THE SEA AND THE OCEAN: TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE HERITAGE

BY PROF KOLA KUSEMIJU, DEPARTMENT OF MARINE SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS, LAGOS, NIGERIA

 INTRODUCTION

I consider it an honour and privilege to be invited by the Foundation for Environmental Development and Education in Nigeria (FEDEN) as a Guest Speaker at this important symposium to commemorate the 2004 World Environment Day. To this end, I am grateful to Professor Adeniyi Osuntogun, Director of FEDEN/LEAD – Nigeria for the opportunity so granted.

The symposium is part of FEDEN’s environmental awareness and education activities and a fulfilment of the United Nation’s General Assembly Resolution 2997 of 15th December 1992 which encourages governments and organizations world-wide to undertake annually on 5th June, activities reaffirming their commitment to the preservation and enhancement of the environment for present and future generations.

This year’s World Environment Day is commemorated under the United Nations theme: “WANTED! SEAS AND OCEANS – DEAD OR ALIVE.” The theme for today’s symposium is “The Seas and Oceans: Towards a Sustainable Heritage.” You would probably recall that six years ago, the theme for the World Environment Day was “For life on Earth, Save ours Seas.” The United Nations within a short span of time is once again calling our attention to the significance of the marine habitat to man.

THE SEAS AND THEIR RESOURCES

Of the earth’s total surface which comprises approximately 510million sq. km, about 364million or 71% is occupied by the surfaces of oceans, seas, lagoons and other aquatic water-bodies.

From ancient time the sea has represented a source of food. It has served as a highway for friendly trade and transport, and a barrier against attack by enemies. The sea is also a storehouse of natural resources, both living and non-living, including petroleum and other minerals. What for example would life have been in Nigeria without the shrimp and petroleum resources from the Niger Delta area of Nigeria?

The earth’s waters are divided into four main oceans and other seas. The Pacific Ocean is about equal in size to other three oceans combined- the Atlantic, Indian and Arctic Oceans. The other seas include the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. The Oceanic volume is given as 1,370million cu. km and the greatest known sea depth is about 11,000metres. Such are the vast dimensions of the habitat in which fishes and other aquatic organisms of the habitat essential for the survival of man are distributed. But it is a highly fragile environment which must be protected and preserved for sustainable use.

            The total world catch of fish and fish products is put at nearly 100million metric tonnes. The Nigerian average consumption of fish per head is head is 7.5kg per year which is quite below the recommended 19.0kg per year by World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

            In an attempt to sustain the resources of their own portion of the seas for their national needs, nations have gone into war. So the sea has had its own crises, conflicts and intrigues. As a diversion, let us examine some past newspaper headlines like:

·        United States Establishes 200miles Fishing Zone

·        Britain and Iceland fight 3rd Cod War

·        Japan objects to Whaling Catch Quotas

·        Oil spills from Tankers endanger Sea Life

·        Turkey and Greece dispute continental shelf boundaries

·        Nigeria and Cameroon: War on Bakassi

These are samplings of the conflicts and issues that have arisen in the past two and the half decades over the sea and its resources. Luckily a vast major of conflicts and exploitation problems of the resources have been resolved through the United Nations International Law of the Sea which came into effect on 16th November, 1994.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN THE SEAS

Quite a great variety of pollutants are produced by man and these invariably find their way into the aquatic environment. Whatever the source, the sea is the ultimate reservoir for such pollutants – where they accumulate in the water, in organisms or in the bottom sediments. These pollutants reach the sea by a variety of transport mechanisms. Some are leached from land or carried to sea by rivers as sediments from eroded soils; some are deliberately introduced into rivers or directly into the oceans as domestic and industrial wastes; some are dumped at sea from shipboards or are a direct consequence of ship operations; some are transported by the atmosphere for great distances from the source before washed out by rain on both land and sea.

Environmental pollution manifests itself in many ways – you have seen abandoned carcasses of  automobile, shipwrecks, empty beer cans, empty plastic containers, heaps of rubbish or garbage, lagoons overloaded with sewage, water surface films of oil – all indicative of gross environmental pollution. In fact, the seas may soon contain more garbage than fishes. A few pollutants reaching the sea will be highlighted if only to point out how badly man may abuse and misuse the sea environment.

DOMESTIC POLLUTION

This involves sewage and other organic materials which reduce oxygen and affect the lives of aquatic organisms. Bodies of water receiving sewage undergo gradual destruction. They become eutrophic and the fisheries resource has been seriously damaged or eliminated. Such trends have been observed in various lagoons in tropical areas (e.g. near Abidjan) and in the Mediterranean near Tunis (FAO 1971). According to Akpata and Ekundayo (1975), the Lagos City Council in 1973 dumped approximately 26million litres of untreated sewage into the Lagos Lagoon- and estuary. This was an act of pollution. It is necessary to study how such pollution affects aquatic organisms with respect to public health.

Sewage pollution for example is responsible for transmission of typhoid and other micro-organic diseases through shellfish especially oysters and fishes in several ways.

·        Sewage has high oxygen demand resulting in the depletion of oxygen in the water.

·        Sewage settles on the bottom, and this has a damaging effect on oysters, eggs and larvae of fishes.

·        Has high fertility effects, organisms not favourable to the welfare of the fishes may be produced in large number.

Luckily the Lagos State Government has since banned the “pail system”. It is hoped that sewage from Nigerian major coastal cities will be properly collected and treated and not dumped into the aquatic environment where they will seriously damage or eliminate the fisheries resource and other aquatic organisms.

INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION

Involves discharge into the environment of toxic substances or of organic industrial by-products, which will directly or indirectly affect animals including man. Industries are springing up in many parts of Nigeria.

According to the National Directory of Industries, over five thousand industries are sited all over the country. Unfortunately for Nigeria and Lagos State in particular, environmental conservation was not given due consideration in our political and social development programmes. The evolution of FEPA – a final appreciation by our nation for the need of a Federal Environmental Protection Agency did not take place until December 1988, nearly three decades after our independence. So industrialists all along had a field day, placing priority over the economic aspects of their projects without any serious thought for the environment.

Majority of the industries in Nigeria discharge their effluents, which are either partially treated to remove the harmful substances or untreated at all into public drains from where these flowed into rivers etc. industries in Lagos State are worst  offenders – the Lagos Lagoon has gradually become a sink for pollutants. Indeed from the results obtained during the January 1991 International Research Workshop on Lagos Lagoon Ecosystem co-ordinated by me and organized under the UNESCO / COMARAF Project, the scientists drawn from six ECOWAS countries detected the presence of organic matter, heavy metals and hydrocarbons at various locations in the lagoon, all pointing to a highly polluted water. The pollutants arose as effluents from the numerous industries and sewage sites in Lagos metropolis, large volumes of untreated sewage continued to be dumped into the Lagos Lagoon and adjacent creeks. This is an act of pollution. It is necessary to study how such pollution affects aquatic organisms with respect to public health. The coastal area of Nigeria is exposed to industrial pollutants and domestic wastes flushed from the hinterland. It is believed that the rich natural resources of this zone are wasting because of the impact of pollution and erosion in the maritime areas of Nigeria.

PETROLEUM RESOURCE AND POLLUTION

Oil is one of the most widespread contaminants of the aquatic environment. Yet the petroleum resource is the life-wire of Nigeria. In the petroleum industry, oil spillage is a major disaster. Crude oil is not a single chemical but a conglomeration of many substances of widely different toxicities and effects on the environment. Massive destruction of marine life occurs immediately after a spillage. A wide range of fish, shellfish, crabs, shrimps are affected. Bottom-living fish and molluscs are killed off and washed ashore. Even when the dead fishes have disappeared, years later appreciable fractions of the oil spill can still be found in organisms surviving in the affected area. So oil spill is a long-term damage.

Although accidental oil spills are spectacular events and attract great public attention, they are responsible for only 10% of the total amount of oil entering the aquatic environment. The remaining 90% of the oil contamination originates in the normal operation of oil-carrying tankers, merchant and naval vessels, offshore production, refinery operations and disposal of oil-waste materials. Despite the danger posed to the marine environment and its adjacent creeks, some of these sources of oil pollution can greatly be reduced by the establishment of broad based environmental monitoring programmes control. Exploration, drilling, production and tanker loading operations are all high-risk activities that can result in accidents harmful to the health of employees and others, and could lead to damage to the environment.

The major activities that can lead to major oil spills are: well blowouts, tanker accidents, storage tank failures, pipeline failures.

The government and the oil companies are aware of the hazards that can result from oil operations, the principal one being oil pollution. Because of this, the government has always had regulations in place to control the industry. In the case of the sea and Nigerian coastal plain, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and recently the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) have guidelines and standards to regulate all activities that could damage the sea, a few of these are:

1.      National Guidelines and standards for Environmental Pollution Control in Nigeria.

2.      Pollution Abatement in Industries and Facilities Generating Waste Regulative

3.      Oil in Navigable Water Acts

4.      Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) Decree

5.      National Resources Conservation Council Act.

There is need for effective enforcement of these regulations to sustain our marine environment

SUSTAINING THE COMMON HERITAGE OF THE SEAS AND OCEANS

In order to maintain the sea as a sustainable heritage for mankind, adequate focus must be placed on the following:

(i.)                  Integrated Marine and Coastal Area Management

The issues involved call to mind the principle of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). According to the World Bank Report (1995), the principle concern of an integrated coastal management strategy include focussing on environmental planning and management, coordinating the various activities in a region towards the common objective of long term development. An important motive for ICZM is that it is very difficult to mange any one particular coastal natural resource or enhance one economic sector in the absence of a comprehensive integrated and management policy. Taking the Nigerian example, the Niger Delta Region will definitely benefit from an integrated management of environmental problems of Fisheries Depletion, Mangrove Ecosystem Deforestation, Agricultural land Degradation, Water Hyacinth, Flooding and Erosion and Oil Pollution. Whatever damage that is done to one coastal state will almost immediately affect the adjacent coastal states. So you cannot isolate two coastal states in development plans- one must recognise the interconnections between coastal systems and uses.

Where appropriate, physical alteration, destruction and degradation of vital habitats should be prevented and restoration of degraded habitats pursued, bearing in mind the need to provide a balanced approach to the use and conservation of marine and coastal resources.

(ii.)                        Marine and Coastal Protected Areas

The networks of marine and coastal protected areas and other conservation areas including spawning grounds, nursery grounds provide useful and important management tools for different levels of conservation, management and sustainable use of marine resources.

(iii.)                        Sustainable use of living marine resources

   Many of the world’s fishery resources both in developed and developing countries are in danger of depletion. With increasing human population and the need for food from the seas, there is need to reduce the pressure on the fish stocks and turn to farming of the wide expanse of the oceans. In addition, other living resources, such as mangroves and coral species are subject to or under threat of over-exploitation. The principal impact of over-exploitation is unsustainable removal of living marine and coastal resources at the expense of generations yet unborn.

(iv.)                        Mariculture

This is the farming of marine resources in the sea or adjacent coastal waters. Currently, the main types of marine organisms being produced through Mariculture include seaweeds, oysters, mussels, shrimps, prawns, salmon and other species of fish.

Mariculture according to Jakarta Mandate on the convention on Biological Diversity of 1998 offers possibilities for sustainable protein-rich food and for economic development of local communities. However, Mariculture on an industrial scale may pose several threats to marine and coastal biological diversity due to, for example, wide-scale destruction and degradation of natural habitats, nutrients and antibiotics in Mariculture waste, accidental release of alien or living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology and transmission of diseases to wild stocks. The problems can be abated through appropriate monitoring and by giving preference to the use of local species.

Whichever of the above principles are carried out, local communities, users and indigenous people should be involved in the conservation and management of marine resources.

CONCLUSION

There is paucity of scientific data on the Nigerian coastal and marine environment. To rectify this problem, relevant agencies, parastatals etc must embark on comprehensive surveys to collect environmental data on the Nigerian coastal zone and marine resources.

From the presentations so far made, it is clear that water pollution is a threat to water quality, to the water quality, to the marine ecosystem and to the marine resources. There is urgent need for a viable surveillance and monitoring of the marine resources and environmental conditions to ensure a sustainable development of this golden heritage.

The requirement for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of all major coastal and marine development activities should be rigidly enforced with special attention to marine and coastal biological diversity and resources, and taking into account cumulative impacts. Government projects should not be exempted from EIA process.

The Seas and Oceans will continue to remain our most viable sources of survival on earth, let us keep them alive.

Thank you.