Let’s start with some good news. Earlier in the month of November 2015, we published the first findings from a major study on public perceptions of the benefits provided by the ocean — research conducted under the NEOPS project. The results indicate a surprisingly broad base of understanding and support for sustainable ocean management that cuts across political affiliations, age groups, and even the proximity of communities to the ocean. More importantly, it highlights exactly which types of action the general public is prepared to take to support sustainable ocean management.
By Robert Blasiak
, Kaoru
Ichikawa and Nobuyuki
Yagi
Let’s start with
some good news. Earlier in the month of November 2015, we published the first
findings from a major study on public perceptions of the benefits provided
by the ocean — research conducted under the NEOPS
project. The results indicate a surprisingly broad base of understanding and
support for sustainable ocean management that cuts across political affiliations,
age groups, and even the proximity of communities to the ocean. More
importantly, it highlights exactly which types of action the general public is
prepared to take to support sustainable ocean management.
But, first,
some broader context: a common thread in reporting on environmental issues is
to assert that
(1) now is the
time for action and, if decision-making processes falter or targets remain
unmet, that
(2) the international community is hopelessly gridlocked and
incapable of concerted action on the required scale.
The oceans
seem to fit this paradigm perfectly. The inherently fluid boundaries mean that
fish stocks, ocean plastics, nutrients from agricultural runoff, and any number
of other things can easily move across international maritime boundaries.
Furthermore, although the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS) formalized a series of exclusive economic zones (EEZ) that generally extend 200 nautical miles from coastal
boundaries, a number of key EEZ boundaries are disputed. In addition, over 60%
of the ocean’s surface area is a grey zone with a limited governance framework
and even less monitoring, known as the high seas.
Admittedly,
it’s a big challenge, but anyone who believes the argument that the
international community is incapable of solving big problems would be happily
surprised by the example of the Montreal Protocol on the use of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
In the 1970s, scientists discovered that CFCs had the capacity to enter the
Earth’s protective ozone layer, where they would subsequently break down into
constituent elements that would then cause the bonds in ozone molecules to
dissolve. By the 1980s, NASA data had confirmed that an ozone hole was
expanding over the Antarctic. Within 25 years of the ratification of the
Montreal Protocol in 1987, however, the production and use of CFCs had dropped
precipitously, the ozone rate had stabilized, and a recovery to pre-1980 ozone
levels is expected by 2030.
Outcomes of a
model published earlier this year show that if the status quo had prevailed,
today’s ozone hole would be 40% larger, with a corresponding increase in skin
cancers and other negative impacts.
So, what was
the winning solution? Yes, there was careful scientific analysis of natural
systems, and yes, there was effective international policymaking. But the
connecting element seems to have been highly effective communication efforts
and sustained public interest (although, even in the mid-1980s, the CFC
industry was lobbying policymakers, charging that the science was inconclusive
and there was no need for regulation).
Public
perceptions of the oceans
Our study —
“Marine ecosystem services: Perceptions of indispensability and pathways to engaging
citizens in their sustainable use”, to be published in the December 2015 issue
of the scientific journal Marine Policy and available online now — looks specifically at the level of public
interest in regards to the oceans. A survey was used to determine not only how
the public views the benefits that people derive from the oceans (known as
ecosystem services), but also what actions, if any, they are willing to take to
ensure the conservation and sustainable use of ocean ecosystem services.
According to
responses from nearly 1,500 residents from across the United States, there is
considerable room for optimism.
Respondents
saw little distinction between “our” ocean and “their” ocean, but rather view
it as a global commons on par with the atmosphere.
Firstly, a
very strong correlation was found between the perceived indispensability and
current state of marine ecosystem services in the US and globally. This suggests
that respondents see little distinction between “our” ocean and “their” ocean,
but rather view it as a global commons on par with the atmosphere. It also
suggests a broad understanding that local ocean problems will not remain local
for long — ocean pollution or acidification,
for instance, are affecting marine life around the world, regardless of the
source of the emissions.
Secondly,
among a range of potential actions to support sustainable ocean management, by
far the greatest opposition was expressed towards taxation. In comparison,
there was virtually no opposition to purchasing green products or supporting
eco-friendly companies. Likewise, there was a strong positive correlation
between age and anti-tax attitudes. Around 25% of respondents in their 20s
opposed a tax to support sustainable ocean management, but among respondents in
their 60s, that figure had doubled to over 50% of respondents opposing such a
tax. On the other hand, supporting businesses committed to fostering
sustainable ocean management was opposed by fewer than 15% of respondents
across the entire spectrum.
Figure 1:
Percentage of respondents, by age group, opposed to a tax to promote
sustainable ocean management (solid blue line = female respondents; slashed
brown line = male respondents).
Thirdly, no
correlation was found between perceptions about the indispensability of ocean
ecosystem services and political affiliations as measured against the Cook Partisan Voting
Index. Furthermore, there was also no correlation between anti-tax
attitudes and political affiliations. This is perhaps the most surprising
finding, as American politics have been characterized as growing increasingly
polarized, with support for environmentalism and unregulated free markets seen
as aligning with opposite poles of the political spectrum. These findings
suggest a much broader, albeit unspoken, consensus on the importance of marine
ecosystem services and respective forms of cooperation to sustain them.
Finally, the
proximity of respondents’ respective constituencies to the oceans was also not
found to correlate with their perceptions of indispensability of the current
state of ocean ecosystems. Respondents from landlocked states such as Utah,
Montana and Kentucky, for instance, had almost identical aggregate perceptions
of the value of marine systems as respondents from coastal states like Hawaii,
Florida or Rhode Island.
Figure 2:
Aggregate perceptions of indispensability and willingness to pay a tax for
sustainable ocean management versus Cook Partisan Voting Index ratings (each
dot represents one state).
This final
finding could, potentially, be due to the relatively short history of many
coastal communities in the United States. A comparable study of public
attitudes conducted in Japan, for instance, found that perceptions of
“cultural ecosystem services” were most strongly tied to a
willingness to act to conserve coastal ecosystems. This strong cultural focus
may be traced back to concepts of satoyama and
satoumi, where many generations of close human-nature linkages have
resulted in diverse mosaics of different forms of sustainable production
activities in landscapes and seascapes, respectively.
Ultimately,
the results of this study suggest that there may already be considerable common
ground on which to build and promote sustainable ocean management issues.
Moreover, despite assertions that proximity to the ecosystems producing the
goods and services from which one benefits fosters sustainable management
practices, these findings suggest that such distinctions may be weaker for
marine systems than terrestrial systems.
Finally, the
strong anti-tax attitudes may be tied to cultural norms in the United States,
but the virtual absence of opposition to supporting green businesses or
purchasing green products suggests that voluntary bottom-up initiatives are a
low-risk and potentially substantial pathway to more sustainable ocean
management in the future.
In a
geopolitical sense, 2015 may be a pivotal year for the oceans. Sustainable Development Goal #14 to “conserve and
sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable
development” got formal approval by the UN General Assembly in September. Likewise,
in 2015 the first steps were taken towards protecting biodiversity in the vast
high seas, with UN member states formally agreeing earlier this year to develop
a legally-binding instrument for the conservation and
sustainable use of biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
Last but not least, the outcomes of the high profile climate talks to be held in Paris later this
month will likely have a long-term impact on ocean acidification and therefore
the very foundations of ocean ecosystems.
It can only be
hoped that this mix of policy action, broad scientific knowledge and public
interest will combine once again to create much-needed successes comparable to
the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
This
research was supported, in part, by the five-year project titled New Ocean
Paradigm on its Bio-geochemistry, Ecosystem, and Sustainable Use (NEOPS) through
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas. More information on
the project and research outcomes are available
on the NEOPS
website.
About The Authors:
Robert Blasiak
is a Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Agricultural
and Life Sciences, where he is studying how international cooperation can
contribute to sustainable fisheries management. He also currently works with
the Fukushima Global
Communication Programme at the United Nations University Institute for the
Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) and previously worked with the Institute’s
Satoyama Initiative. He holds a BA from the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst, an MSc from Lund University and a PhD from the
University of Tokyo.
University of
Tokyo
Dr. Nobuyuki
Yagi is Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo. The area of his study
includes economic development and marine policy. Before joining the University
in 2008, he worked for the Fisheries Agency of the Government of Japan. From
1999 to 2002, he was First Secretary at the Embassy of Japan in Washington DC,
US. He served as a bureau member for OECD Committee for Fisheries from 2003 to
2008. He received a graduate degree (MBA) from the Wharton School (Class of
1994) of University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, US, and doctoral degree from
the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the University of Tokyo,
Japan, in 2008.
Research
Fellow, United Nations University
Kaoru Ichikawa
is a research fellow at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced
Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS)
where she works with the Satoyama Initiative.
Publication Details:
Sustainable
Ocean Management: New Data and Reasons for Optimism by Robert
Blasiak, Kaoru Ichikawa and Nobuyuki Yagi is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
