed us, medicines to keep us healthy, shipping routes to connect us, fuel to power our cities, protection for our vulnerable coastal settlements, recreational opportunities to delight us, and wonders to inspire us. For centuries, human ability to exploit ocean goods and services was limited to resources near shore and near the surface. In the last hundred years or so, however, technological advances have given us the ability to access and control distant and deep ocean resources. But the ocean also faces the triple threats posed by climate change, extraction, and pollution. Greenhouse gas emissions cause both direct and indirect problems for ocean systems. The oceans have absorbed as much as 40% of the anthropogenic carbon emissions since the late 1800s. That absorptive capacity has helped at least temporarily buffer the globe against temperature increases, but at the cost of significant increases in ocean acidity, which disrupt ocean ecosystems.Rising global temperatures also affect the oceans, causing fish species to change their range, bleaching corals, reducing dissolved oxygen, and intensifying harmful algal blooms. Climate change is a dire threat, but hardly the only anthropogenic problem ocean systems face. Human populations extract numerous resources from the ocean, from fish to marine genetic resources and from oil and gas to rare minerals, often in unsustainable or ecologically harmful ways. And we emit staggering quantities of pollution into the marine environment, from land-based plastics that have formed a gyre of marine debris in the Pacific to a steady flow of chemicals, medications, and more channeled through local wastewater systems.The range of current threats introduces new dimensions to an old dilemma: ocean governance. Governance of the oceans has long been a delicate balancing act between those wishing to exert individualized control over ocean resources and those who see the world’s oceans as the paradigmatic shared resource. The oceans cannot be fenced. Pollution does not stay contained where it enters the seas. Highly migratory fish and mammals travel thousands of miles, without regard to jurisdictional boundaries.