A US Registered 501c3 Non-Profit Organization; OCEAN CREST ALLIANCE; Dedicated to Honor, Protect, and Restore the Health of the World’s Oceans and the Life of the Earth’s Systems through Conservation, Research, Education, Science, and Technology.
Work will be conducted in four main areas - fisheries, ecosystems, coral reefs, and marine biodiversity. Our research conducted, provides relevant and beneficial information to every marine ecosystem worldwide and to all of earths living systems. With this knowledge, OCA will work to assist in the design and establishment of a Global Network of Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s).
OCA supports the Global Ocean Commissions “rescue package” to ACTION! Through our continued actions and our proposed Research Facilities, we look forward to assisting in the establishment of a Global Network of Marine Protected Areas working to repair and protect our Marine Environment!
Putting a healthy, living ocean at the heart of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda, with detailed targets and specific indicators for ocean health.
Full transparency of all governmental fisheries subsidies, distinguishing fisheries subsidies that are most harmful, as well as an immediate capping and phasing-out of high seas fuel subsidies within five years.
Setting IMO mandatory numbers for large fishing vessels, banning at-sea transshipment, ratifying and implementing international fisheries and labour treaties. Creating greater collaboration with industry and other stakeholders.
Setting time-bound plastic reduction targets while creating incentives to promote recycling and producer responsibility. Restricting or banning certain unsustainable uses, encouraging substitute materials and better recycling systems.
Creating a Global Ocean Accountability Board, a body that would benchmark progress made towards achieving the Commission’s proposals for action and share this information with the global public.
The ocean is vital to the health of the entire planet and the wellbeing of humanity: it is a major source of food; it sustains economies and provides jobs; and it is the great biological pump that drives and regulates global climate, water and nutrient cycles. But this vital importance is too often forgotten; for instance, reference to the ocean was almost non-existent in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This oversight must not be repeated when UN Member States agree to a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to succeed the MDGs for the 2015–2030 period.
The Global Ocean Commission is thus calling for a stand-alone SDG for the ocean, to recognise the essential contribution it makes to sustainable development, and to place the ocean front and centre in the UN post-2015 development agenda.
The Commission is following the negotiations of the SDGs closely, and actively supporting the many countries which are strongly in favour of an Ocean SDG, especially small island developing states from the South Pacific for which the ocean is their major source of livelihood. The proposed set of SDGs will be presented to the UN General Assembly before September 2014. To help ensure that they include a separate SDG for the ocean, the Commission has developed a proposed goal that includes detailed, measurable targets and indicators relevant to the high seas.
Fish stocks are poorly managed and overfished. There are ‘too many boats trying to catch too few fish’ yet, despite this clear overcapacity, governments still grant at least US$30 billion a year in fisheries subsidies. About 60% of these subsidies directly encourage unsustainable practices.
High seas fishing is not equitable. Only fishers from those countries that can afford to subsidise their fleets with public funds can fish in these remote ocean areas; poor countries are excluded. Vessels need to consume huge amounts of fuel in order to travel to the high seas to fish. Fuel subsidies (which generally take the form of tax exemptions) amount to 30% of government fisheries spending. Most high seas fishing is carried out by just 10 nations, most of them developed countries. If it were not for State subsidies, these high seas fishing industries would not be financially viable.
Despite repeated international commitments over the last decade, negotiations under the World Trade Organization have failed to reach an agreement on fisheries subsidies.
The Global Ocean Commission is calling for three major steps:
Full transparency – countries should disclose and account for all their public spending in the fisheries sector;
The international community should reach agreement on the classification of different subsidies and clearly identify those that are harmful.
States should agree to immediately cap fuel subsidies for high seas fisheries, and to eliminate them within five years.
Illegal fishing severely undermines all existing conservation and management measures in place for fish stocks. It costs the global economy between US$10 and US$23.5 billion a year, and is largely carried out by vessels from a handful of countries that do not adhere to or comply with international regulations.
Poor countries, which do not have the capacity to monitor their waters and whose vital resources diminish because of illegal pillage, are the worst affected. Illegal fishing is also linked to other forms of criminality as fishing vessels can also be used for smuggling people, drugs and weapons. The illegality of the practice needs to be established, the likelihood of being caught and sanctioned needs to be increased, and illegally caught fish must be prevented from entering markets.
In order to combat and end illegal fishing, the Global Ocean Commission is calling for:
Plastics are a major source of pollution on the high seas and constitute a health threat to both people and the environment. Debris entangles or suffocates seabirds, turtles and marine mammals, and plastic microparticles bio-accumulate, poisoning fish and entering the food chain.
Over 80% of the plastics found in the ocean come from the land, reflecting very poor and irresponsible waste management. However, political and regulatory action is lacking and consumers are not sufficiently aware of the problem.
World plastics production is estimated to increase by over 100 times based on 2010 production levels, from 270 million in 2010 to 33 billion in 2050, a percentage of which will end up in the ocean unless preventative action is taken.
Once it is in the ocean, plastic is very hard to remove, therefore the Commission is calling for coordinated action by governments, the private sector and civil society to stop plastics entering the ocean in the first place. Proposed actions include:
Establishing time-bound quantitative reduction targets;
Creating incentives to promote recycling and extend producer responsibility.
Restricting or banning certain unsustainable uses (e.g. disposable plastic bags and polyurethane packaging);
Encouraging the promotion and innovation of substitute materials and better recycling systems;
Increasing consumer awareness.
The Commission is also concerned about plastics pollution from sea-based sources, notably the problem of lost and abandoned fishing gear. Tens of thousands of fish aggregation devices (FADs) are used by the tuna fishing industry alone; many of them are eventually discarded or lost at sea.
The Commission proposes that all deployed FADs be documented, and that each new FAD from now on be made up of natural fibres and equipped with a tracking device. To discourage their abandonment at sea, the Commission also calls for port disposal programmes that encourage the safe, cost-effective disposal of used fishing gear. The use of natural biodegradable materials in fishing gear should also be promoted.
The Commission calls for the establishment of an independent Global Ocean Accountability Board to benchmark progress – or lack of progress – towards meeting its Proposals for Action and to share this information with the global community and the wider public.
The Board would use clear criteria to measure what has been done and whether it has made a clear difference, as well as holding to account those who are exploiting or mismanaging the high seas.
To enhance transparency and accountability, the Board should reach out to all relevant stakeholders: governments; academia; scientists; the private sector; multilateral development banks and the financial sector; Multilateral Environmental Agreements; the UN; RFMOs; other relevant intergovernmental fora; civil society organisations, including NGOs, organised labour; religious leaders; etc.