Plan to Save the Oceans

The world has made lacklustre progress in meeting most of the commitments it made 20 years ago to safeguard the oceans, says a report. At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, agreements were made on issues such as sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, capacity building, and biodiversity; later, the Johannesburg Summit in 2002 in South Africa set targets and timetables to achieve those goals.

But a report entitled Oceans at Rio+20 has rated both the effort and the achievements to date in protecting oceans and meeting these commitments as 'low to medium'. Meanwhile a separate, UN report says that at least 40 per cent of the global oceans are 'heavily affected' by human activities and that 60 per cent of the world's major marine ecosystems have been degraded or are being used unsustainably. It makes ten proposals for improvement. Oceans at Rio+20 calls for a string of actions, including more scientific research and capacity building in small island states, to try to tackle the problems. Read more Environment Clean Generations