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The marine environment has emerged as a field of diversified resources in recent decades. Its importance is described in Indian mythological books but the functional effectiveness is established during recent years. It covers about 71% of the geographical area of the globe and its proper development for humankind would solve problems of the exhaustion of several resources.
Continental resources occupying 29% of the geographical area have been the basis of the development of human civilisation. The present development level of society is at the cost of ruthless exploitation of the continental resources and the resultant scenario is the depletion of some valuable resources such as coal petroleum, natural gas and several others.
This exhaustion tendency has threatened the very culture and civilisation of humankind. The marine environment has shown definite signals of its ability to meet the diversified demands of the world for a long time. Consequently, a new ray of hope has emerged in the world.
Schmidt (1937) estimated that the marine environment might be able to accommodate about 300 times more life cycles in comparison to the continental system. It gives an impression that the ocean environment may be able to provide enormous food and other resources to humankind.
Fishing by coastal people has been a traditional subsistence occupation. Its commercial utilisation is a relatively recent phenomenon. In fact, the commercial utilisation of the marine environment began with the basic objectives, (a) to make use of newly discovered natural resources, (b) to conserve continental resources, and (c) to protect the continental environment from pollution and resource depletion.
This commercial utilisation process was first started by the developed countries and several small island and littoral countries began to face the challenge of the utilisation of their marine resources by nearby developed countries. The problem was therefore raised by Malta representatives in the UN General Assembly in 1967 through a resolution. The resolution was supported by several countries and ultimately the way was cleared for the formulation of the international law of the seas.
Finally in 1982, the Declaration of United Nations Conference on Law of Seas (UNCLOS) was adopted through which all littoral states received exclusive right to make economic utilisation of the adjacent ocean environment up to 320 km from the coastline. This is defined as the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The marine environment lying beyond EEZ is defined as the High Sea and is considered a treasure for all. No country has the right to exploit it. It can only be used for research and investigation purposes.
Exclusive Economic Zone provides vast off-shore area to the littoral states for economic usage. Several countries have begun exclusive utilisation of it. The reserved resources can simply be divided into four major types:
a. Food resources
b. Chemical resources
c. Mineral resources
d. Energy resources
Food resources
Ocean environment has huge reserves of various types of fishes, which can provide nutritious diet to all sections of societies. It provides about 9% food requirements of Japan (around 2000). The Japanese have begun to take more interest in poultry products in recent decades but that has not reduced the significance of fisheries in the economy of Japan. According to a 2012 report, Japan consumes 6% of the world’s fish harvest – 81% of its fresh tuna – and imports more seafood than any other country. Eating seafood is a central part of Japan’s national food culture.
Top fish producing countries are China, Indonesia, Peru, India, Russia, the US and Viet Nam (FAO, 2020). There has been a phenomenal increase in fish production since the Second World War. It was only 10 million tonnes in 1946, increasing to 68 million tonnes in 1992, and now to 175 million tonnes (2020). The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that more than 80% of the world’s fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or recovering.
Though fishing is performed in all regions of the world but six oceanic regions have tremendous concentration of fishing occupations. They are,
a. Southeast Pacific – stretching from South America’s Panama to Cape Horn; the Peru Current provides an ideal environment for fishing;
b. West-central Pacific – stretching from the Philippines and southern Indonesia to Australia, the region is famous for redfish, sea bass, mackerel, oyster, crab and tuna;
c. Northwest Pacific – stretching from Taiwan to the Bering Strait; principal producers here are Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Russia;
d. Northeast Pacific – stretching from the western coast of Mexico to the Bering Strait; the beneficiary countries are the US, Canada and Mexico; this region has been famous for halibut fishing;
e. Northwest Atlantic – stretching from the Sparrow Point to the Davis Strait, the region is famous for fishing as coastal conditions have a lot of favourable conditions; New Foundland’s coastal areas and Grand Bank have been famous for fishing; Grand Bank occupies about 96 sq km area and is very rich in planktons which support fish habitat; principal producers are the US and Canada;
f. Northeast Atlantic – stretching from the coastal areas of Spain to the White Sea in the north of Scandinavian Plateau, it provides benefits to several European countries; the region has been famous for cod fishing; Norway was the largest producer of cod for long in the world, now China leads cod production followed by Iceland, Russia, the Netherlands and Germany.
Oceanic regions near India, Peru, Argentina and Brazil have emerged as new major fishing regions. Besides fish, ocean environment is taken as a food supplier from sea weeds. In the 1980s and 1990s, Japan was the heavy producer of sea weeds. It even began mushroom farming with the help of helicopters in the motionless oceanic environment areas. Now, China, Indonesia and the Philippines are the top sea weed producers.
Both fish and sea weeds have bright prospects as future food resources. There are about 5,000 species of fish but only about 50 species are in commercial utilisation. Fish farming has three important areas of future expansion. They are, deep sea environment, which is principally used by the developed countries and developing countries are yet to make significant inroads into this region. Secondly, the South Sea has been rich in whale and krill fish. Whale is the largest mammal having tremendous economic importance. Japan is the largest producer/catcher of whales.
Commercial capture of whales was banned in 1986. There is – the International Whaling Commission (IWC) – a body dedicated to the conservation of whales. Currently, there are 88 members of the IWC. Japan pulled out of the IWC in 2018 to resume its commercial hunting for whales after 30 years. Other countries commercially hunting whales are Norway and Iceland. However, even when Japan was a member of the IWC, it had not completely stopped whaling. In 1992, for instance, Japan caught 40,000 whales.
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Thirdly, the tropical ocean waters are comparatively untapped. They have different species and may be of tremendous use in future. India’s emergence as a major marine fish producing state has been due to the production of shrimp and prawn. India has been the largest producer of shrimp and prawn for years now. Similar fishery development policies of countries like South Africa, Australia, Brazil and Argentina have promoted tropical water fisheries in recent years but it still has much more potential, with a focus on sustainable resource management.
The collection of food resources from the oceanic environment is still in a pre-mature stage, and keeps a bright prospect for the future. Molluscans and crustaceans, desalination of brackish water and the use of icebergs for drinking purposes would further enhance the importance of the ocean as a food resource reservoir.
Chemical resources
The marine environment is full of chemical resources. It has more than 40 chemical elements and numerous compounds. Of all these, sodium sulphate, magnesium compounds and common salt have greater importance. Sodium sulphate is used in paper and pulp, pharmaceuticals, soap and gun powder industries. Magnesium is mainly used in aircraft industries. Common salt is used by tropical people as an eatable item.
The availability of sodium sulphate and magnesium compounds has solved the problem of the shortage of these minerals in the continental environment. The availability of these two has reduced the prices to about 50% in the world market compared to what was seen in the second half of the 20th century. Sodium sulphate and magnesium compounds are mainly produced by Mexico, Spain, the US, France and Japan. Common salt is produced in a large number of countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, India, the Philippines and Mexico. Overall, the US, China and India are the top salt producers.
Mineral resources
Mineral resources of the oceanic environment may broadly be divided into two categories on the basis of their geographical locations. These are (a) deep sea minerals and shallow sea minerals, produced from the continental shelf. The shallow sea zone has a depth of up to 200 metres and is within easy reach of known technology.
Petroleum and natural gas are the principal minerals produced from the shallow sea regions. It is estimated that about 14% of the geographical area of the oceans possesses mineral oil-bearing structures. Natural gas reserve is estimated to be about 90,235 thousand million cubic metres (around 2000). About 30% petroleum and 27% of natural gas are annually drilled from the ocean beds. Their shares have remained almost constant since the early 2000s.
Ocean drilling is a post-Second World War phenomenon. It was strengthened after energy crisis that emerged due to the Arab-Israel War of 1973. Abnormal hike of oil prices by the OPEC countries compelled the development of off-shore drilling in different parts of the world.
Consequently, the North Sea, the Red Sea, the California Sea, the Sea of Japan, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, the East China Sea and several other off-shore zones have become principal producers of oil and gas. Off-shore drilling has improved the petroleum production of the countries such as the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Japan, India and several others.
Shallow seas are also being exploited for other minerals. For example, Malaysia produces tin-ore, Japan iron ore, and the US gold off the California coast. Several countries collect sea shells to make their use as a substitute for limestone in cement industry.
Deep sea mining, on the other hand, is still in the early stages of development for commercial purposes. Poly-metallic nodules have been derived and are found to be a highly suitable substitute for traditional metallic minerals, which are in the course of depletion. Ocean bed is carpeted by thick layers of poly-metallic nodules in the oceanic zone of 3,500-6,000 metres.
Continental metallic ores are exhaustible but ocean nodules are practically inexhaustible as they increase at the rate of 10 million tonnes per year due to some complex chemical processes taking place in the marine environment. The Pacific Ocean has the largest reserves of nodules. Its reserve is supposed to be about 105x10 12 tonnes of nodules. The poly-metallic reserves near Galapagos Series (valley) consists of 48% sulphur, 43% iron, 11% copper and vast amounts of zinc, tin, lead and silver in the oceanic environment. Further, more oceanic areas lying in between 700-6,000 metre depth is characterised by calcium-dominated sea, with an average thickness of 400 metres. In fact, the ooze deposits lie over this calcium shell. This layer is completely untouched and is a treasure for the future.
Deep sea mineral reserves are yet to be properly assessed because there is a lack of adequate deep sea mining technology. Only a few countries have acquired this technology and the technology flow is completely guarded. The next few decades may witness a politics of deep-sea mineral exploitation and technologically advanced countries would certainly be in an advantageous position.
Energy resources
The ocean environment may be considered as a storehouse of energy resources. Its energy resources can be divided into bed resources and water resources. Bed resources consist of mainly petroleum and natural gas which have been described under mineral head. Water resources may broadly be taken as tidal energy and geothermal energy. Coastal regions with tidal rising of six metres and above are ideal for tidal energy generation. Wave-activated Turbine Generators (WATG), the gyros are used to generate electricity.
Tidal wave energy reserves are supposed to be about 3x106 mg watt and the world can generate 68-80 mg watt per minute. This technology was first used in France in the 1960s and since then it has become an important source of coastal electricity near the mouth of the Rive Rance.
The mouth of this river has the world’s first and France’s largest tidal power generation centre with an installed capacity of 800 million kilo watt per year. It was the world’s largest tidal power generator for 45 years from 1966 until 2011, when South Korea built the world’s largest at Sihwa Lake. Kislaya Guba centre, installed in 1968, in Russia has an installed capacity of 440 million kilo watts. Both France and Russia have made rapid stride in tidal energy generation. Other important generators are Norway, the US, Australia and Sweden. India has also started commercial production near Okha on the Gujarat coast.
Heritage Day, I chose to visit the Rance tidal power plant, a source of green energy commissioned in 1966!!! pic.twitter.com/LmI5uqxXEh
— Alain (@Jadorelesfemme1) September 17, 2022
Geothermal energy is based upon Off-shore Thermal Energy Conversion (OTSC) technology. This technology harnesses temperature differences of ocean water. It is found that the ideal condition is one in which the ocean surface temperature is 28-29 °C and the temperature at the depth of 800-1,000 metres is 6-7 °C. It is estimated that geothermal sources alone can provide about 1 crore mg watt of electricity which would be 10 times of the present production level of the world.
India’s coastal environment, too, has favourable conditions for its generation and its production may be about 50,000 mg watt per year. Cuba and France have made major breakthrough in this regard. India has also started production near Vishakhapatnam and Trivandrum. The world’s total reserve of geothermal energy is supposed to be about 300 quads while the present demand is only about 250 quads. A quad is a unit of energy equal to 10 (a short-scale quadrillion) BTU, or 1.055×10 joule (1.055 exajoules or EJ) in SI units.
Some other probable energy sources have also been identified. They are salinity gradients, sea breeze and ocean currents. These alternatives need international cooperation on the front of required technology. Commercial generation is performed on the basis of sea breeze but salinity gradients and currents are yet to be used.
Utilisation and environment
There has been a rapid increase in the utilisation of marine resources in recent decades due to certain factors. First factor was food shortage in Japan and protein consciousness in various parts of the world. It has promoted marine fisheries on a large scale. Secondly, the Arab-Israel War compelled developed countries to develop alternative and substitute energy sources leading to massive assault on the ocean environment.
Ocean environment provides global trade routes and increased trading operations and naval activities have brought humanity much closer to the mysteries of the oceans. Several expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic regions, killing of whales and the netting of krill in high latitudes of the South Sea have practically made the entire ocean environment traversable, accessible and usable. High sea concept has been promoted to prevent the vast ocean environment from the ugly utilisation by humans.
The law of seas was meant for that but its helplessness has been exposed. The UN has no organ to watch over the violations of the high seas. Technologically advanced countries and countries having strong naval bases to whatever they want and exploit high seas in the name of research and experiments. Consequently, the marine environment has begun to show the symptoms of disaster. Continents are detached and solid crust prevents easy spreading of pollutants on continents.
Oceans have different properties than continents. This vast body of liquid has mixing and oscillation properties due to which pollutants would spread over 71% of the globe. Removal of pollutants from this vast water body would be almost impossible and the biosphere may be under tremendous pressure of instability.
Pollutant spreading has become alarming in some specific oceanic zones. They are the north Atlantic trade route, which carries about 27% world trade, drilling platforms in the North Sea and other drilling zones. Several mega cities of the world are situated on the coast and tonnes of residuals are released every day in the ocean causing instability of the estuarine environment.
Larges fishes like whales are being killed and the vast residuals are left in the ocean along with oil and other pollutants. Consequently, this species is facing a serious danger of extinction. Species such as krill, cod and halibut are also exploited enormously creating a probable danger of extinction. The UN created the ICW for controlled whaling and a quota was fixed for the killing of whales but there have been reports that countries like Japan killed much more than the allotted number.
Over the past several decades, Russia has been accused of dumping nuclear wastes (rods) in the North Pacific after their utilisation of submarines. They may not produce radiation right now but recycling after some years would certainly pose health hazards and may eliminate some of the marine species. Increased naval exercises and geopolitics of marine environment have also begun to threaten the peace of ocean environment.
The Gulf War sent a serious threat signal to the environmentalists who said that the war caused irreparable damage to the marine environment in the gulf region. Growing tensions for Spartly Island in the South China Sea, Kurile Islands (northwest Pacific) and islands of disputes in the Persian Gulf may aggravate the marine threat situation any time, and the real loser will be the oceanic environment.
Fisheries Minister Dr Hussain Rasheed Hassan has warned that unless action is taken now, the Maldivian people will become #ClimateRefugees, forced to leave their homeland because of the effects of global warming. @MMRI_Maldives @MoFMRAmv @ashadevos pic.twitter.com/wgXXgA0PDn
— Nekton (@nektonmission) September 15, 2022
It is, therefore, understood that the danger bell has begun to ring even before the proper utilisation of ocean resources. The human race may be divided on the lines of territorial commitments but has to display eagerness and genuine sincerity towards the proper planning and integrated development strategies for ocean environment. The utilisation of this resource needs cooperation and not confrontation. Cooperation would bring resource substitutes and would continue the sojourn of development and prosperity of humankind but confrontation in the name of territorial sovereignty may trigger irreparable disaster.
Practically, there is no need to advocate the supremacy of the sovereignty of nature. What is needed is to display genuine sincerity maintaining the interest of respective territorial sovereignty. The 'sovereignty of nature' concept was floated by some developed countries at the Rio de Janeiro conference in 1992, and developing countries tasted the flavour of politics in the name of global cooperation. Such politics continue to create problems as seen in global conferences year after year.
Therefore, the countries must take the ocean as a common heritage of humankind. Its acceptance as a common heritage of humankind would promote its exploration and utilisation in the common interest and the gains would be accessible to all the countries irrespective of their geographical locations.
