03 September 2002

NOAA Announces Major Oceans Initiative at World Summit, 9/2

(Partnership will begin with focus on Caribbean)

By Jim Fuller Washington File Staff Correspondent

Johannesburg -- A U.S. official at the World Summit on Sustainable Development has announced the rollout of a major oceans initiative that offers a new approach to the management of coastal-marine ecosystems.

Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a member of the delegation representing the U.S. Commerce Department at the summit, told reporters September 2 that the White Water to Blue Water initiative is a large-scale partnership involving national, regional and local governments, as well as non-governmental organizations and private corporations.

"The object is to connect watersheds with the coastal regions," Lautenbacher said. "You have to remember that 80 percent of the pollution that we see in coastal areas comes from land-based activities in proximity to those coasts."

Lautenbacher said that 50 percent of the world's population live in these coastal zones. "So people who make decisions well inland are affecting our coasts -- they're affecting the quality of life of those people."

The initiative will emphasize a cross-sectoral approach to ecosystem management beginning with the upstream regions -- watersheds, agricultural areas and population centers -- and extending to the oceans through wetlands, mangrove swamps and coral reefs, the nurseries for most of the commercial marine species on which human populations depend.

Lautenbacher said White Water to Blue Water is an innovative plan that engages governments and stakeholders on every level to more effectively manage coastal and marine resources.

"This inclusive approach looks beyond coasts to address the myriad of inland activities, such as agriculture and sewage runoff, that can degrade coastal environments and impact marine resources such as fisheries and coral reefs," he said.

Lautenbacher said that one goal of the initiative is to improve the national capacities of coastal states to manage entire coastal-marine ecosystems by engaging the full range of up-stream and down-stream stakeholders.

A second goal is to promote better regional and cross-border coordination between states, international organizations, NGOs and the private sector to make the best use of available resources.

The United States has agreed to take the leading governmental role in the first phase of White Water to Blue Water, which will focus on the Caribbean. The first phase will engage a wide range of partners and will begin with a U.S.-hosted kick-off conference in 2003. Similar programs could expand to Africa and the South Pacific in 2004 and 2005.

Lautenbacher said the White Water to Blue Water initiative "focuses on the fact that our Earth is a system of systems -- we have the earth, the atmosphere, the oceans -- and they're all connected. Today, with the population pressures that we have, it's not possible to make decisions on each one of these areas without having a major impact on the other portions of the system," he said.

In another development, the Oceans Partnership -- a group of organizations representing the oceans community -- released a plan at the summit to strengthen protection of the world's oceans, which the partnership said are being increasingly degraded by pollution and other factors.

The plan calls for ensuring food security and the preservation of marine resources, acknowledging the role of the ocean and the need for global observations on climate, and addressing the effects of inland and fresh water pollution on coastal and marine environmental ecosystems.

"We have an opportunity in Johannesburg to move beyond Rio to secure solid commitments to address critical issues facing the world's oceans," said Dawn Martin, executive director of Oceana, an international environmental organization. "We are very encouraged by measures proposed at the summit to help rebuild depleted fisheries, stop destructive fishing practices like bycatch and bottom-trawling, ... establish marine protected areas, and implement measures to reduce marine pollution."

Organizations in the Oceans Partnership include NOAA, the U.N. Environment Program, Oceana, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Center for the Study of Marine Policy at the University of Delaware.