|
| all news articles | by topics |
|
news
articles about singapore's wild places
|
| IUCN
website 28 Oct 05 Riding the Tide - Experts Chart a Course for Marine Protected Areas First International Marine Protected Areas Congress concludes in Geelong, Australia with a call for greater cooperation between conservation and fisheries sectors Geelong, Australia, 28 October 2005 (IUCN) – Conservation and fisheries communities must join forces in order to improve the state of the world’s oceans. This is the main message emerging from the inaugural International Marine Protected Areas Congress which closed in Geelong, Australia today. The five-day Congress brought together more than 770 delegates from some 70 countries – environment and fisheries experts and practitioners – to come up with a joint response to the ever-increasing degradation of the world’s marine resources. A key strategy discussed at the Congress to arrest this degradation was the UN-backed target to establish a global network of marine protected areas by the year 2012. “The Congress stressed the urgency of protecting biodiversity and placing the world’s fisheries on a sustainable basis. But above all, it demonstrated that conservation and fisheries sectors must ensure that their activities, now and in the future, are characterized by cooperation rather than unnecessary competition,” said Carl Gustaf Lundin, Head of the Marine Programme of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which co-organized the event together with Australian governmental and institutional partners. The Congress heard that marine protected areas can play a crucial role in preventing the collapse of the world’s fisheries. Currently, 15 out of 17 major fisheries worldwide are either at full exploitation levels or declining, and marine species are becoming extinct at an accelerated rate. Only one percent of the world’s oceans are currently under protection, compared with 12 percent of the planet’s terrestrial surface covered by protected areas. The Congress also emphasised that marine protected areas are a vital, but not the only tool necessary to ensure the sustainability of the world’s marine resources. Responsible fishing practices, international cooperation to improve ocean governance and greater investment in scientific research were identified as critical strategies to address major threats to the marine environment posed by over-exploitation, pollution and climate change. “If there was ever a tide in humanity’s relation to the sea, it is now. It is demonstrated in conferences and congresses such as this one, in international agreements, in research into marine ecosystems and processes and their relations to the entire biosphere, and in the gradually increasing understanding by human communities of these relations. We should ride this tide for the benefit of the world’s oceans and, ultimately, our own,” said Graeme Kelleher, Senior Advisor with the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. links Related articles on Wild Shores of Singapore |
| News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes. | |
website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com |