As we step into the new millennium, the concept of national security is changing. It is broadening while at the same time becoming ever more complex and inter connected. In many ways it is a reflection of globalization of the 21^st century economy and international relations. Globalization inter alia involves largely maritime trade and transportation. Hence maritime security will be of vital importance in the next few decades, and particularly for the maritime nations such as USA, UK, Japan and the other developed nations. The Oceans have always been important, but now there is an additional focus on them. The oceans are and will remain a key source of food, energy, transportation, trade, communications and leisure. It will be a continual challenge to ensure that the Oceans remain a safe and stable source of these needs.

　

 Recent research has discovered that the Oceans are very sick. The population explosion and connected industrialization and development have used the Oceans as a large and final sink, endangering the food resources (fish), the living biomass that maintains the ecological balance, the non living resources and upsetting the elements influencing climate change and global warming. This is mainly due to land-originated marine and air pollution, alteration of wetlands and marine habitats with coastal developments, and transfer of invasive and exotic species by ballast water. The answer is stabilized population and sustainable development. UNCLOS III in 1982 laid down limits to the maritime zones with rights and responsibilities of coastal states. However, not just ships but all else on the ocean moves freely irrespective of man made boundaries, e.g. fish, marine organisms, currents, air columns and pollution. Nations in all regions of the World if they are to provide for the long term well-being of their citizens must find the means to protect the environment. National sovereignty and regulatory policy at the level of individual nations cannot guarantee the success in matters related to environmental security. It is now quite clear that threats to a nations well being may not only arise outside its boundaries but may also prove to be beyond the reach of corrective measures at the national level.

　

 In order to steer a course of sustainable development, nations must find the means and mechanisms to coordinate activities at the national level and cooperate with other nations on the regional and global level. The United Nations through its various organizations and other groupings of states have got together and signed numerous conventions and agreements. However inking of agreements does not necessarily mean compliance, as has been seen practically. North-South disagreements, population explosion and finances are the stumbling blocks. Corrective measures are through action at all levels, but also through awareness, education, political will and self-discipline, which will ensure cooperation and success. Government involvement to further the various international agreements is a MUST, but the involvement/cooperation of all sections of society is equally important, especially non-government environmental organizations, corporate business organizations and even the judiciary, to ensure compliance. And of course the developed countries must help the developing countries with developmental assistance in the form of debt reduction, increased market access and major commitment of funds in return for complying with environmental agreements. Aid should also consist of training for personnel in the administrative and technical fields. Finally Poverty is the greatest Polluter and steps have to be taken to improve the lot of the Worlds Poor. Hence a policy has to be laid down for local, national and international levels to ensure enlightened management and cooperation within national administrations and among nations.

　

 Organisations within a country and at the inter-national level must also be structured to deal with this overall Ocean Security concept rather than in piece meal fashion. Overall coordination of the various facets of security is essential both nationally and at the regional/global level, with all nations working in a true spirit of cooperation, to save the world and life on our Planet.

　

　

1. At the outset I would like to congratulate Mr. Masahiro Akiyama and the Institute of Ocean Policy of the Ship and Ocean Foundation for the initiative that they have taken in highlighting the dangers to our marine environment, through various measures and especially by holding Conferences in 2002 and 2003 on "Geo Agenda for the Future: Securing the Oceans" and in holding this present conference. I also thank them for inviting me to this conference to share my views on a subject very close to my heart - Protection of our Oceans and protecting this heritage for our children and children's children so that they can enjoy and reap benefits from this Ocean even more than I did.

　

2. About 100 years ago, the world was in the throes of power politics and colonisation. The Industrial Revolution had introduced new technologies. With the advent of electricity, steam and iron ships, the Western countries were on the lookout for space and raw materials. There was little concern for the Earth and even less concern for the Ocean. The ocean was meant for transportation and for the fish to feed the coastal population. The Ocean was the great Divider and those who mastered the art of crossing it with better, safer and well-armed ships were able to conquer and colonise new territories. This meant more wealth from the raw materials taken inexpensively and the finished products sold monopolistically back to the colonies. The technologies denied to the colonised countries of Africa, Asia and South America kept them backward thus setting a trend for what would became the developed and developing countries.

　

3. The population of the Earth was then just 1.5 billion people. Forests were cut down indiscriminately to make for more farmland. As far as the Oceans were concerned, they were considered seemingly boundless and a bottomless sink for all the waste from Earth. The first concerns about the Oceans were when fish stocks kept dropping. Concern for the need for conservation of the living resources of the ocean emerged more strongly in the 1950's and 1960's. By this time the population of the World was over 3 billion people and the resources on land and the Oceans seemed inadequate. However, not much had changed in the international legal regime since ¹the time of Hugo Grotius, the father of modern international law, who had laid down that the territorial waters of a state extended to 3 nautical miles. Beyond that was the high seas - the international commons with freedom of passage and use by all nations.¹ The regime of the Continental Shelf emerged only when the possibility of offshore oil exploitation became a reality and required a legal framework within which it could be exploited. Manganese nodule mining and offshore oil development raised questions of who should benefit from such activities and how and by whom should those activities be regulated.

　

4. Despite all the studies on the environment, especially in recent times, the oceans remain largely uncharted areas. More is known about space than about the Earth's Oceans and ten times more money is spent on Space research than on Ocean research and even this budget is being cut down. Just five percent of the Ocean bottom has been mapped and only in recent years have scientists begun to understand what goes on in the Ocean depths.² In fact not until we started searching for signs of life on other worlds did we really begin to understand the significance of the Oceans to life on Earth. Venus and Mars, our nearest neighbours in space are arid, without any water with an atmosphere almost entirely of Carbon dioxide. Earth is the only planet in the solar system, which has an atmosphere mainly of nitrogen and oxygen and a surface mainly of liquid water. It also has life. Scientists are quite certain that these 3 components are inter-related.³ Hence the renewed interest in the Ocean depths. There is a theory that when life formed on Earth more than 3 billion years ago, the atmosphere was probably much like that of Venus today: mostly Carbon Dioxide. Conditions were not favourable to life with volcanic eruptions and meteor collisions. The oceans had a stable environment and contained the chemical ingredients of life. Liquid water is necessary for photosynthesis and biological activation of DNA and RNA. Life evolved in the oceans and over millions of years altered the chemistry of the atmosphere sufficiently.⁴ The few existing samples of the biodiversity found in the Oceans' bottoms especially near hot springs, at upwelling areas where deep ocean currents rise to the surface, and at tectonic plates joints, indicate a range of living species rivalling that found in tropical rain forests, yet living in an oxygen free environment at several hundred degrees Fahrenheit and at severe crushing depths. Therefore space is not the final frontier. The Oceans are.

　

5. The Oceans which provide the worlds population with food and recreation serve as a highway for the worlds trade, provide vast sources of usable energy and non living resources and control the world's climate and biodiversity. Sadly, they are also used inadvertently and purposefully used as a final repository of all the waste products of civilization. Due to the population explosion especially in the coastal areas and due to the advances of technology, we have impinged on the ocean to affect the workings of its natural systems, depleting its renewable resources and detracting from the natural beauty of the sea, finally making it unsafe and a vehicle to militarily impose might and cause insecurity.

　

6. Until a few decades ago the Ocean was considered limitless. The trouble was that we had not done enough research and knew very little about the Ocean. In the last half century, due to the population explosion, rapid and haphazard development, overfishing, indiscriminate use of resources and uncontrolled pollution, the Ocean is seriously ill and perhaps in danger of dying, unless something is done immediately. Since population and development cannot be rolled back, we have to take some alternate action to save the Ocean. The UNO, under its auspices has organized a number of conventions and promulgated various Plans of Action and sets of rules for different problem areas, the success of which depends on compliance, co-ordination and cooperation by the member states of this World Body. However, the various problem areas at the World Body level, at regional and even at national levels are being dealt with separately and disjointedly. There is a necessity to take a holistic approach on all aspects connected with the Ocean or threatening the Ocean, hence the new concept of Securing the Oceans or Ocean Security. This concept envisages security of the Ocean and all aspects connected to it such as military security, transportation security, food security, environment security and conservation of the ecology. Each of these aspects has a number of sub aspects.

　

7. The latest Law of the Sea Convention, UNCLOS III, has carved up the ocean area into maritime zones of territorial Seas, archipelagic waters, straits, EEZ, Continental Shelf and High Seas, giving coastal states sovereignty over specific ocean areas. They have rights on the resources but more importantly duties/responsibilities to protect and conserve the resources and the biomass. However, pollution and living resources in the sea do not respect any boundary lines. The problems of straddling fish stock or migratory and invasive species, conservation, global warming and marine pollution are not limited to particular zones of particular countries, but cross man made boundaries and have either a global or regional impact. For example, even in the Canadian Arctic, researchers have found DDT, PCB's, heavy metals and other industrial chemicals at every level of the food web,⁵ far from human habitation. Hence ocean issues are not the concern of single countries but the responsibility of all countries or a set of countries in a particular region or around a particular water body.

　

8. National security has been the oldest form of security and ever since man learnt to ride the waves in boats, maritime security became the most important element of national security. This was mainly achieved by building bigger and more powerful Navies with hi-tech ships and more potent weapons. Problems were mainly experienced between neighbours and while strong Navies acted as deterrents, many issues were sorted out by agreements, treaties and talks. As brought out in the 2003 Conference on "Geo Agenda for the Future; Securing the Oceans", Environment and Peace are inter-connected and poor environmental, food or transport security could be the cause for war or skirmishes between two countries. It is heartening that the world is beginning to realise this and this year's Nobel Peace Prize has for the first time been awarded to an environmentalist - Mrs. Wangari Maathai of Kenya The Nobel committee said, "Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment". I quote Mrs. Wangari Maathai who said, "The environment is very important in the aspects of peace because when we destroy our resources, they become scarce and we fight over that".⁶ On the other hand it was seen that close co-operation between two or more countries could result in better environment/transport/food security and hence better overall Ocean security.

　

9. Transportation security involves safety of ships and cargo and passengers/crew from piracy/terrorism, safety of life at sea, safe navigation, search and rescue, prevention of smuggling, drug running and human trafficking. It also involves prevention of ship-originated pollution or dumping, prevention of invasive and exotic species by control of contamination by ballast water and toxic bottom fouling paints. Food and resources security involves limiting of fish catch including straddling and migratory species, pursuing sustainable development strategies, and notifying marine protected areas. Environment Security involves protection and preservation of the environment, prevention of ship and land based marine pollution, oil spill response readiness, environment impact assessment for all new developments, control of emissions of greenhouse gases and CFC's to reduce global warming, climate change and ozone holes. Ecological conservation involves preventing destruction of mangroves, coral reefs and wetlands, preventing altering of marine habitats, promulgation of large marine ecosystems (LME's), special areas and PSSA's. Overall, the Plan of Action is one to ensure a sustainable development strategy. Sustainable development may be defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own. Most analysts now agree that from an economic perspective, sustainable development requires living off Nature's interest rather than consuming Nature's capital.

　

10. The aim of this paper is to discuss the Political Will, Policy and Institutional Framework for implementation of the Securing the Oceans concept. As mentioned earlier population, development, environment and peace are inter related. Both population and development are inversely proportional to protection and preservation of the marine environment. The more the population, the more is the consumption, the housing, the sewage and the garbage, all of which finally reaches the sea. More population means more polluters. Therefore an important facet of environment security or sustainable development is population control. Population has to stabilise at the earliest and can be done through education and awareness. So part of the focus has to be on education.

　

11. The greater the development the more the industries, agriculture, vehicles, ports, facilities and consequently industrial outputs, effluents and discharges, into the water and the air. Whereas Ocean dumping (10%), shipping spills (12%) and offshore oil and gas (1%) constitute 23% of marine pollution sources, airborne emissions (33%) and land run off (44%) constitute 77%.⁷ Development could also mean alteration of marine habitats and usurping of wetlands. The recent report by the US Commission on Ocean Policy has found that over 50% of the fresh and salt-water wetlands have been converted or destroyed in the USA todate.⁸ Therefore development has to be sustainable. Sustainable development means treatment of sewage, garbage, industrial effluents, and run offs before release into the sea; limiting the fish catch, etc. All these extra facilities require money. Therefore funding is a very important facet of environment protection/sustainable development. Most of the developing countries are short of funds, so they are caught in a vicious cycle where they are not able to comply with the requirements of sustainable development. The ocean boundaries are only imaginary to pollutants or living species, resulting in the problems of one country becoming the concerns of the others. Hence it is most essential that adequate funding is made available to those countries that cannot afford the environmental protection and sustainable development arrangements. Funding has been the sticking point for cooperation. When one fifth of the world's population earns less than one dollar a day and 800 million people are undernourished⁹, it is difficult to convince them to take action to save the planet for their grandchildren when they don't know where their next meal is coming from. It is difficult to imagine the refugees in Darfur, Sudan, where a civil war and famine is raging, to be taking environment preservation measures in the face of starvation. It is therefore a moral responsibility of the countries that can afford the money to finance schemes in the countries that cannot afford them.

　

12. Life on earth first started in the Ocean and then spread to land. It evolved to this highest and most developed form of life which is Man, and it is now sad that this same Man is destroying albeit unknowingly the same habitat from which life first started i.e. the Ocean- a case of killing the goose that is laying the golden eggs. I have specifically said unknowingly, because if every person knew of the consequences to the Ocean, he would be very much more careful. Awareness is crucial. The sea has been carved out into national limits with national responsibilities, but the marine biodiversity, the weather and the environment have no limits and move freely across man made artificial boundaries. In some countries where the educational levels are high, the awareness is much better, yet it matters little due to the seamless zones where one country's problems pass on to another for solution. And even among those who have more awareness, there is still the feeling of, " Why should I take action when it is not my country, my area, my seas, my beach", not realizing that if we do not care for the oceans on a global scale, the poison will eventually reach us and kill us all.

　

13. The highest awareness is among our scientists and environmentalists and to lesser degrees with the intelligentsia, the corporate world and finally the Man in the street. To tackle the problems of the dangers to the Environment and the Ocean, we need to have the Political Will to act. Political Will is not necessarily the Will of the Politicians but rather the Will of the People, the social Will, and resultantly the Will of the Government. Political Will is the Will to ensure compliance with Regulations, Conventions and Agreements, the Will for Cooperation and Coordination and the Will to take Action to protect the ocean. If the social Will is absent, since the common citizen has no knowledge of Marine Pollution or environmental dangers, then how can we expect his elected representative in Parliament - the Member of Parliament, (MP), - to be any more knowledgeable. Therefore if the local people do not have Sea Pollution as a priority, neither will the MP, nor the Government. In actual fact the majority of MP's have little knowledge or awareness of the marine environment. It never is an election issue in India and is not even mentioned in party manifestos. Fortunately there are think tanks and advisers to the government who are highlighting contemporary issues, yet environment and surely the marine environment is not given the priority it deserves. Most of the people think that the sea is limitless and can forever accept all the rubbish from the land. They simply are not aware because they have not been educated on the subject.

　

14. A connected problem therefore is education. Thankfully, the literacy levels in the last 20 years have risen, but not enough. Further, if you read the children's school textbooks, there may be just one or two lessons on the environment but almost nothing on the sea or the marine environment. One of the aims of my organisation - the Centre for Marine Conservation and Ocean Studies is to raise awareness among the people. Another aim is to write lessons on marine environment and have them included in children's textbooks, so that at least 15 years down the line - I hope it will not be too late - we will have a discerning citizenry. Awareness also highlights responsibilities and calls upon self-discipline to act. The other way to raise awareness is to take a page out of the business world and to bombard the public with advertisements and hoardings, articles in the press and prime time stories in the electronic media, discussions and sitcoms, seminars and conferences. In the business world, advertising firms have many new techniques and styles to sell their products. Similarly so, environment awareness can be raised. There is also the revolutionary way as practiced by some NGO's with demonstrations and actions that catch the Press. Awareness and education will influence the people and hence the social Will and thereby the Will of the Government - which is the main arm that makes Policy. Hopefully, in this way our politicians may also become more aware. Presently, for most people, even those with degrees, the only knowledge of the Ocean is that it covers three quarters of the world's surface, that it is the main medium for ships to travel by and carry our trade, and that a lot of oil is produced offshore and carried on the sea. Of course they are aware that fish comes from the Sea but nothing more. Many of them have not even walked on a beach to see how ill cared for it is in these days. The scenario that I have painted is for India, but I am sure it will not be much different in most developing countries.

　

15. In India films and film stars are very popular. As such film stars' fan clubs have sprung up at every street corner, town and village. Such "I love the Ocean" Clubs need to be set up in every school, college and locality. There are a number of global environmental organizations such as WWF or Green Peace but there is no dedicated Global Marine Environment Society. I would like to suggest that the SOF takes the initiative to set up a World Wide organization like the ICRC or the WWF devoted to the Oceans Security Concept exclusively, named perhaps as "Ocean Savers". A partnership also needs to be built up with the Press, electronic media and the Corporate World to spread awareness in order to build the Political Will. It must be remembered that Corporate Business Houses and the media are important and influential stakeholders in Ocean security.

　

16. Having identified the problems in saving the oceans, we need to work out a clear way ahead. A policy has to be drawn up framing the guidelines within which we have to work. This policy for a secure Ocean would depend on the long-term vision and goals for the oceans.

　

17. The long-term vision for our Oceans is to have oceans and coasts, which are safe, clean, thriving and sustainably managed, where Peace prevails and people can fulfill their various desires as human beings. The oceans and ocean related economy contributes to a large percentage of a country's earnings and jobs. The ocean must continue to contribute to the economy supporting various industries and uses such as transportation, food, energy, minerals, chemicals, medicines and recreation, but at the same time developing sustainably and preserving a high level of biodiversity and critical natural habitats. The ecologically sustainable development by each country must not harm the interests of other countries and therefore ocean governance should be well coordinated among all countries, and also smoothly coordinated among the various agencies/departments within each country. NGO's, corporate business houses and the public at large must also be involved in Ocean governance.

　

18. Since protection and preservation of the environment, conservation of the ecology and sustainable development depend on awareness, education and political and social Will, the future envisages ecology/environment colleges, courses for managers in sustainable development and basic education for children/students on the ocean. Ocean organisations in future should include research/observing and monitoring organisations so as to predict the future state of the ocean for the benefit of decision-makers and users.

　

19. The major strategies are: -

　

20. The immediate aims /goals for Securing the Oceans are: -