‘Our ocean’ view wins accord

Facts & Figure Marine Pollution

- Only three percent of the world’s ocean well-protected
- 500 dead zones covering more than 245,000 km² found globally
- Over 220 million tons of plastic produced every year
- Plastic kills more than a million seabirds, more than 100,000 marine mammals each year
- Great Pacific Garbage Patch occupies a relatively stationary area that is twice the size of Texas
Source: UNESCO, processed (2017)

The United Nations (UN) member countries, including Indonesia, have agreed to restore the oceans and protect marine life, as concluded in the Ocean Conference. Well, except for the technicalities when it comes to the interests of big countries.

The first ever UN high level meeting on ocean issues has reached its milestone with a Call for Action, consisting of 14 paragraphs covering the illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, elimination of fisheries subsidies that lead to overfishing, to marine conservation.

“There's no North-South, East-West when it comes to the ocean,” said the UN General Assembly Peter Thomson who hosted 4,000 participants from 193 UN member countries in the five-day UN summit which ended on Friday. “If the ocean is dying, it's dying on all of us.”

For Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, the “Our Ocean, Our Future:  Call for Action” document which will be endorsed into a new resolution by the General Assembly during its seventy-first session, is in line with her vision about preserving “the ocean right”.

“We need to acknowledge that the ocean and the lives below it have the right to live sustainably. We need to have a designated body in the global level that protects the ocean’s right and to ensure that such protection will not be bothered by political agenda,” she said.

However, two big countries namely the United States (US) and the Russia Federation did not quite agree with Susi, as they opposed several crucial points in the Ocean Conference outcome, and chose to display “my country first” approach rather than “our ocean” one.

The United States (US) claimed that the biggest economy in the world had joined in adopting the legally non-binding “Call for Action” while at the very same time indirectly conveyed a message of how the Ocean Conference was two steps behind the US policy on climate change.

“On June 1 our president announced that the United States will withdraw from or renegotiate US participation in the Paris agreement or another international climate deal," Deputy US assistant secretary for oceans and fisheries David Balton said.

Such a statement thrashed the paragraph four of the Call for Action, saying that all UN member countries were particularly alarmed by the adverse impacts of climate change on the ocean, including the rise in ocean temperatures, ocean and coastal acidification, de-oxygenation, sea-level rise, the decrease in polar ice coverage, coastal erosion and extreme weather events.

“We recognize, in this regard, the particular importance of the Paris Agreement, adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change," it read.

To add insult to the injury, Balton further asserted the need for protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, thus, the US did not support the reference to technology transfer as stipulated in the paragraph 12 of the “Call for Action” which stipulates about guidelines of the transfer of marine technology.

French ambassador for the Oceans Serge Segura, who spoke right after Balton, swiftly won the stage after he warned that climate change was real and urged the implementation of the Paris Accord.

“France is committed to upholding all of our obligations under the Paris agreement both for our welfare, but also for the welfare of the international community as a whole,” he said, sparking loud applause from delegates in the UN General Assembly.

Russia Federation, on the other hands, chose to dissociate from the relevant wording of the 13 (p) paragraph, which stated about the prohibition of certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overfishing, as well as IUU fishing.

“It was important to consider the subject’s sensitive nature, ambiguity and range of issues pertaining to it.  There were hardly simple uniform solutions, she continued, adding that the World Trade Organization [WTO] had the authority to discuss such matters,” said First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Petr Iliichev.

In the closing session of the event, Indonesian Ambassador to the UN Dian Triansyah Djani underscored the importance of eliminating plastic debris as concluded during the Partnership Dialogue 1. The event, themed Addressing Marine Pollution, was led by Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan and Norway's Environment Minister Vidar Helgesen.

On Indonesia’s side, the government had registered 12 voluntary commitments which included concrete plan to reduce marine plastic debris by 70 percent by 2025, conducting a regional cooperation to eradicate fisheries crime, and to conserve 20 million hectares of ocean by 2019.

A total of 1,328 voluntary commitments were received — from governments, the United Nations, other intergovernmental organizations, civil society, the scientific community and the private sector, among others — to foster implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14.`