Category: Management

Management of the marine environment as a resource can be challenging, with many stakeholders involved. Scientists need to be able to advise policy makers to ensure the protection of the marine environment. Here, I want to highlight the importance of applied research collaborations between the government, industry and academia to promote responsible use of environmental resources. With increasing anthropogenic activities necessary, a goal is to be able to apply high quality research in practice and make sure seabed habitats are conserved, as well as allow sustainable use. This section will include informal interviews with scientists, policy makers and industry representatives, to get an idea of the conflicts and solutions in different countries.

Management, What's New

Geoscience and Sustainable Development

JoelGill Guest Post by Dr. Joel C. Gill

Executive Director, Geology for Global Development

Joel is an interdisciplinary geoscientist, integrating natural and social science methods to address issues relating to sustainable development and disaster risk reduction (DRR). Joel has a keen interest in improving the application of geology to international development, founding the charity “Geology for Global Development” in 2011. He has organised conferences, events and workshops on geoscience and sustainable development in the UK, Guatemala, India, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, and South Africa.

The agreement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 reflects ‘a global consensus that business as usual is no option any longer, that changing the development trajectory is necessary’ (Spangenberg, 2016, p.1). The 17 SDGs and their 169 targets will be at the forefront of national and international policy discourse for the next 15 years. Collectively they aim to eradicate global poverty, end unsustainable consumption patterns, and facilitate sustained and inclusive economic growth, social development, and environmental protection.

The SDGs, together with various thematic frameworks (e.g., Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, Paris Agreement, New Urban Agenda), all relate to the interaction of human activities with the natural environment. The ‘planet’ is a central pillar of sustainable development, alongside people and prosperity. Advances in science and technology, including geoscience (the study of the Earth), are therefore central to each framework. For example, managing natural resources, characterising natural hazards, or modelling future climate all require multiscale (spatial and temporal) understanding of Earth materials and/or processes. This requirement for geoscience input presents an opportunity for the geoscience community. Scientific business as usual, however, will not be sufficient, with changes to geoscience practice required for successful engagement (Lubchenco et al., 2015).

Geoscience and the SDGs

The environmental focus of the SDGs means geoscience is essential to their success. The matrix below (from Gill, 2017) illustrates the role of geoscience in the 17 SDGs. The matrix was populated by analysing the SDG sub-goals and targets, identifying links between SDG requirements and geoscience. Interconnections between many SDGs results in this approach giving a conservative estimate of the true impact of geoscience interventions. For example, goals on education (SDG 4) and gender equality (SDG 5) do not specifically refer to access to water/sanitation (SDG 6), but increased access to water/sanitation can support both. This matrix shows a role for geoscience within all 17 of the SDGs.

Matrix_SDGGeosciences

Contributions will be required from all sectors and sub-disciplines of geoscience, including those working in research, industry, the public sector and civil society. Examples of geoscience activities helping to deliver the SDGs include research projects, industry engagement, and civil society activities. Gill and Bullough (2017) listed examples of diverse activities geoscientists are undertaking that support the delivery of the SDGs.

Improving Geoscience Engagement in Sustainable Development

Engagement by geoscientists must be effective, culturally appropriate, and sustainable. Poor quality engagement (e.g., weak understanding of the social context of a project, or limited dialogue with stakeholders) can hinder development progress, may detrimentally affect a project, and does not serve society well. Effective engagement is rooted in understanding the science-policy-practice interface. This includes, for example, determining the information needs of stakeholders (e.g., policy makers, community groups, development NGOs), how they will use this information, and how best to present it to support policymakers. This requires the ability to build positive partnerships between geoscientists and diverse stakeholders, with engagement prioritised early in the research process. Increased dialogue, critical to our contributions being relevant, may also require the geoscience community to invest in additional and complementary skills. The geoscience community readily embraces advances in technology, informatics, and other physical sciences to advance their science. In contrast, whereas cultural and ethical understanding, cross-disciplinary communication, and social science research approaches can also support effective engagement and enhance our science, they are rarely included in a geoscientist’s education.

Continue reading “Geoscience and Sustainable Development” →

Management

Life Below Water: Sustainable Development Goal 14

What are the Sustainable Development Goals?

ResearchBlogging.org

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an intergovernmental set of aspiration Goals with 169 targets. The Official Agenda for Sustainable Development outlined 17 Sustainable Development Goals and its associated 169 targets to be achieved by 2030. It all started when I recently attended the Mary Robinson SDG Symposium in Ballina, County Mayo. This covered detailed discussions of SDG 5- Gender Equality, SDG 10- Reducing Inequalities and SDG 16- Peace. For the first time the UN has included a Sustainable Development Goal about the oceans in its new sustainable development agenda. We have a very special interview from Andrew Hudson, Head of Water & Ocean Governance, UNDP  about the Sustainable Development Goal 14 on the oceans (Life below Water) and Sustainable Development Goal 6 on water (Clean water and sanitation).

Sustainable Development Goals_E_Final sizes

1) Why are the oceans important to our planet and what are the main threats or challenges affecting it?

Andrew Hudson: “The oceans cover over 70% of the planet and represent over 99% of the earth’s living space.  They provide food security for billions, are the major transport hub on earth for traded goods (via shipping), are probably the single most sought after tourism amenity, produce half the world’s oxygen. Oceans are the major regulator of the earth’s climate through their absorption and release of heat energy, absorbing some 87% of the extra energy that greenhouse gases create in the atmosphere and 30% of the anthropogenic CO2 we emit. The ocean economy – shipping, fishing, aquaculture, oil and gas extraction, tourism – is valued at several trillion dollars per year, and that is only for the marketized benefits, it doesn’t include the immense non-market benefits the ocean provides such as climate regulation.

The principal five threats to a sustainable oceans are: overfishing, coastal habitat loss (corals, seagrass, mangroves, etc.), pollution (especially by nutrients and plastics), invasive species (especially those carried in ship’s ballast water and on hulls) and ocean acidification (since the 30% of anthropogenic CO2 that dissolves in oceans creates carbonic acid, lowering the pH/increasing the acidity of the oceans).”

2) For the first time the UN has included a Sustainable Development Goal about the oceans in its new sustainable development agenda. What are the SDGs and in particular Goal 14: Life below water and Goal 6: Water?

Andrew Hudson: “SDGs 6 (water) and 14 (oceans) are in many ways complementary.  SDG6 sets ambitious targets such as universal access to clean water and sanitation services, dramatically increasing the treatment of wastewater, improving water use efficiency, and protecting freshwater ecosystems.  SDG6 and 14 calls for reducing marine pollution, protecting coastal ecosystems, ending overfishing including elimination of destructive fisheries subsidies, achieving 10% of the oceans under marine protected areas, improving resource and market access for small scale fishers, and enhancing ocean economic benefits to the poorest people and those who live in Small Island Developing States (SIDS).”

SDG143) What is the role of the UNDP Ocean Governance programme in implementing the SDGs Goals 6 and 14?

Andrew Hudson: “Through its Ocean Governance Programme, UNDP is working with other UN agencies, the Global Environment Facility, international financial institutions, regional fisheries organizations and others to improve ocean management and to sustain livelihoods at the local, national, regional and global scales through effective ocean governance. UNDP’s Ocean Governance Programme is strongly aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 on Oceans – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. The active portfolio and pipeline of UNDP projects and programmes support the majority of SDG14 targets. We support the creation of an enabling policy environment for ocean restoration and protection through the development of ocean and coastal management strategic planning tools and methodologies.  We support the codification and application of the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis/Strategic Action Programme planning approach to address aquatic ecosystem degradation at the scale of Large Marine Ecosystems (LME). We also promote bottom-up approaches to maintaining aquatic ecosystem services at smaller planning scales (municipalities, provinces, local watersheds) – Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). We help build upon and advance existing or anticipated regional or global multilateral agreements to address threats to large-scale ocean sustainability such as from shipping and highly migratory tuna stocks. We support countries in the creation of new Marine Protected Areas (MPA) and the strengthening of existing MPAs through the UNDP Ecosystems and Biodiversity programme.”

Continue reading “Life Below Water: Sustainable Development Goal 14” →

Management

Protect, Respect and Remedy

Following a long, and at times difficult, period of consultation and development, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, Professor John Ruggie, has produced his final report on Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. This is a significant landmark and should cause all businesses whose activities have a real or potential impact on human rights to sit up and take notice.

Professor Ruggie started his work in 2005 and put forward his draft “Protect, Respect and Remedy” framework in 2008; which was unanimously accepted by the UN Human Rights Council and has been adopted by a range of public and private actors since. Three main principles:

  • Protect – the State duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business, through appropriate policies, regulation, and adjudication
  • Respect – the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, which means to act with due diligence to avoid infringing the rights of others and to address adverse impacts that occur; and
  • Remedy – both State and business responsibility to provide greater access by victims to effective remedy, both judicial and non-judicial.

An article published in the Guardian asks the question “Business and human rights: does reality match the rhetoric? Companies say they support human rights but a new sustainability report suggests that few have detailed policies”

While the relationship between business and human rights will always be a journey, not a destination, for many companies it seems that the hurdles are just getting higher.

Years of consultation with human rights experts, global corporations, local communities and government officials finally led to the development of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Thousands of stakeholders worldwide agree: human rights due diligence and providing access to remedies are core responsibilities of businesses. Great. Now what?

The Tomorrow’s Value Rating 2013 (TVR) an annual study conducted by DNV Two Tomorrows, underlines the difficulties of moving from agreement to execution. Over half of the assessed companies support the UNGPs, but they are unclear about how they actually implement them.

One difficulty in moving the agenda forward is the challenge of agreeing what constitutes good human rights performance, and how this is understood at a collective or industry level. This discussion is a crucial next step in understanding the practical applicability of the UNGPs. The TVR found that progress is slow, and we are still far from where we want to be.

For example, in the oil and gas sector only three of the 10 companies covered have a standalone human rights policy and management of human rights appears to be often reactive rather than proactive. Whereas the UN was a good facilitator for defining the interface between business and human rights, perhaps we should look at other structures to enable the execution of the next, practical steps? The TVR identified two challenges that companies struggle with: sector-specific implementation, and local specificities.

via Guardian Sustainable Business Blog

Some background to the UNGPs, developed by Harvard professor John Ruggie can be found below:

Links

Business and Human Rights Resource centre

UN Guiding Principles Portal 

Oil and Gas Sector

Management

Let’s talk about sand

Denis Delestrac made his debut in non-fiction filmmaking in 2001. His latest feature documentary, “Sand Wars” is an epic eco-thriller that takes the audience around the globe to unveil a new gold rush and a disturbing fact: we are running out of sand!

In his talk he explains us where sand comes from and where it ends up. Our perception is that the resource sand will always be available for us but thanks to his investigations we realize that this is not true and that sooner or later we will be running out of sand – and consequently won´t have beaches anymore. See the trailer for Sand Wars on the trailer at the website.

Management

Protecting Grenada’s Marine Life

From their earliest memories, Cecil McQueen and Coddington Jeffery have always loved the water. One a fisherman, the other a scuba diver, they both have spent their childhood and adult lives on the Eastern Caribbean island of Grenada. McQueen and Jeffery are the first two wardens of the Molinière-Beauséjour Marine Protected Area (MPA) along the southern coast of Grenada. The Grenada Fisheries Division, with support from the Chemonics implemented USAID Caribbean Open Trade Support program, has created three MPAs around Grenada to raise awareness about environmental threats to marine life and also provide these areas with the same protection given to many national parks.

Management

Happy Earth Day 2013

CIEarthDay

As part of Earth Day 2013, Monday 22nd April 2013, Conservation International’s (CI’s) Chairman and CEO Peter Seligmann took part in a Twitter conservation, where followers had the opportunity to send in their own pressing questions about conservation issues important to them! Representing seabed related issues, I decided to ask two questions about rhodoliths and deep sea habitats.

The question on rhodoliths was referring to a recent discovery of the world’s largest rhodolith beds off the coast of Brazil- which cover an estimated 21 000 square km area- an area nearly the size of El Salvador! (Original news article here, with blog post here.)

Rhodolith beds off eastern Brazil
Rhodolith beds off eastern Brazil (© Rodrigo L. de Moura)

Another user asked about the which areas CI will be focusing their conservation efforts in future. A particularly interesting answer to the question was:

Reflecting on Peter’s answer, this coupling between research and education, industry and governments seems to me to be the key to responsible environmental management. Of course this is indeed difficult to do in practice. You can follow more about the organisation’s work on their website, with the full twitter conversation here