8 Oceans and Plastic

Question 1

The Ocean as Provider

Answer 1

• Food from the sea: fisheries and aquaculture
• Energy from the sea: from fossil to renewable
• Shipping and trade
• Oceans as a dump for waste
• Resources from the sea
• Marine ecosystem services, e.g. genetic resources

Attention to interactions! Prevent use of conflicts!

Question 2

The Ocean as Provider example

Answer 2

World capture Fisheries and Aquaculture Production:
• Global fish production is stagnant due to overfishing and fishery efforts are increasing
• Increasing role of aquaculture

Energy from the sea: Expansion of offshore wind turbines

Question 3

The Ocean as Patient

Answer 3

• Overfishing
• Pollution (nutrients, toxic substances, plastic, oil spills)
• Dead zones
• Warming & sea-level rise
• CO2 input and acidification

• Ecosystem destruction, loss of biodiversity (e.g. biodiversity)
- E.g. 20% of coral reefs disappeared, 75% at risk

• Attention to interactions cumulative, synergistic impacts

Question 4

The Ocean as Patient: The Concept of Maximum Sustainable Yield

See graph on 
# Lecture 8 slide 172

Answer 4

• 𝑆=𝐺−𝐻
• Actual rate of change of the renewable resource stock is the amount of net natural growth of the resource (G) minus the stock being harvested (H)
• If 𝑆=0, steady-state harvesting, with H corresponding to the sustainable yield
• At the stock size S𝑀𝑆𝑌 the quantity of net natural growth is at its maximum → the harvest here is the maximum sustainable yield

Question 5

Ocean division

See figure on 
# Lecture 8 slide 180

Answer 5

• Territorial waters and exclusive economic zone: 22 / 370 km
 The state has the exclusive right on the resources

• Continental shelf: “natural prolongation” of the land ,max 650 km
 The state has exclusive on mineral and nonliving materials and living resources attached to the shelf (not fish)

• High Seas and The Area
 High Seas Freedom of taking living resources
international management for nonliving resources in the subsoil

Question 6

Ocean Governance: Regulation of Conservation and Use

See figure on 
# Lecture 8 slide 184

Answer 6

• Integration of Continental Shelf Commission and International Seabed Authority into World Oceans Organization
• Regional Organizations cover marine conservation and are accountable to the WOO
• Contracting states are accountable to WOO and RMMO
• Expansion of the „Common Heritage of Mankind principle”

 Ambitious and politically infeasible (at least today)