World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
Meeting in Johannesburg in August/September 2002, the WSSD in is a key element in the global effort to ensure sustainable development and use of our oceans. http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/

Life in the oceans is bountiful but not infinite.

• Worldwide more than three million fishing boats remove between 70 and 90 million tons of fish and shellfish from the oceans each year. Roughly one quarter of that amount of fish—plus uncounted thousands of turtles, birds, and marine mammals—is thrown back into the ocean, mostly dead. According to the United Nations, 75% of the world’s fisheries require urgent management to freeze or reduce fishing pressure.
  
• Nearly 60% of the world’s coral reefs are at risk from human impacts such as destructive fishing, pollution, and coastal development, and many have already been degraded beyond recovery.
  
• Of 126 species of marine mammals, 88 are listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened species.
  
• 12 billion tons of ballast water containing, at any one time, 10,000 marine species, are shipped around the globe each year, spreading alien and invasive species. Every minute of the day... ships are discharging 40,000 gallons of foreign ballast water into U.S. harbors.
  
• Persistent organic pollutants (POPs)—including PCBs, pesticides such as DDT, and industrial byproducts such as dioxins—pose severe threats to ocean life and to the peoples of the world who depend on such life for subsistence. Similarly, recent studies, such as by the US National Academy of Sciences, have indicated that the threat of mercury pollution in our oceans requires attention.
  

To make the World Summit on Sustainable Development successful in dealing with these threats, the President and the administration should commit to, and call upon the nations of the world and the WSSD to:

1.  Produce a binding international agreement applying to all fisheries that would: further strengthen the use of the precautionary approach in managing fisheries; prohibit unsustainable levels of fishing, minimize discards of marine species and habitat destruction; protect more ocean resources through marine protected areas; and include a means of ensuring binding dispute resolution and a method to impose sanctions on nations that do not comply with the agreement.

2.  Eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies that support and expand the capacity of environmentally unsustainable fishing fleets and practices.

3.  Ratify the POPs convention (with adequate legal authority for expeditious listing of future chemicals) as soon as possible but no later than at the WSSD in order that the convention may come into effect by September 2002 or earlier. Begin international negotiations to eliminate the problem of mercury contamination in the oceans.

4.  Review existing international vessel pollution standards (including ballast water), identifying gaps or inadequacies, and make specific recommendations to ensure they are strengthened and enforced.

5.  Call on the World Trade Organization to cooperate with other international organizations to ensure that the global trading system, which it regulates, does not result in degradation of the marine environment.

Sources and additional information:

Oceana's full position on the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Word)

Wildlife Conservation Society: http://wcs.org/marine

Global Conference on Oceans and Coasts at Rio+10: www.udel.edu/CMS/csmp/rio+10/

Reykjavik Conference on Responsible Fisheries and the Marine Ecosystem: http://www.refisheries2001.org/

WSSD PREPCOM II online: http://www.iisd.ca/2002/pc2/