2023-07-18 22:33:09
The economy with the greatest growth projection on the planet is the one that develops in the ocean. Wind power plants, aquaculture industries, underwater mining or extraction of genetic resources for pharmaceutical companies have coexisted in recent years with fishing activity -in many cases intensive- to supply a voracious global market, subjecting natural resources to unprecedented stress in the history. The environmental organizations advocate stricter protection of ecosystems, but although this formula should serve to safeguard the most vulnerable habitats, it seems that the most realistic thing is to reach a point where the sea can host various economic activities, but that these are developed with criteria of environmental responsibility. This is what the second day of the Meeting of the Seas has dealt with on Tuesday, which brings together scientists, chefs, companies from sectors related to the sea and institutional representatives in Tenerife.
One of the most combative, but also most optimistic, was the director of the World Marine and Polar Program of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Minna Epps. “Marine habitats are shrinking and that will have a socioeconomic impact around the world, but if we look at the ocean we also find solutions, especially for climate change,” says one of the leading specialists in marine biodiversity at a global level. Epps advocates ending activities that are harmful to the marine environment or relocating those that are strictly necessary to less vulnerable spaces and actively working on the recovery of ecosystems, but she also defends a conservation policy combined with sustainable use.
In this sense, the signing -after more than twenty years of negotiations- of the new High Seas Treaty represents a decisive step in the right direction, through which institutions, non-governmental organizations and industries commit to promoting responsible use of the marine environment , promote sustainable management of fishing resources or tackle plastic spills that already affect the entire food chain. On the horizon, ensuring that 30% of the surface of the seas is protected and favoring a sensible coexistence in the rest. Among other things, it will serve, for example, to “prevent a single country from appropriating marine genetic resources for medical research, from which all humanity should benefit.”
cosmetic patents
Jesús Arrieta’s presentation dealt with that genetic wealth that biotechnology, cosmetics or the pharmaceutical industry takes advantage of. A flow of information and resources of which “we do not know most”, but that it is convenient to protect even from ignorance because they belong to all of us. However, the reality is very different. «70% of the patents of marine origin correspond to three countries. And not just a few countries, but a few companies. For example, 47% of marine genetic sequences belong to a single company with little involvement from states or universities.” However, the legislation on the matter “is very poor”, which means that “60% of the ocean is unregulated,” explains Arrieta. “Access to these resources is not equitable.”
The Chilean cook Lorna Muñoz, during her presentation. rc
Another sector that is seeing exponential growth opportunities in the sea is wind energy. The proliferation of wind farms in the North Sea, for example, “is causing the loss of habitats, bird collisions with turbines, noise pollution that affects marine fauna, changes in currents and stratification…” lamented the ecologist Marina Eline Van Onselen during a debate on the difficult coexistence between the energy and fishing sectors. In the Canary Islands, without going any further, there has been a strong reaction from fishermen to the installation of mills that restrict their radius of action and affect their fishing grounds. “You have to understand this reaction to the occupation of spaces that they understand as their own, this collision has occurred due to a lack of dialogue but it is essential to bring positions closer,” mediated the professor of Social Anthropology and director of the Institute of Social Research and Tourism of the University of La Laguna, José Pascual.
Farmed sea bass and salmon
There was also talk of aquaculture, the sustainable one and the one that is not so much. “We take maximum care of the well-being of the fish, with low-intensity farming in natural environments that allow them to develop naturally,” explained biologist Pedro Sánchez, commercial director of Acuanaria, dedicated to the production of large sea bass in the archipelago. . “It has taken us 50 years to succeed overnight,” Sánchez joked, referring to the popularity that the firm has been gaining among chefs.
On the other side of the coin, the overexploitation suffered by the Chilean Chiloé archipelago, the nerve center of intensive salmon production that supplies the global market. Its proliferation in recent decades -fuelled by the voracity of a public that only values very few species- “is attacking the biodiversity of one of the richest estuaries on the planet and creating a pollution problem in its wake, to the point that some of those aquaculture industries simply abandon their facilities in the ocean when they relocate to another space because it is cheaper than dismantling them,” explained Chilean chef Lorna Muñoz.
She tries to fight against this inexorable degradation by focusing her restaurant Travesía on an endless number of native species, caught with traditional methods, to boost their market value and generate an economic alternative for local fishermen. “Chiloé is the gateway to Patagonia, the industry has already taken over the entire archipelago, we cannot allow it to spread further, it would be an environmental crime” to extend an activity that “not only affects us in the present, but is also mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren.
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