THE OCEANOGRAPHY COURSE TEAM Authors Joan Brown Angela Colling Dave Park John Phillips Dave Rothery John Wright Editor Gerry Bearman Design and Illustration Sue Dobson Ray Munns Ros Porter Jane Sheppard This Volume forms part of an Open University course. For general availability of all the Volumes in the Oceanography Series, please contact your regular supplier, or in case of difficulty the appropriate Pergamon office. Further information on Open University courses may be obtained from: The Admissions Office, The Open University, P.O. Box 48, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA. Cover illustration : Satellite photograph showing distribution of phytoplankton pigments in the North Atlantic off the US coast in the region of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current. (NASA and O. Brown and R. Evans, University of Miami.) CASE STUDIES IN OCEANOGRAPHY AND MARINE AFFAIRS PREPARED BY AN OPEN UNIVERSITY COURSE TEAM PERGAMON PRESS OXFORD · NEW YORK · SEOUL · TOKYO in association with TheOren THE 0PEN UNIVERSITY lito&Ry WALTON HALL, MILTON KEYNES MK7 6AA, ENGLAND U.K. Pergamon Press pic, Headington Hill Hall, Oxford OX3 OBW, England U.S.A. Pergamon Press, Inc., Maxwell House, Fairview Park, Elmsford, New York 10523, U.S.A. PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC Maxwell Pergamon China, Beijing Exhibition Centre, OF CHINA Xizhimenwai Dajie, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China KOREA Pergamon Press Korea, KPO Box 315, Seoul 110-603, Korea JAPAN Pergamon Press, 5th Floor, Matsuoka Central Building, 1-7-1 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160, Japan Copyright © 1991 The Open University. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holders. First edition 1991 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Case studies in oceanography and marine affairs/prepared by an Open University Course Team.—1st ed. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Oceanography. 2. Marine resources. 3. Maritime law. I. Open University. Oceanography Course Team. GC11.2.C37 1991 551.46-<lc20 91-16914 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Case studies in oceanography and marine studies. (Open University Oceanography) I. Open University II. Series 551.46 ISBN 008 036376 8 (Hardcover) ISBN 008 036375 X (Flexicover) Jointly published by the Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA and Pergamon Press pic, Headington Hill Hall, Oxford OX3 OBW. Designed by the Graphic Design Group of The Open University. Printed in Great Britain by BPCC Wheatons Ltd, Exeter ABOUT THIS VOLUME This is one of a Series of Volumes on Oceanography. It is designed so that it can be read on its own, like any other textbook, or studied as part of S330 Oceanography, a third level course for Open University students. The science of oceanography as a whole is multidisciplinary. This Volume differs from others in the Series in that it does not draw specifically upon any one or other of the 'traditional' scientific disciplines. The first part outlines the international legal framework within which marine affairs are (or should be) conducted. The second part consists of two case studies illustrating the legal and/or multidisciplinary scientific aspects of selected océanographie environments. Chapter 1 summarizes the many ways in which the seas and oceans constitute a global resource that must be properly managed if conflicts of interest and use are to be reconciled, and if lasting damage to marine ecosystems is to be avoided. Chapter 2 describes the long and tangled history of attempts to establish a legal system (a Law of the Sea), whereby marine affairs may be managed for the -benefit of all. It takes us up to the late 1970s. Chapter 3 outlines the evolution of the present international legal regime, through the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Chapter 4 is concerned with the Arctic Ocean, much of which is permanently covered with ice. The geographical setting of the Arctic Ocean, and its importance to the Inuit, the indigenous people, mean that perceptions of 'who owns what' have developed in an unusual way. Until relatively recently, there seemed to be no pressing need for the legal situation regarding the waters and sea-bed of the Arctic to be clarified; however, as its sub-sea resources have become increasingly valuable and techniques of exploration and exploitation have improved, all this has changed. Taking hydrocarbons as our main example, we look at the practical difficulties of extraction and transportation and at the associated legal issues, particularly regarding rights of passage.' Finally, we consider how global warming could transform the navigability of Arctic waters and hence perhaps also their legal status. The Galapagos Islands, discussed in Chapter 5, are famous for their peculiar endemic flora and fauna, both terrestrial and marine. These are largely the result of the islands' océanographie setting, far from land and in the seasonally changing current system of the eastern equatorial Pacific. The Galapagos Islands also experience dramatic interannual changes: their equatorial position means that they are hit hard by the climatic perturbation known as El Nino. We look briefly at how the marine flora and fauna of the islands were affected by the particularly severe El Nino of 1982-83, and see how technically uplifted massive corals provide an insight into past climatic conditions. Since 1986-87, the marine life of the Galapagos has been to some extent protected through being in a marine nature reserve. We look at how this reserve came to be set up, and its role as a marine resources reserve rather than simply as a conservation area. You will find questions designed to help you to develop arguments and/or to test your own understanding as you read, with answers provided at the back of this Volume. Important technical terms are 5 printed in bold type where they are first introduced and defined. Note, however, that several of these terms are defined in previous Volumes in the Series and may not necessarily be redefined here. While reading this Volume, and Chapters 1 to 3 in particular, you should bear the following points in mind: 1 In international negotiations, treaties, agreements, etc., relating to the Law of the Sea, the unit of lateral distance employed is the nautical mile and the unit employed for depth is usually the metre. This hybrid system has been adopted in this Volume because to do otherwise would (a) create problems in quoting from the original documents and (b) destroy the conventional whole-number system of maritime limits (e.g. the 12 (nautical)-mile limit would become the 22.224-km limit, or, at best, the 22.2-km limit). The term 'nautical mile' is generally abbreviated to 'mile'; in other words, 'mile' should always be understood to refer to the nautical mile and not to the shorter statute mile used on land. Where the abbreviation 'm' is used, it refers to metres and not to miles. The (nautical) mile used here is the International Nautical Mile, the primary numerical definition of which is 1.852 km. The UK nautical mile {not used here) is slightly longer, being defined numerically as 6 080 feet, which converts to 1.853 km. Note also that 1° latitude = 60 International Nautical Miles. 2 Unless otherwise stated in a specific context, the information in Chapters 2 and 3 on Law of the Sea refers to the legal position during peacetime. In wartime, the rules of international law, however widely agreed and accepted beforehand, are liable to be ignored. CHAPTER 1 I MARINE RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 'Running through the web of English history one perceives the connecting thread of maritime interest and occupation interwoven with the national life, and at all times affecting the national policy The sea must be 'kept.' That has been the maxim and watchword of national policy throughout the ages....' T.W. Fulton (1911) The Sovereignty of the Sea, Blackwood & Sons. This introductory Chapter seeks to provide a general survey of those properties of the sea that make it a resource—something of material value to humanity. The term 'resource' is applied in the broadest sense, to include any use to which the sea is put—activities such as navigation, waste disposal and research as well as the more conventional resources like fisheries and sea-bed minerals. The management of marine resources and activities has become increasingly complex as new technologies have developed and new nations have appeared—especially in the decades following World War II. Protection of the marine environment is now a matter of global concern. 1.1 THE SEA ITSELF The largest and most 'intangible' resource is the sea itself. What we may call marine space and its influence upon cultural and national identities and attitudes have provided much material for political geographers. Is it better to be an island, a coastal state or a land-locked state? The question can be endlessly debated, especially when you consider the extremes: the concentration of land-locked states in Africa with no direct access to marine resources on the one hand; and on the other, the island states of the Pacific, which have large marine resource potentials but inadequate economic bases to develop them independently. In the space of a few decades, the relationship between the developed countries and the less developed countries has undergone a transformation. For one thing there are now many more of the latter, so that in international bodies such as the United Nations they can easily outvote the developed countries. Secondly, the growing desire of many less developed countries to industrialize has focused attention on the importance of both physical and biological resources and hence strengthened the determination of such nations to bargain over the resources available. A nation's shoreline length, and hence the area of coastal sea over which it can legitimately claim some jurisdiction (the territorial sea, defined in Chapter 2), bears no relation to the area of the country, its population or its needs, however defined. Moreover, two countries with equal-length shorelines could well, and often do, find themselves with quite different resource potentials. A strong feeling has developed among the less developed nations that an attempt should be made to iron out some of these inequalities by ensuring that the poorer countries receive some 7 financial benefit from the resources of the deep oceans. Moreover, the less developed countries now have more power to back up this view, partly because of their voting strength at the United Nations, partly because some of them have resources of their own that are required by the developed nations, and partly because of a more sympathetic attitude generally towards the reduction of economic differentials between states. In short, marine 'space' by itself is of little consequence to any nation unless it can be put to some use, even if only as a protective barrier. And the sea has many more uses than that. 1.1.1 TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS Sea-going ships probably evolved from river craft of the earliest civilizations (Figure 1.1). Probably the earliest known economy based on seaborne trade was that of Minoan Crete, which became established between about 1700 and 1400 BC. Mycenaeans, Phoenicians, Greeks and Figure 1.1 Excavated and re-assembled model of a funeral ship of the Pharaoh Cheops, buried alongside the pyramid at Giza, a 2600 BC. It is a ceremonial version of river craft commonly in use at that time. Romans subsequently increased the scale of marine trading (and warfare) throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. Similar activities were in progress during approximately the same period in the western Pacific. Maritime trade has played a large part in establishing the political geography of the world that we know today. In fact, the boundaries of many of the world's greatest empires were established in lands discovered by mariners in great feats of endurance and navigation. Technological advance has not diminished the importance of seaborne trade—rather the reverse, if anything, especially for bulk commodities such as petroleum, coal, iron ore, grain, and fruit, to name but a few. Between 1945 and the 1980s, total world-wide seaborne tonnage increased from around 500 million tonnes to ten times that amount. Air travel has led to a drastic reduction in maritime passenger traffic since 1945, but air transport remains uncompetitive for bulk cargo. Military use Warships have been a part of the oceanic scene for thousands of years, but maritime warfare entered a new phase with the development of the submarine, the first effective use of which was in the American Civil War. An even more significant development took place in 1955 with the introduction of the nuclear-powered submarine, able to stay submerged for long periods. Such a submarine can rest on the sea-bed for many months without refuelling or surfacing. Mishaps to such submarines in deep waters is a cause for concern, because speedy recovery is difficult, if not impossible. The loss of a Soviet nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea in 1989 brought the known number of nuclear power plants lost on the sea-bed to ten. There is danger of radioactive contamination of the marine environment, though this is more localized than that caused by the testing of nuclear weapons during the 1950s and 1960s. More recently, the oceans provided a useful area of open space over which to test ballistic missiles. Submarine cables Submarine electric telegraphy was first discussed as a theoretical possibility in 1795, although its practical implementation had to await the discovery of a material (gutta-percha) suitable for insulating conducting cable against chemical attack and the penetration of water. Experiments were carried out with cables laid under the Rhine in 1847, under Kiel Harbour in 1848 and under part of the English Channel in 1849. The first commercial cable was laid on the bed of the Channel between Dover and Calais in 1850, but it had a useful life of only a few hours because of breakage. A second cross-Channel cable was more successful and was opened for public use in 1851. The first Atlantic cable was laid between Ireland and Newfoundland in 1857-58 but only lasted for 2\ months and 732 messages. The second, laid in 1866 by Brunei's Great Eastern (Figure 1.2), was more successful. Since then, all the world's seas and oceans have been crossed by telegraph, and later telephone cables. Rubbish and sunken vessels apart, cables were the first permanent artefacts on the sea-bed and thus represented the first major new use of the oceans for thousands of years. Their importance for communications has declined with the development of satellite technologies, but submarine cables will continue to have their 9 A DESIGNED AMD CONSTRUCTED 8Y SCOTT RUSSElL, ESQ.,■-- ENGIMEER, I. K. BRUMEL, ESQ., F.R.S. Figure 1.2 The Great Eastern, Isambard Kingdom uses, both for the transmission of electrical power (e.g. between France Brunei's 'great iron ship', from which the Atlantic d the United Kingdom) and for communication (a fibre optic an telegraph cable was laid in 1866. telephone link between the United Kingdom and North America was laid in the early 1990s). 1.2 LIVING RESOURCES Fishing is probably humanity's oldest marine activity, and is still one of the most important. We use many types of marine plants and animals, mainly for food but also for other materials such as oils and pharmaceuticals. The kinds of animals caught for food in any one region will depend on their availability and the demand for them, which used to be governed primarily by such factors as regional taste and the extent of other food resources, but is now commonly influenced by the size of the export market. Along shores and in some estuaries and coastal waters, certain molluscs (e.g. scallops, clams, cockles, mussels and oysters) and crustaceans (e.g. lobsters, crabs, prawns and shrimps) provide limited but lucrative catches. Most of these live in the intertidal zone or on the sea-bed, and may be gathered by hand or caught in baited traps. Some molluscs (e.g. mussels and oysters) grow attached to solid surfaces, and can therefore be grown on long lines or moveable frames and easily collected (Figure 1.3(a),(b)). Also, fish farming of high value species has increased greatly since the 1970s (Figure 1.3(c)). 10 (a) Figure 1.3 Aquaculture (mariculture) in Loch Etive, Scotland, (a) and (b) mussel farming using a long-line system; (c) fish enclosures for salmon farming. (c) Fish are most abundant and accessible in continental shelf seas and shallow coastal waters (Figure 1.4). Those that spend most of their time near the bottom are termed demersal fish and may be round (e.g. cod, haddock) or flat (e.g. sole, halibut). Those that spend at least some time near the surface (e.g. anchovy, herring, mackerel, tuna, sardines) are called pelagic fish. 1.2.1 FISHING METHODS Fish are caught in many ways. Otter or beam trawls are commonly used for cod and plaice, which tend to escape upwards when disturbed, and are trapped because the upper edge of the mouth of the net is trawled in advance of the lower part. Purse-seine nets are often used to take those pelagic fish that form shoals, such as herring (Figure 1.5). Also used for this purpose are drift nets, which just hang from floats and may be up