You can only love what you know

It’s August, the holiday season, when many of us will be taking trips to the coast and spending time next to the oceans. Many of us will even go “rockpooling” or fishing with a small net. The oceans are a source of fascination for many of us, harbouring strange and colourful animals. I am amazed at how early this fascination can begin. My two daughters, aged 3, now regularly demand to look at the “shark book” or the “fish book” and both will sit either side of me and identify “hammerhead shark” “leopard shark” or “blue shark”. They are particularly fascinated by the shark’s large teeth and that sharks are a bit scary and might eat you, which of course happens very rarely (even more rarely nowadays that we have decimated many shark populations). Their capacity to absorb information is a constant source of surprise to me. They are also identifying eels, stingrays, corals, sea anemones and sea horses. Of course, it helps when your dad is a marine biologist.

Several things occur to me when the girls are displaying proto-marine biologist behaviour. The first is what will the oceans look like when they are my age or older. Unfortunately, at the present rate of degradation, the oceans will be a poor place even compared to today. Many corals reefs will be gone completely. Those remaining will be under severe stress and probably a mix of coral and algal species, a shadow of the reefs my wife and I dived on when I was younger. Wild-caught fish will be a rare and expensive luxury. Many more stocks will be gone with some projections suggesting that all the major fish stocks targeted today will have collapsed by 2050. Dead zones will have spread, as will the toxic red tides that poison everything they come into contact with. It’s a pretty depressing picture and it is the future generations that will suffer from our carelessness.

The other thing that occurs to me is that young children have an innate fascination with the natural world. I guess mine are very lucky in that they are privileged to live in a comfortable house, they have plenty to eat and have parents that are interested in their welfare. This fascination is stimulated by the fact that mum and dad will answer all their questions on what animals they see and so on and they will take an active interest in what they are looking at and doing (snails are particularly popular, being examined for many minutes while they come out of their shells, as are butterflies, which are pursued around the garden, and froglets). It is great that such young people are so interested in the world they live in, which begs a further question. Why is it that so many people seem to lose interest in the world they live in when they get older? This of course is not a simple question. Life for many of us is fast-paced and stressful. Getting a few minutes to consider our place in the world and how to live in it is difficult. We’re bombarded by a huge advertising (brain-washing) machine to attempt to attain a lifestyle lived by the “rich and famous”. This happens to such an extent that many of us will buy luxuries that we cannot afford even to the detriment of basic requirements for life, such as nutritious food. Amazing.

There are many people (I am no exception), organisations, and even the governments calling for changes in our lifestyles, to live a life of lower consumption of resources, and pointing to various aspects of the degradation and destruction of the natural world. Many people now simply switch off when the next environmental doom story is put before them in the media. This is because these events do not affecting them directly but moreover, I am convinced in many cases it is because they have ceased caring. Perhaps we are targeting the wrong people or more correctly the wrong generation of people. Education about the importance of the Earth in supporting life, including human life, and the role which plants, animals and ecosystems have in maintaining the Earth system must begin at the earliest age. Only then will people grow up with enough passion about the environment that they actually care about the way in which they live. As the saying goes, you can only love and care for what you know about. It was how I got interested in the oceans. Spending hours on a small beach in Ireland and time out fishing with my grandfather and uncles and even, dare I say it, sitting in front of the TV with interested parents watching the “World About Us”, “Jaques Cousteau” and “Life on Earth”.

Evidence of the decline of ocean surface phytoplankton since the turn of the century

5th August 2010

You may have seen the press coverage of the paper by Boyce and colleagues (Nature 466: 591-596). The paper relates a clever study where scientists have examined chlorophyll data obtained through various methods, including very primitive ways of assessing the transparency of the sea, to figure out how levels of primary production have changed since 1899. For those of you who find that confusing let me explain. On land, the primary producers are the plants that we are all familiar with, grass, trees, shrubs and so on. These plants use the sun’s energy to trap (fix) carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide and they use this to synthesise organic molecules (photosynthesis). These form the basis of the energy that drives life and the molecules that form structures, enzymes and so on. Animals graze plants and this energy and material is used by them to grow, and these animals in turn are eaten by other animals (predators) and so on, forming successive layers or trophic levels of food chains, many of which go to form foodwebs. In the oceans, carbon is fixed through the same process of photosynthesis but in this case most of the work is done by tiny cells, phytoplankton, that live in the surface layers of the ocean (upper 150m depth). The phytoplankton are grazed by zooplankton, tiny animals that also live in the surface layers of the ocean, and these in turn are preyed on by larger animals, including fish and so on up to the large marine predators we are familiar with such as sharks and tuna. Some very large animals also graze on zooplankton, such as baleen whales short-circuiting lengthy food chains which lose a lot of the energy of primary production at each step.

Whilst people are familiar with the process of photosynthesis on land, and they are aware that plants can be used as food (cereals like wheat etc), they may not be aware that about half of the production on Earth takes place in the oceans. We do not directly consume phytoplankton but we do eat fish, that ultimately live off the phytoplankton, and which feed many millions of people and provide a livelihood for many others. However, photosynthesis also has other critical effects that are important to maintaining the balance of the Earth’s life support system. These include the production of oxygen, a by-product of photosynthesis, and the draw-down of CO₂ from the atmosphere into the deep ocean. It is the latter that has meant that the oceans have taken up nearly half of humankind’s CO₂ emissions. The oceans are providing us with food, with the air we breathe and they clean up the atmosphere through the process of photosynthetic primary production.

The paper by Boyce and colleagues (2010) demonstrates that the concentrations of phytoplankton in the surface layers of the ocean have declined in 8 out of 10 of the major ocean regions of the world. This is occurring mainly through an effect of global warming. When the surface layers of the ocean are heated up they have a lower tendency to mix with the cooler deeper layers, a process called stratification (layering) of the surface of the oceans. The phytoplankton only live in the surface waters because they require sunlight to photosynthesise and therefore to live. However, they also require nutrients other than carbon to synthesise organic molecules, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus but also other nutrients such as sulphur and iron. As the phytoplankton grow in surface water layers they use up these nutrients and their growth becomes limited. The phytoplankton cells undergo a form of starvation. Tropical oceans are naturally stratified, whilst in temperate seas stratification occurs during the summer but storms during the winter mix up the surface layers of the oceans with deeper, nutrient rich water, annually replenishing the nutrients phytoplankton need to grow. Global warming has increased the level of stratification throughout the oceans and thus has caused a decrease in global primary production by phytoplankton through reducing the supply of nutrients from deep water to the oceans surface.

The simple fact is that almost all life in the oceans, with the exception of chemosynthetic communities that are based on chemical energy, depend on surface production by phytoplankton. Even the deepest living organisms live off the rain of dead cells and occasional carcasses descending from the surface layers of the ocean. Much of this material arrives in the deep sea in the form of marine snow, aggregates of dead phytoplankton cells, cast off skins of zooplankton, faecal material etc. The reduction in surface primary production will have impacted almost other marine life in the oceans, even reducing the production of the fish that we eat. That this has been happening for so long is disturbing. It seems that even by the turn of the twentieth century production was declining as a result of industrial activity, a long time before we became aware of climate change.

A tale of two blow outs

I have been silent for about six months. My apologies but after being away four months at sea I had alot of catching up to do! It has been a lively if depressing six months for the oceans.

We all know about the Gulf of Mexico disaster. The Deep-Water Horizon exploded on the 20^th April 2010, sadly with the loss of eleven workers from Transocean, the operators of the semi-submersible drilling rig. Subsequent events have been difficult to follow despite the massive publicity surrounding the blowout and oil spill. For example, it is difficult to get an estimate of the quantities of oil that have been released. Official estimates are that approximately 35,000-60,000 barrels of oil a day were being released (some estimates are as much as 100,000 barrels a day). This means that over the 83 days prior to the well being capped on the 12^th July somewhere between 461,895,000 and 791,820,000 litres of oil were lost from the well (a US barrel being equivalent to 159 litres). Although it is estimated that some 131,461,200 litres have so far been captured and burned that still means hundreds of thousands of tonnes of oil have been spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. 8.35 million litres of dispersant have also been released onto the ocean surface or injected into the well head. This is a concern because of the toxicity of the these chemicals. The dispersant used was a medium-toxicity dispersant, not the least toxic or most effective modern dispersant available.

The effects on the ecosystem are devastating. Over two thousand seabirds have been found dead, along with more than 470 turtles and over 60 marine mammals. Many more will have died at sea and not been found or even burned in efforts to get rid of the oil. The oil is washing up onto the shores of the US Gulf states which harbour more than half of the coastal wetlands of the lower 48 states of the USA. 97% of the fish and shellfish commercially landed in the region depend on these wetlands and estuaries to some extent. This coastline is already suffering from rapid erosion in some areas and the destruction of plant life within wetland areas may accelerate this process and threaten many dependent species. Less visible will be the effects in the deep ocean. The Deep-Water Horizon well, also known as the Macondo prospect, lies at between 1500 – 1600m depth on the flanks of the Mississippi Canyon. This is the most important conduit of organic matter from the Mississippi River to the deep ocean. Several plumes of oil or oil / dispersant have been reported in deep water reaching many miles from the well head, although this has been disputed by BP and sampling has only detected small quantities of oil. The effects of the oil and dispersant on deep-seabed life, and on life in the water column is unknown. However, it has been shown that deep-sea animals in this area can accumulate some of the toxic fractions of oil (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) so affects on the ecosystem may be expected.

All this is occurring on top of many other human impacts, the Gulf of Mexico is undoubtedly an ecosystem that is under severe stress. For example, a seasonal dead zone has developed in the northern Gulf of Mexico since the 1970s. The cause has been the massive quantities of runoff of agricultural fertilisers from the catchment of the Mississippi River. Nitrates and phosphates fertilise the ocean stimulating blooms of marine algae which then die. As these cells sink they are broken down by bacteria which use the oxygen in the water column suffocating other marine life. Overfishing has also caused large-scale changes in the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico, removing large predators such as sharks, often as by-catch and causing knock-on effects in the ecosystem. The coral reefs of the wider Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean are in a state of severe degradation, affected by overfishing, pollution, coastal development, disease and climate change impacts which cause mass bleaching. The Deep Water Horizon disaster represents just one further wound to a system that in many respects is collapsing. Judging from the impacts of other oil spills, it will take at least tens of years for the system to “recover” from the effects of this massive spill.

This could not be said for another part of the world where another blow-out occurred last year. This blow out occurred in the Montara Oil Field, to the north of Australia in the the Timor Sea on the 21^st August, 2009 and lasted for 74 days. You could be forgiven for not hearing about the blow out in the northern hemisphere, it hardly registered in the news, although it was mentioned in some broadsheet newspapers in the UK. As with the Deep-Water Horizon, the Montara oil spill appears to have occurred through technical failure of the drilling / well equipment. The rig, the West-Atlas was owned by a Norwegian-Bermudan company, Seadrill and operated by PTTEP, a company that ultimately belongs to PTT, the state oil company of Thailand. In this case, though, the spill occurred in a region that is poorly explored and understood but one which a recent study (Halpern et al 2008, Science 319: 948-952) classified as one of the least impacted regions of the world’s oceans. This region, which lies within the “coral triangle” could be regarded as one of nature’s remaining treasures yet has now seen a large oil disaster.

With the Montara blow out it is even more difficult to ascertain just how severe the spill was and how it has affected marine life. The Australian Government have so far not released the official report of the inquiry into the accident, raising suspicions that weak regulation could be a contributory factor to the accident. However, it is suspected that the spill of light oil and gas condensate may have covered an area of up to 90,000km², compared to figures of 6500km² estimated for the Deep Water Horizon. It is suspected that the spill may have affected sea birds, sea snakes, turtles and dolphins, but there is little available information. What has been claimed is that there have been major declines in fisheries on the coasts of the Indonesian islands of Timor, Sumba and Pasir, particularly for red snapper. This has affected up to 7000 fishers in this area, who have lost there livelihoods with reports that many have had to move away from the area completely. The Australian Government are reported to be investigating the truth of these claims. This affect is reminiscent of the Exxon Valdez in 1989, where local fish stocks crashed following the oil spill and some, including the important herring fishery in the area, have never returned.

I find it rather ironic that this spill should have occurred in Australian waters, almost un-noticed, in the shadow of the publicity surrounding the grounding of the Chinese coal carrying ship the Shen Neng I on the Great Barrier Reef, a situation which the Australian Prime Minister of the time described as “outrageous”. He also reportedly stated that there was “no greater natural asset for Australia than the Great Barrier Reef”. The vessel was reported to have crushed two miles of reef as it took a “short cut” on its way to an Australian port and to have contaminated half a mile of the coast with oil. The Montara blow out was far more serious, who is responsible for this outrageous accident in one of the most pristine areas of the world’s oceans? Even more serious for the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs around the world are the large quantities of fossil fuels, including oil, gas and coal, that are being burned, releasing CO₂ into the atmosphere. This is causing mass coral bleaching and ocean acidification, both of which are already impacting the growth of these reefs and which will, by the end of century, have sealed their fates if we continue on the current trajectory of carbon emissions. These facts, for the degradation of coral reefs through mass bleaching and acidification are indisputable, they are happening and can be observed, seemed to have escaped the attention of governments such as Australia, who are digging coal and pumping oil out of the ground as fast as they can to use domestically or to sell as exports.

Lack of joined-up thinking on environmental issues is just one area which we all need to pay attention to. It is apparent that we simply do not value marine ecosystems for the services and products they provide for humanity. The oceans are part of the Earth’s life-support system. Everything from food, the production of oxygen, nutrient recycling, coastal protection, temperature regulation and so on are worth billions upon billions (for coral reefs figures up to $375 billion per annum for goods and services to mankind) to humankind, especially when that value is considered over future years and for future generations. These figures are not considered when a new oil or gas development is planned and the risks from it assessed. The Environmental impact assessment for the Macondo prospect was particularly unimaginative in considering the scale of a catastrophic accident that could arise at the site. With respect to beaches and wetlands in the area BPs Exploration Plan, dated March, 2009, BP stated:

“An accidental oil spill from the proposed activities could cause impacts to [beaches, wetlands, shore birds and coastal nesting birds]. However, due to the distance to shore (48 miles), and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected.”

This was despite BP estimating, in the same document, that a catastrophic blow out could release 162,000 barrels of oil a day.

It is clear that the Environmental Impact Assessment, Drilling Plans and other requirements for oil exploration by the US government are wholly inadequate in terms of assessment of the real risk and potential cost of serious accidents. Whilst the finger of blame has been firmly pointed at BP, they are a commercial company operating according to the rules and according to the logic of the market-based economy where they answer to their shareholders. Here, poor regulation of the industry is at least partly to blame for the sub-optimal and inadequate response following the accident.

We are all shareholders in the planet and all depend on the environmental services provided by ecosystems, particularly the oceans. It is critical that governments pay much closer attention to how extractive industries operate.

· We should ask the question as to whether or not an operation should be allowed to take place, are the risks it poses outweighed by the benefits over the medium to long term. This must be done with full knowledge of the ecosystems in which the operation is proposed. One of the problems of the Montara blow out, in the Timor Sea, is that much basic scientific information on the region is simply missing. The baseline scientific work on documented what is present in the region and how the ecosystems are structured has not been done.

· Is the operation being carried out according to best modern practices and are the right procedures in place for the worst case of catastrophic failure that we can imagine.

· Using “fisheries speak” the right monitoring, control and surveillance protocols must be in place to ensure industrial compliance to rules and regulations. In the event of an accident, it is critical that lessons are learnt.

· Follow-up investigations and monitoring of environmental impacts are critical in reducing the possibility of future accidents and in refining responses to catastrophic events so that environmental harm is minimised. It is notable that this has not been done adequately for many oil accidents, for example, the previous Gulf of Mexico Ixtoc I explosion and oil spill.

· Finally, industry should pay substantial bonds that are released back to them following the operation on the basis of environmental performance. Such bonds should be in place to pay for the management and clean-up of a catastrophic accident should it happen.

Important in all this is good communication between industry, the responsible government (or authority on the high seas), and other stakeholders in the marine environment.

Adieu, Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna?

Reproduced with permission from YaleGlobal Online (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu)

Global governance has failed to protect biodiversity

Alex David Rogers

YaleGlobal , 17 March 2010

Draining the ocean: Japanese fisherman with his haul of Atlantic blue fin tuna which is facing extinction

LONDON: Mix tasty fish from the wild with growing global demand and industrial fishing by greedy fleets, and you have a recipe for disaster. That is what is facing the Atlantic blue fin tuna, a single one of which was auctioned in Tokyo’s Tsukiji market earlier this year for more than $181,000. At the recently held meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), in Doha, Qatar, a valiant attempt was made to prevent the collapse of this stock. But given the intransigence of major consumers like Japan to curb their appetite and the inability of rich nations to agree to manage better the global commons like the ocean, the future for the magnificent Atlantic blue fin tuna may be doomed.

Alarmed by the rapid decline of Atlantic blue fin tuna stock, the Principality of Monaco proposed at the Doha meeting to ban all international trade in the species from the North Atlantic. They were backed by several European states, the USA, and others, but opposed by Japan, the most lucrative market for blue fin tuna where it is eaten in high-end restaurants. How ironic that this is the International Year of Biodiversity, when the rate of loss of species globally was supposed to be reversed and that Japan is hosting the Tenth Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Given the intransigence of major consumers like Japan to curb their appetite, the future for the magnificent Atlantic blue fin tuna may be doomed.

The decision on the Atlantic blue fin tuna followed findings by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the organization charged with managing the spawning stock biomass of blue fin tuna, that populations in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean have declined from more than 305,000 metric tons (mt) in 1958 to less than 79,000 mt in 2007, an absolute decline of more than 74 percent, most of which occurred in the last 10 years. The figures for the western Atlantic are worse, with a decline from 49,000 mt in 1970 to less than 9,000 mt in 2007, more than 82 percent. Some studies suggest that these dramatic decreases in spawning stock biomass may be underestimated. Such catastrophic declines in stock size, for a species that is now recognized as having low productivity, mean that Atlantic blue fin tuna stocks are likely to collapse in the next few years and may become “critically endangered” under international criteria used to estimate extinction risk.

Over recent decades, other valuable fish stocks have been lost too. Perhaps the most infamous was the collapse of North West Atlantic cod which had supported a fishing industry since medieval times. In this region, cod were a major predator and its loss led to a shift in the marine ecosystem where plankton-eating fish and crustaceans such as lobsters and shrimp became more common. These species are lower on the food chain and are now fished, a phenomenon known as fishing down the food web (shifting fishing effort from predators to their prey). As a result of the impacts of fishing on the ecology of the northwestern Atlantic, the cod have not returned.

What lies behind the proposal to list blue fin tuna on the endangered species list is a staggering failure of fisheries management.

Japan has stated that it will ignore a ban in trade in blue fin tuna by CITES. This would significantly weaken the convention, with far-reaching implications for the conservation of endangered species globally. How realistic such a threat is given that most of the fish are caught by non-Japanese vessels is hard to see.

What lies behind the proposal to list blue fin tuna on the endangered species list is a staggering failure of fisheries management and flagrant disregard for the laws and agreements surrounding the sustainable use of the ocean’s resources.

To judge by the way the contracting parties to ICCAT have consistently voted themselves quotas above scientific recommendations, one would suspect that higher earnings, rather than sustainability, were the main concern. In 2008, faced with evidence of the annihilation of blue fin tuna stocks in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, ICCAT set a quota of 22,000 mt for 2009 and 19,950 mt (reduced to 13,500 mt in 2009) for 2010 despite scientific recommendations for catches between 8,500 mt and 15,000mt. However, even the agreed catch levels have been disregarded by the fishing fleets of many of the Contracting Parties of ICCAT. In addition, there was ample evidence of underreporting of the catch and laundering of fish by undeclared transhipment to freezer vessels (reefers). The European Commissioner, Jo Borg, openly acknowledged in 2008 that French vessels had not reported their catches, while Italian vessels had exceeded their quota, in some cases by more than double. Spotter planes were also being used to locate shoals of tuna, a practice that was prohibited by ICCAT, and states were failing to report on the movements of their vessels. In 2007, tuna imports, reported to ICCAT by Japan, amounted to more than 32,000 mt when the quota for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean was less than 30,000 mt. Taken together, consumption and trade of tuna within European Mediterranean countries and the catch by the Japanese fleet, ICCAT scientists estimated that the total catch for 2007 may have amounted to 61,000 mt.

Such rampant overfishing has been encouraged by a failure to limit access to blue fin tuna fisheries with a result of massive over-capacity in European and other fishing fleets.

Such rampant overfishing has been encouraged by a failure to limit access to blue fin tuna fisheries with a result of massive over-capacity in European and other fishing fleets in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic.

The growth in fishing is, of course, driven by growing demand for variety with the affluent, health conscious population the world over embracing fish and Japanese sushi, in which Atlantic blue fin tuna is a prized item.

Following the Second World War distant-water fishing fleets, including that of Japan rapidly expanded across the globe and fished for large predatory species such as tuna, marlin and sharks. Now industrial corporations are involved in the transport and trade of tuna from all around the world. The Mitsubishi Corporation is responsible for 40-45 percent of the trade in Mediterranean tuna and holds significant stakes in the international companies that both fish, ranch, transport and sell tuna from the Mediterranean and elsewhere. Mitsubishi is now supporting new catch certification schemes and other conservation measures for Atlantic blue fin tuna. However, there has been speculation that tuna are being frozen in anticipation of future price rises and that industry has, until recently, exerted a negative influence through its governments on negotiations at ICCAT regarding Atlantic blue fin tuna.

For the Atlantic blue fin tuna there is no place left to hide.

For the Atlantic blue fin tuna there is no place left to hide. Spawning and feeding aggregations of this magnificent species are vulnerable throughout their distributional range. Unless action is taken immediately it is likely that the species will largely disappear from the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. ICCAT has promised to “get tough” on compliance and has announced measures to reduce fleet capacity but it is too little, too late. Sadly, overfishing is driving other marine species into catastrophic decline and some, including several shark species, are also subject to CITES proposals to be discussed next week. The oceans were once incredibly rich in marine life, yet poor management may be costing fisheries $50 billion per year in terms of lost revenue. Those are the economic losses. But the losses in terms of ecosystem, biodiversity, and food security at a time when the human population on Earth is increasing dramatically are incalculable.

Dr. Alex David Rogers is Reader and Scientific Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (http://www.stateoftheocean.com).

Rights:Copyright © 2010 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization

BBNJ - Presentation of UN Resolution 61/105 Report

The International Programme on the State of the Ocean presented preliminary fundings of its soon to be published report, 'The Implementation of UN Resolution 61/105 in the Management of Deep-Sea Fisheries on the High Seas' at the third ad hoc informal working group meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (known as BBNJ), at the United Nations 1st – 5th February 2010.

The meeting was convened to study issues relating to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction.



Professor of Fisheries Biology emeritus, Richard Haedrich from the Department of Biology at Memorial University gave a presentation at a side event where a number of leading scientists spoke about the mapping of VMEs, high seas areas closed to bottom fishing, biogeographic classifications of deep-sea and open ocean ecosystems and options for conservation of biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions. Professor Haedrich gave an indication of how well RFMOs are implementing UN GA Resolutions 65/105 and 64/72 by citing research that shows that fish stocks are continuing to decline, impact assessments are varying in quality and quantity, closures are not being widely applied and are tending to reference sponges and corals only. The move-on rule was also discussed.' The report will be launched this spring.

Despatch from the Southern Ocean

Dr Alex Rogers post from Royal Research Ship James Cook

I’m in the Southern Ocean on the Royal Research Ship James Cook. The weather has been amazingly calm for a week, very unusual for this part of the ocean. Last year we had a tremendous storm here with swells of 15m. It’s cold, and during winter the ocean freezes as up to 15 million km2 of winter sea ice forms around the continent of Antarctica. An extreme environment but one where marine life can appear to be abundant to the point of exuberance. Over the last few days we have been surrounded by groups of noisy chinstrap penguins braying to each other and investigating our underwater vehicle when it returns to the surface from the deep. Giant petrels, ranging from a dirty grey or brown to almost pure snow white are gathered around the ship. Delicate blue-grey prions speed around the vessel almost constantly.

Photograph Dr Alex Rogers/IPSO

Most spectacular have been the whales. Humpback whales have visited us several times, swimming around the ship. Sticking their heads out of the water to observe the curious thing on the surface of the oceans, behaviour called spy-hopping. Lolling on their backs and sticking their flukes in the air. The day before we had probably fifty fin whales and other species pass us, all storming south no doubt to rich feeding grounds brimming with pink krill, a small shrimp that forms a critical link in the food chain from microscopic plants (phytoplankton) to whales, penguins and seals. Smaller minke whales have also been seen with distinctive white markings on their flanks, lunging out of the water chasing krill or fish.

Here you can really get a hint of just how bountiful the ocean was in times past. Amazingly I looking at a system that man has severely disturbed in the past. The large whales of the Antarctic were almost all reduced by hunting in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries to 5-10% of their pre-exploitation population sizes. Antarctic and sub-antarctic fur seals were hunted almost to extinction. Elephant seals were decimated with over 2 million taken from the Scotia Sea region alone. Even king penguins were killed for food and for their oil.

The exploitation did not stop there. In the 1960s and 1970s industrial fishing came to the Antarctic. The fisheries were not regulated and initial catches were huge, amounting to over 2 million tonnes by 1992 in the Atlantic sector of the Antarctic alone and about 3 million tonnes overall, not including fish taken by illegal fishing vessels after the establishment of the Convention for Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). Over the initial period of fishing, which occurred during my lifetime, Sub-Antarctic and Antarctic fish stocks were serially depleted and have never recovered. The ecosystem-wide impacts of removal of these fish on their predators, animals like elephant seals, fur seals and penguins is only just now being recognised by scientists. It may be the case that such unrestrained removal of Sub-Antarctic and Antarctic fish stocks have moved these ecosystems into a less stable state where climate change is likely to have far more profound effects on these predators than it would have in a healthy ecosystem.

One other effect of these fisheries has been the by-catch of albatrosses by Sub-Antarctic and Antarctic long liners. The birds are attracted to the baited hooks deployed by fishing vessels and become snared and drowned. As a result of this and other human pressures all of the albatross species we have seen during our trip are in trouble, even though in areas of the Southern Ocean, fishers have adapted their fishing methods to prevent this wasteful slaughter. Scientists estimate the level of danger of extinction of an animal through the Red List, maintained by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Under this system wandering and grey-headed albatross are classified as Vulnerable, light mantled sooty albatross as Near Threatened and sooty and black-browed albatrosses as Endangered with extinction.

So, I can only stand here and marvel at the spectacular sites the Southern Ocean still has to offer. However, I do it in the full knowledge that 200-300 years ago this ocean hosted a spectacular abundance of life and is now a shadow of its former self. I cannot perceive what it must have been like, the baseline has truly shifted, the ecosystem has become less stable. What the future holds for Antarctica is uncertain yet this is still perceived by many people as a near-pristine environment in comparison to the oceans elsewhere. This is truly a concern, the oceans are part of the life-support system for the entire planet and we, like almost all other life, are dependent on them.

"...The belief among scientists is that the window of opportunity to take action is narrow. There is little time left in which we can still act to prevent irreversible, catastrophic changes to marine ecosystems as we see them today. "

New scientific methods are emerging that enable us to understand the Ocean in ways we have never done before.

We are able to open up a new understanding of how humankind impacts on the Ocean, how the stresses exerted upon it can be alleviated to restore Ocean health, and the consequences of a failure to do so...."

Dr Alex D Rogers
Scientific Director
IPSO