Marine life everyone's responsibility

Global Marine Biological Diversity: Strategy For Building Conservation into Decision Making, By Elliot A. Norse Published by Island Press, Washington, DC; 383 pages, 1993.

JAKARTA (JP): So far attention to the loss of biological diversity has been focused on land, the world's tropical rain forests in particular.

These ecosystems are exceptionally rich in species and are indeed endangered, but there are many other things that should not go unnoticed. A recent research suggests conservation of marine biological diversity demands special attention.

Conserving biological diversity of the sea has been even more neglected than that on the land, yet the sea is rich in genetic, species and ecosystem diversity.

It indicates that our biological diversity is decreasing sharply and our planetary metabolism is being pushed even further out of equilibrium.

Under the initiative of the Center for Marine Conservation (CMC), along with a large group of international organizations, a document named Global Diversity Strategy (GDS) was released in l989 in order to safeguard the planet earth.

The GDS identifies three ways of conserving life on Earth: protecting, analyzing, and using biological diversity in a sustainable way. The GDS does not provide necessary guidelines or strategies on how to implement the distinctive conservation needs of life in oceans, coastal waters, or estuaries.

As a result, in 1993 CMC, supported by the World Conservation Union (WCU), World Wild Fund (WWF), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the World Bank as co-sponsor, published a book Global Marine Biological Diversity: A strategy for Building Conservation into Decision Making (Shortly called The Strategy) as a complementary document to the GDS.

The Strategy differs from the GDS as in it contains more detailed background information (Chapters 1 through 8) and less specific descriptions.

The Strategy emerges from a basic understanding that most of the world's inhabitants benefit from marine products. Everyone depends on ecological services from the sea, and everyone affects the existence of the sea.

Therefore everybody shares the responsibility for saving marine biodiversity. The target audience of The Strategy is basically governments, international agencies, industries, and citizens' groups whom are all responsible for protecting marine life (p.187).

At first the need for marine conservation might seem strange. Humans are terrestrial creatures. Humans do not yet live beneath the waves.

Although men do not belong to any marine species, we are very much a part of the marine web for we consume huge amounts of marine products.

To point a figure, the global catch of fish, crustaceans and mollusks in 1989 totaled 99.5 million metric tons, according to data from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The marine territory provides products and services that are important to mankind.

Coral reef and mangrove forests produce bulwarks that protect coastal communities along many low-lying tropical coasts against any environmental damage.

The Strategy reveals the major differences between the conservation management applied to sea and land. However some land conservation programs can be applied to conserve the marine area as well.

The sea, like the land, is a complex patchwork of physical environments that are occupied by different communities of species.

As on land, some marine species and ecosystems are of special concern to humans. Marine biological diversity is being reduced at all levels, through selection against certain genetic attributes, elimination of populations, and simplification of ecosystems. The same processes that are happening on land.

Presence of an adequate reference or complete document is a must. This kind of document can be used by the policy makers as the basic strategy for formulating regulations concerning conservation of the marine territory.

Having better information about populations, species and ecosystems is essential, but not sufficient.

The Strategy is not a provocative book. As a complementary document to the GDS this book offers a comprehensive summary of necessary background information (p.3-8). It examines the diversity of life in the sea and its importance to humankind (p.9-36), the similarities and differences between conservation on land and in the sea (p.37-86), and the threats to marine biodiversity (p.87-154).

It also contains strategies to achieve that goal, an examination of tools available for conservation and management, and a candid look at the strengths and weakness of some existing efforts.

Finally, it provides a set of concrete recommendations for actions that can be accomplished in the coming decade at local, national and international levels(p.281-306) making the book a multi-purpose resource.

The main purpose of the book itself is, as the editor says in the executive summary, to provide up-to-date information and the wisdom of world experts to leaders and managers in governments, industries, international governmental organizations, and non- governmental organizations who are responsible for saving, studying and using the great potency of marine life (p.xxvii).

Elliot A. Norse, the editor, is a marine and forest conservation biologist, and was a Staff Ecologist at the White House Council on Environmental Quality during President Carter's Administration.

His other books include Conserving Biological Diversity in Our National Forests (1986) and Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest (1990).

The only visual lack of the book is perhaps its hand-drawn illustrations. Although all pictures illustrated by Jill Perry Townsend are clearly "speaking" enough, the addition of sea- world photographs would make the book more readable and interesting.

-- Asmoro H. Hani