|
Keynote Speech
Maritime Security for the Protection of the Ocean
- In Response to the Effects of Mankind on the Ocean -
Masahiro Akiyama
Mother Ocean
Judging from all that we know about the universe or the Earth, there is no doubt that the ocean is the root of life, including that of mankind. One of the great tasks of space search is to find out whether life exists on planets other than the Earth, which ultimately means looking for the evidence of water on a faraway planet. Saying that water is essential in terms of its fundamental significance for the existence of life, more importantly, the ocean has brought tremendous benefits to mankind in the history of the Earth since the days we were born. "Mother Earth" is a common phrase we often hear, but I feel the ocean is a better companion of the word "Mother. " Yes, it is "Mother Ocean" for me.
The ocean has given quite a lot to mankind in a unilateral way, but it has also accepted various nuisances and problems. The ocean serves as a medium to allow mankind to move around freely. It plays a role of a motor to circulate the water all over the globe that is necessary for life.
It is also true that the ocean shows a stern face to mankind from time to time. Mankind has taken the ocean and its big love too much for granted, and that is why the ocean may get back at us severely someday. Now that we are in the 21st century, we may have entered a new era when earnest thinking about the ocean is indispensable.
Effects of Mankind on the Ocean
Mankind has been affecting the ocean in various ways in its long history. I'd like to emphasize the following five effects the human race has had on the ocean:
1. Fishery, to begin with. I won't discuss the history of fishery now. Today we have serious problems about fishery, such as conflicts between deep-sea fishing countries and coastal fishing countries and particularly the conflicts between developing island countries and advanced countries. Recently emerging issues are the relationship between fishing catches and the sustenance of ecosystem or protection of resources and marine environment associated with Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported Fishing (IUU). The future of food demand that requires an inevitable dependence on fishing resources to cope with a growing population on the Earth is another major problem. The idea of sea farming and sanctuary also draws our attention. After all, mankind has been and will be affecting the ocean through fisheries in various ways.
|
Position: Chairman, Ship & Ocean Foundation
Education: Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo graduate
Akiyama joined the Ministry of Finance in 1964. He held positions as Director-General of the Tokyo Customs and Deputy Director-General of the Banking Bureau, which both belong to the Ministry of Finance through 1991 , then he went on to the Defense Agency and held posts as Director-General of the Bureau of Personnel, Director-General of the Bureau of Finance, Director-General of the Bureau of Defense Policy and Administrative Vice Minister until his retirement in 1998. He did research on security and ocean-related issues as a visiting scholar at Harvard University from 1999 to 2001. Some of his works are Amerika no Sekai Senryaku to Nihon no Jiritsu and Nihon no Senryaku Taiwa ga Hajimatta. (Both are written in Japanese).
|
|
|
2. Next, marine transport. Economic growth is the basis of mankind's development. Recent economic growth on an international scale is attributable to the explosive development of trade through marine transport. If not for such tremendous development of sea traffic both in terms of quantity and quality, no human growth as we enjoy it today would have been achieved. It is true that the development of aviation, or the explosive diffusion of the Internet, is certainly changing the way transnational activity is conducted, but cross-country travel of materials is 99% dependent on marine transport. And this rate still continues to grow.
One of the manifest benefits of the big love of the ocean is that anybody can freely use it for traveling anytime and as much as they like. But with the development of marine transport, humans have affected the ocean in various ways, such as marine pollution caused by ships, increasing risk associated with navigational congestion, shipwreck, which is inherent in inclement marine weather, inevitable breakout of piracy or marine terrorism, and environmental destruction by accidents or terrorism.
3. Expansion of national power also has influential effects on the ocean. War, using navies and air forces, has such a serious effect that it makes us feel numb. History shows that in non-military cases, the total power of a nation, including its naval power or, if not military, marine transport, shipbuilding, harbor, marine trade, and maritime international relationships, allowed powerful nations to obtain more territory for greater national profits through the ocean. As the marine paradigm changed from the Great Navigation Age, sea power age, and marine management age, mankind has affected the ocean in a forced manner by causing various problems to the ocean, such as marine environmental pollution or domination of the sea that should originally be free of any dominion, in any of these ages. When war broke out, civil ships were attacked and sunk unconditionally. Look what we have done to the sea after war: awful marine pollution. Imagine how Russian nuclear submarines have been managed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Don't forget atomic bomb tests in the ocean, which is the unforgivable effect of national power on the ocean.
4. In addition to fisheries, marine resource development is another issue that cannot be ignored. Pumping up oil from the bottom of the sea is already under way at various parts of the world. Furthermore, development of rare metals and other metal resources, search for valuable resources in a special environment on the bottom of the deep sea, recovery of resources from sea water, and use of energy from the sea itself by means of the temperature differences of sea water and currents are listed as major promising applications of the ocean. In addition to resource energy development, scientific research and development activities on the sea are actively being conducted. But I think these activities are also the effects that mankind has on the ocean and they cause not simply marine environmental problems, but various other impacts to the activity of the Earth itself and its structural and historical development.
5. We must also include the effects of human activities on land in the effects of mankind on the ocean. The results of our life on land flow into the sea, mainly through rivers. Garbage is also dumped directly into the sea. Effects related to population growth on the coastal area, including landfill work and construction work, also have serious impacts on the sea. Marine pollution by acid rain, a pollutant originating on land which affects the sea through climatic phenomena that require cross-sectional study covering both their land and marine aspects, is also another problem, as well as pollution by particulate metal substances or plastic.
On the other hand we cannot enjoy leisure time at the beach or in the sea, as we like, due to various restrictions and rights.
The effects of mankind on the ocean are the eventual results of human development. Mankind always seeks for growth. Growth is the wish of mankind. Particularly, amid the widening gap between North and South, it is a practical idea to think that the North-South problem will be solved only by the growth of the entire human being. Are the developed nations entitled to insist developing countries put restrictions on growth? Would it ever occur that developed nations choose to gear down their own development and take steps backward? If the assertion is "stop the economic growth," it is equal to saying "Mankind, stop your growth." Is there any solution to this dilemma? In fact, the task we must face now is how we should think about the ocean with human growth as an indispensable condition.
Limit of Ocean Power
The ocean seems to have managed to accept the "human" effects with its big love. It may be able to continue to do it in the future, too. We, however, have also come to wonder if the ocean has its limits. It is also true that we human beings are more aware of our need to do whatever we can to sustain the ocean's power. This is because the changing situation has made mankind, a spoilt child of the ocean, sense that something strange is happening to the ocean. Do we have scientific evidence that justifies our continued dependence on the ocean? If not, I think we should give serious thought to "ocean security" for protection of the ocean against the creeping threat or the fear or uncertainty that something irrecoverable may happen.
I used the term "ocean security" because of the following reason. Firstly, what should we think with regard to various effects that mankind has had on the ocean? The answer is, think about human effects from the viewpoint of the ocean. It eventually means "to protect the marine environment and ensure marine safety."
Now the word "security," which was originally used to refer to national defense or military, has come to have a wider sense to cover, for example, "human security." If we accept the history of how this word has been used, we will realize that what we have to think about now is "marine security," that is, to protect the environment and safety of the ocean. But to "protect" is more easily said than done. Just providing protection is not enough; to protect in what way is the very phrase that really matters.
Standpoint of Marine Security
I'd like to emphasize the following standpoints in terms of "to protect the ocean" or "marine security."
1. Understanding of the current environment of the ocean which we need to protect, clarification of the current condition of marine safety, study of the history of the ocean in terms of marine environment or safety, and verification of potential problems. Although sounding rather monotonous, these fact-finding actions, including measurement, should be conducted for a long period of time (at least a decade; the period of a century may not sound unrealistic in this case). It is also considered important and valuable to get a perspective view of all the investigations made so far in various forms, gather available information, process it as required, give feedback, and disclose the results and achievements.
2. "Protection" is hard to realize. I understand the action of some people who try to protect nature with all their might as a political campaign, as in the case of Greenpeace activities, but if the purpose is simply "to hold the status quo" as a political concept, it is likely to go against harmonization with human development or coexistence of mankind and the ocean. Such an idea would not help clear the repulsion of developing countries against the advanced countries. "To hold the status quo" could be meaningful as a campaign, but it is no solution to the problem we face.
After all, the crucial question is "to protect in what way." "Sustainable development," a catchword of the UN Environmental Summit, is a powerful concept, but the problem is how to realize it.
In this case, standing on the side of the ocean, it seems that review and research from the human side are extremely subdivided into individual fields and disciplines that are all coming from human thinking. From the viewpoint of the ocean, all effects that mankind has on the ocean are done totally and are deeply correlated with each other. If any measures are necessary, they should never come from that much individualized reviews. I feel that what is necessary is something that embraces natural science, social science, and whatever you have.
Furthermore, any borderline drawn on the ocean to define the "territorial waters" or EEZ is completely ignored by the ocean, as this "nature" moves around across all those conceptual lines. In tackling marine issues, solutions will only come from a review from an international viewpoint or border-free international cooperation, and none else, which is completely different from other issues. One of the recent hot issues from the viewpoint of marine security is piracy. For example, there is an idea of using a satellite surveillance system to watch over pirates. Considering the funds, human resources, and system effectiveness and efficiency, such a system can definitely play various roles from the standpoint of marine environment protection. This fact is a clear sign that tackling marine issues requires promotion of interdisciplinary and cross-sectional research, study, and measures. This is the most serious lack of today's effort in marine issues.
3. We finally established the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea through a long discussion and coordination and put it to practice in 1992. Although the USA has yet to ratify it, they have already accepted the contents of this convention and are expected to ratify it in the near future. We now have a framework based on international agreement, but there are two major problems unsolved: interpretation of the convention and execution of the legal system. For the former, various important problems are left unclarified, and interpretations and facts must be accumulated to form a set of rules in the future. For the latter, the capability of the execution organization and marine managers and the formation of international cooperation on operation of the convention are the main worries. In either case, when mankind is to address marine issues, it is considered impossible to carry out any research or review without touching the problems related to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that mankind finally formulated.
Legal frameworks at an international level include various conventions and agreements on marine transport, shipping, seamen, environment, meteorology, fisheries, and resources. These frameworks should also be taken into consideration.
4. In post-war Japan, we have excessively curbed discussion on military power, but it is not appropriate to ignore the historical fact that the world's major powers affected the ocean using naval power or other types of sea power. As the era is changing from the Great Navigation Age to the sea power age and marine management age, it is one of the important tasks to use this naval power, whose main purpose is to maintain national profits, to address the much larger target of the issue of ocean management.
Also applicable to all the problems mentioned above, the necessity, concept, feasibility, and requirements of marine management or ocean governance are not sufficiently studied as of today.
Conclusion
I want to conclude my keynote speech while thinking about our own country.
Japan is in the highest class of the world in phenomena like marine transport, shipbuilding, fisheries, and marine trade. In addition, given its geographical form and long history, Japan is no doubt one of the marine powers. As such, the sea saved the national polity a few times in the past. On the contrary, the development of national policies that neglected the destiny to become a marine nation caused Japan to fail. The miraculous restoration achieved in the period of half a century after World War II, which is a very short time from the viewpoint of historical chronology, is also a blessing of the status of a marine nation, although we are not keenly aware of it. We are the people who are most endowed with the benefits of the ocean in the world.
But then why are the Japanese so indifferent to the ocean? Perhaps we may lose interest in things we can effortlessly obtain, like air and water, but it is also Japan that will receive the greatest damage once the ocean decides to get back at us. I believe the Japanese are obliged to give all that we have to the issue of marine security. I believe mankind, and especially the Japanese in the land of a marine power, must be proactive against attacks from the ocean and also protect the ocean from the ocean's viewpoint, while always holding a feeling of awe at the ocean.
|
