Policy Paper — OCEANS: The World's Single Most Valuable Natural Resource Complex
 

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Unlike natural resource stocks
owned by one country, the oceans
beyond the continental shelves
are a 'commons,' open to entry
and economic exploitation
by all countries with the
means to do so. And as with other
instances of a valuable
shared resource, the phenomenon
known as the "tragedy of the
commons" takes hold, with
each country seeking to maximize
its short-term gain.

In the process,
they seem oblivious to
(or at least unconcerned about)
the fact that this course of action,
if universally pursued, will
sooner or later result in tragedy,
with no resource left
for any of the claimants.


Part I: Introduction

The world's oceans, and the resources they contain, have been called the last frontier on earth. Indeed, the surface of Mars is probably better understood today than are ocean depths only a few miles away. Yet the biological riches of the oceans are currently being exploited at a rate that has already depleted them of many fish stocks, with many other marine organisms in imminent danger of exhaustion. Emphasis must also be given to the critical role the oceans play in regulating global climate, oxygen supplies, and temperatures. The oceans may be the world's single most vital natural resource complex.

Unlike natural resource stocks owned by one country, the oceans beyond the continental shelves are a "commons," open to entry and economic exploitation by all countries with the means to do so. And as with other instances of a valuable shared resource, the phenomenon known as the "tragedy of the commons" takes hold, with each country seeking to maximize its short-term gain. In the process, they seem oblivious to (or at least unconcerned about) the fact that this course of action, if universally pursued, will sooner or later result in tragedy, with no resource left for any of the claimants.

Since to a large extent the resources involved are food, we are talking about, in part, a potential public health disaster awaiting that portion of the world's population that depends on this diminishing food supply. Current trends must be reversed. Once depleted or seriously degraded, no biotic resource complex will be as difficult to restore as will the oceans.

Can such a scenario be averted? Unfortunately, the United States alone cannot accomplish this; no individual country has regulatory control over oceanic resources that lie beyond their territorial seas. These resources can be conserved, by which we mean withdrawn strictly on a sustained yield basis, only by international agreement. Stocks that are currently depleted must be placed by agreement in a moratorium status until they recover. Compliance with these agreements is usually voluntary, and not infrequently individual countries may decline to participate in such conventions.

Part II: Wanted... American Leadership

What can the United States do? It can show leadership in three main ways:

  1. Acknowledge and publicize that a serious problem exists which ultimately affects everyone.
  2. In its own use of the oceans, be guided by the concept of sustainability at all times, and encourage other countries to do the same.
  3. Apply such diplomatic pressure as may be appropriate and feasible to encourage other countries to cease destructive extractive activities.

Part III: Recommendations

Specifically, Republicans for Environmental Protection calls on the government of the United States to adopt, or encourage, the following actions and policies:

  • Establish a moratorium on all depleted marine species (or regions of extraction), to the extent consistant with legal and treaty obligations, until such time as stocks are sufficiently re-established.

  • Urge full financial responsibility for the owners of, or countries that license, ships involved in oceanic oil spills.

  • Institute a worldwide ban on dynamite, cyanide, long-line, and other destructive methods of fishing.

  • Work for increased worldwide protection for coral reefs, marine estuaries, intertidal zones, all other forms of coastal wetlands, and all other habitat types necessary for marine species.

  • End federal subsidies for harmful practices, such as factory trawlers.

  • Encourage more experimentation with transferable fishing quotas, as a means to regulate competition for declining "free" resources.

  • Designate more National Marine Sanctuaries.

  • Provide full funding for recovery plans for endangered and threatened marine species.

  • Bring nutrient discharges under the regulatory provisions of the Clean Water Act, to help control coastal algal blooms.

  • Support the right of states to set marine conservation standards, such as oil tanker safety standards, that are stricter than federal standards.

  • End the discharge of persistent bioaccumulative toxins (such as toxic metals, PCBs, dioxin, methyl mercury, etc.) into both the atmosphere and inland and marine waters, where they biomagnify and contaminate the marine food chain.

  • oppose funding for, and deployment of, the so-called SURTTASS LFA (Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active) sonar in any of the world's oceans, due to its probably highly-damaging effects to marine mammals and other oceanic resources.

REP urges the United States to elevate protection of the oceans to a higher level as an issue of both national and foreign policy, and to lead by example in the area of oceanic preservation.

The twentieth century was the century of oceanic deterioration; the twenty-first must be the century of its restoration.

This paper was written in 1999 by REP Director Philip R. Pryde, Ph.D., the chairman of our Policy Committee.