The United Nations is launching a major international alliance for ocean science. A mission that closely involves every one of us.
If there is one element that has always fascinated humanity for the mystery it carries with it, it is the ocean. While children let their imaginations soar reading stories of intrepid navigators battling unscrupulous pirates and monstrous creatures of the deep, adults are grappling with another, greater mission. Different, but no less adventurous. The mission of understanding the oceans, in order to care for them and save their fate, which is also the fate of the Planet.
Given that more than fifty years have passed since humans set foot on the Moon and, in the meantime, we have also managed to photograph a black hole, it seems incredible that we still do not know the element that covers more than 70 per cent of the surface of the planet we live on. More than 80 per cent of the oceans have yet to be mapped, observed or explored, according to Nasa. "How can we protect them without having the faintest idea of what they contain?", comments Ricardo Aguilar, head of expeditions in Europe for the international organisation Oceana. This knowledge gap also helps explain why only 7 per cent of their extent is designated as a marine protected area.
The Seabed 2030 project has set itself a mission as clear as it is bold: to map 100 per cent of the ocean floor at high resolution by 2030. How? Satellite surveys are imprecise; echo sounders fixed to ships yield better results, but would require centuries of navigation. Seabed 2030 has therefore divided the oceans into four large areas, assigning responsibility for each to leading research institutes. Each centre will need to retrieve existing bathymetric data (that is, information on the ocean floor collected by echo sounder, which is not always in the public domain) and conduct new mapping campaigns. The British Oceanographic Data Centre will then have the task of assembling them into a single map, free and open for anyone to consult.
When the project was launched in July 2017, only 6 per cent of the ocean floor had been mapped to a level of precision considered acceptable. Three years later, 19 per cent had already been reached.
Understanding these ecosystems means putting ourselves in a position to protect them. "Interventions can only be effective if they are based on solid knowledge provided by science. There is a growing need to find scientific solutions that allow us to understand the changes currently under way in our oceans and to reverse the decline in their health." These are the words of the document in which the United Nations designates the period 2021–2030 as the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
Until now, ocean science has made great strides, but has had to make do with scarce resources. To be precise, the UN argues, these amount to between 0.04 and 4 per cent of global investment in research and development. The Decade therefore aims to be a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to strengthen international cooperation and forge new partnerships between research institutes, policymakers, businesses, associations and citizens. Thus giving a strong boost to scientific research and technological innovation, and channelling them towards the 14th Sustainable Development Goal, which calls for "conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development".
With the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, the UN sets out seven priorities to be achieved by 2030.
The stakes are high and time is running short. We are talking about the world's largest ecosystem, home to at least 200,000 known species (though the total is likely in the order of millions). An ecosystem that is in poor condition for 40 per cent of its extent. This is recalled by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The polar ice caps are melting due to global warming and causing sea levels to rise, with the risk of submerging the territories where 300 million people live. CO2 in the atmosphere, now at disproportionate concentrations, is absorbed by the water and makes the pH of its surface more acidic, causing irreparable damage to living organisms.
8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the sea every year. 35 per cent of fish stocks are being fished at levels the FAO describes as biologically unsustainable. The threats under way are many and varied, but share a common thread: a heavy human responsibility.
With the 2030 Agenda the UN reaffirms forcefully that sustainability is a three-dimensional concept: environmental, social and economic. All three depend decisively on the health of the oceans. The oceans absorb 30 per cent of anthropogenic CO2, mitigating global warming; they contribute to the sustenance of 3 billion people; and they have an economic value that, taking into account marine and coastal resources and the industries connected to them, amounts to around 3 trillion dollars a year. That is 3 per cent of global GDP.
Among the priorities designated by the UN for this Decade is that of strengthening scientific knowledge in the 47 least developed countries (LDCs) and in small island developing states (SIDS). These are territories where the consequences of climate change manifest themselves in all their severity, yet where the economic resources needed to study and address them effectively are lacking.
Among them is Tuvalu, made up of nine atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with an area of just 26 square kilometres, making it the fourth smallest country in the world. From here, thanks precisely to science, comes a surprisingly good piece of news. A team of researchers from the universities of Plymouth (United Kingdom), Auckland (New Zealand) and Simon Fraser University in Burnaby (Canada) reconstructed one of the atolls on computer to simulate its response to rising sea levels. The result, described in an article published in Science Advances, exceeded the most optimistic expectations. "The accumulation of sediments carried by the waters would lead to a rise in the islands themselves, preventing them from being submerged, through natural adaptation," explained one of the authors, Gerd Masselink. A textbook example of resilience, capable of kindling new hopes.
Seabed 2030 and the discoveries about Tuvalu are two of the many stories told by Ocean words, a new project that "was born to give oceans from around the world a voice and seeks an audience of attentive, sensitive people capable of listening" (discover the Ocean words Instagram page here).
If it is indeed true that the health of the oceans is central to the balance of the Planet, society and the economy as we know them, this means we cannot afford to be indifferent to it, delegating responsibility to a small core of specialists. Greater awareness at all levels, including that of citizens, is a powerful signal directed at those who have the power to steer investment in research and development. Let us therefore make room for the voices of scientists, activists, enlightened companies and explorers. In the hope that, perhaps, they may inspire the oceanographers of tomorrow.
