Border Wars: The Conflicts of Tomorrow by Dodds Klaus

Author:Dodds, Klaus [Dodds, Klaus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: retail, future studies, nonfiction, International & World Politics, international relations, mass migration
ISBN: 9781473562400
Publisher: Ebury Digital#PrB.rating#3.0
Published: 2020-07-15T23:00:00+00:00

HIGH SEAS AS ENDANGERED NO MAN’S LANDS

As we have seen, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea enables coastal states to border our oceans and seas, and it also makes provision for the largest no man’s lands on the planet, the high seas, which cannot be claimed and enclosed by any one state or states. But borders are still relevant when it comes to the high seas, particularly because the latter start where exclusive economic zones end. There are a number of rules and treaties that govern their use, including one that will address marine biodiversity from 2020 onwards, but the world’s high seas face new dangers in the twenty-first century. Fishing and seabed mining are the two activities that threaten to undermine the ecological resilience of these regions. The scale of the challenge is daunting.

The world’s fishing industry is operating at dangerously unsustainable levels. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that over 30 per cent of fish populations are exploited at unsustainable levels and 60 per cent are at their sustainable limit. High-seas fishing has become increasingly attractive as nearer coastal waters have been exploited, sometimes to the point of collapse. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimate that there might only be 7 per cent of world fish stocks that are ‘under-fished’. High-seas fishing is expensive due to the huge distances from ports and major centres of population, but fuel subsidies by countries such as China encourage ever more fishing outside coastal waters. Other major players include Spain, South Korea and Japan, but China is currently responsible for 20 per cent of high-seas fishing and this figure will grow in the twenty-first century.

The World Trade Organization could impose a ban on fuel subsidies in the near future, but this might only encourage other forms of behaviour that do little to protect the marine ecology of the high seas. Its proposals might end up being ‘watered down’ as the fishing nations of Africa and Europe, along with large fishing companies, lobby hard to propose ‘exemptions’ if they can prove their activities are not detrimental. China is championing so-called ‘green-box’ exemptions, which shifts the burden onto the fishing industry to prove that they are not doing any harm to the marine ecologies of the high seas.

The debate over fishing subsidies captures the difficulties and opportunities posed by no man’s lands. As areas beyond national sovereignty, they demand international agreement. Discussions about bringing fishing subsidies to an end started as long ago as 1999, and scientists and advocacy groups have been warning for some time of the need to take action. But, as we have seen, the world’s high-seas fishing grounds are not the only cause for concern: at the bottom of the ocean lies the deep seabed, another no man’s land beyond the sovereign reach of coastal states. The deep seabed matters because of its significance to marine biodiversity. Deep-sea ecosystems are no longer thought of as being remote and lacking in marine life. Thanks to underwater exploration,

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