Marine sustainability faces many challenges, according to a new report, “Marine Sustainability in an Age of Changing Oceans and Seas,” published by the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC). The report looks at a number of aspects for sustainable development in changing oceans and seas, and highlights the key scientific challenges in addressing those issues.
The report presents recommendations for policy development with five main messages to the European Union:
1. Marine sustainability requires ecosystem-based management of human use of the sea. This management must be rooted in an integrated scientific understanding of marine species and habitats, their functions in marine ecosystems, and the ecological connections between different sea areas. The European Union already supports such an approach in theory. However, policymakers must develop their policies in the context of scientific uncertainties, support efforts to develop improve integrated knowledge and capacities, and be ready to adapt policies in the light of new science.
2. Policymakers and scientists need to work together to define what level of human use and disturbance is sustainable and apply this to managing the marine uses of the sea. Policies for new and increasing marine uses need to be informed by on-going analysis of the impacts of different policy options, assessing environmental costs and uncertainties. This is especially true for deep-sea mining and marine renewable energy development, whose effects on the marine ecosystem are not fully known.
3. The need to feed growing human populations will require a shift to more ecologically efficient harvest of seafood. We need to learn more about ecologically efficient aquaculture. It will also be essential to explore shifting the harvesting of seafood from predatory fish to lower levels in the food chain, more akin to those currently harvested on land. This will be critical in the revision of the European Common Fisheries policy.
4. Systems for monitoring and observing the marine environment need to be expanded to include wider and more varied range of biological observations. This monitoring will be especially important at key sites such as marine protected areas and in the deep oceans supported by improved data infrastructures.
5. EASAC calls for the establishment of a virtual European Marine University. This university will help to network and harmonise graduate training in integrated marine science. It would be part of a drive to train marine scientists capable of meeting the challenges of integrated ecosystem understanding.