THE UNEP LARGE MARINE ECOSYSTEMS REPORT A PERSPECTIVE ON CHANGING CONDITIONS IN LMES OF THE WORLD’S REGIONAL SEAS ii This report may be cited as: Sherman, K. and Hempel, G. (Editors) 2009. The UNEP Large Marine Ecosystem Report: A perspective on changing conditions in LMEs of the world’s Regional Seas. UNEP Regional Seas Report and Studies No. 182. United Nations Environment Programme. Nairobi, Kenya. 2nd printing Bound and printed in the United States DEP/089I/HA ISBN 978-92080702773-9 iii A Message from the Executive Director of UNEP The world’s 64 Large Marine Ecosystems are as much economic as they are environmental assets contributing around 12 trillion dollars annually to the global economy. Increasingly the management of these assets is beginning to reflect that importance. Combined efforts among coastal countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and eastern Europe are now contributing to assessment and management actions aimed at tackling coastal pollution, restoration of degraded habitats, and recovery of depleted fish stocks. They have been joined by United Nations agencies, the Global Environment Facility, and a growing number of northern hemisphere countries and principle stakeholders in fish and fisheries, coastal transportation, tourism, gas and oil production, and diamond and mineral extraction operations. The effort to reverse the degraded status of LMEs will take time, well-focused and creative policies and funding. However it is clear that with the financial assistance of the GEF and in partnership with the UN the effort has begun, especially among the economically developing nations. The work reflects the targets put forward at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 to achieve substantial reductions in land- based sources of pollution; introduce an ecosystems approach to marine resource assessment and management by 2010; designate a network of marine protected areas by 2012 and restore and maintain fish stocks to maximum sustainable yield levels by 2015. UNEP is among several agencies and donors assisting developing countries to achieve these targets. Climate change adds new urgency to this effort. Indeed the original findings in this report have been up-dated to reflect new findings showing that in many of the LMEs warming is proceeding at two to three times the global rate. Some of this most rapid warming is being witnessed in northeastern North Atlantic and around Europe and in the East Asian seas. Pollution, such as high levels of nutrients coming from the land and the air, may be aggravating the effect. So we must not only secure a deep and decisive climate regime post 2012 but also tackle the wider sustainability issues to ensure the abundant productivity of not only LMEs but the Regional Seas and oceans in general for this and future generations. Achim Steiner,UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director iv v A Message from the Chief Executive Officer, GEF We live on the land yet we often forget the sea. We forget that 70% of our planet is made up of coastal and marine ecosystems and that our coastal economies depend on these ecosystems to generate sustainable communities. Many do not know that more than half of the carbon sequestered on the planet is attributed to marine ecosystems; our planet’s temperature is regulated by the oceans. We take them for granted as we do the fact that international trade in coastal and marine fisheries is a $70 billion a year business that drives coastal economies. While we tend to focus on a plethora of terrestrial environmental problems over the last 35 years, we have neglected coastal and marine water pollution. The Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) of our planet that span the continental shelves and enclosed marine waters are warming, over-fished, and becoming ever more degraded with nitrogen. This book represents the first attempt at establishing the baseline environmental conditions of the world’s LMEs and comes from a partnership among the United Nations Environment Programme, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, and the Global Environment Facility. Eighty percent of marine capture fisheries are taken in these LMEs where billions of people reside in coastal areas. The satellite-based time series of warming of LMEs presented in this baseline assessment presents a stark picture. The trend of over-fishing of valuable and less desirable species of fish based on many decades of data from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the University of British Columbia’s Sea Around Us Project shows vast depletion of species in many LMEs to the point of overexploitation and collapse. The authors also found there is an increased trend expected for nitrogen pollution from land-based sources—this promises to create more dead zones of oxygen depletion and hazardous algal blooms that threaten human, ecosystem, and economic health. We at the Global Environment Facility hope that the release of this global assessment will call attention to the degraded state of many coasts and marine waters as well as the high risk that human behavior is placing on loss of perhaps trillions of dollars of annual goods and services. We need to stop taking these precious resources for granted. Monique Barbut, CEO Global Environment Facility vi vii A Message from the Director of the Environment & Energy Group, UNDP Climate change is a critical global issue. Without action, climate change could negate decades of development progress and undermine efforts for advancing sustainable development. As the UN’s global development network, UNDP recognizes that climate change calls for a new development paradigm—a paradigm that mainstreams climate change into development planning at all levels, links development policies with the financing of solutions and helps countries move toward less carbon intensive sustainable economies. The integrity of all 64 of the World’s LMEs and the livelihoods of billions of people that depend upon them are under threat not only from climate change, but also from overfishing, toxic pollution, nutrient over-enrichment, invasive species, habitat degradation, and biodiversity loss. The large majority of these LMEs are shared by two or more countries, underscoring the need for regional cooperation to advance sustainable LME management. The UNDP Environment and Energy Group is pleased to partner with the Global Environment Facility, UNEP, and other UN agencies and US-NOAA in providing capacity building, scientific and technical assistance to over 75 developing countries executing ten Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) projects in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Through these and other projects, UNDP also provides technical support to strengthen the capacities of coastal developing countries bordering LMEs to adapt to the effects of climate change on vital LME resources. A firm scientific basis is essential in developing options for mitigating and adaptive actions during the present period of global warming. This volume presents, for the first time, an intercomparable global baseline of information at the LME management scale of changing states of productivity, fish and fisheries, pollution and ecosystem health, and socioeconomic and governance conditions. The information presented provides a clear assessment of the global extent of overfishing, nutrient overenrichment, habitat loss, and the progressive warming rates of surface water in LMEs around the globe, against which the success of climate change mitigation and adaptive actions to advance sustainable development of marine goods and services can be measured. UNDP welcomes this volume as a key contribution to improving global knowledge and understanding of LMEs, their significant economic value, and the principal threats to LME sustainability including climate change. Through the continued cooperative efforts of a growing number of countries that have initiated joint LME management programmes and support from the international community, these vital environmental and economic assets can be sustained for future generations. Veerle Vandeweerd, Environment & Energy Group, UNDP viii ix The UNEP Large Marine Ecosystems Report A Perspective on Changing Conditions in LMEs of the World’s Regional Seas Edited by Kenneth Sherman Director, Narragansett Laboratory and Office of Marine Ecosystem Studies, NOAA-NMFS, Northeast Fisheries Science Center Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA Adjunct Professor of Oceanography, Graduate School of Oceanography University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, RI, USA Adjunct Professor, School of Marine Science and Technology, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Gotthilf Hempel Science Advisor, Senate of Bremen, Germany Professor emeritus, Bremen and Kiel Universities Director, Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven until 1992 Director, Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, Bremen until 2000 Director, Institute for Baltic Research, Rostock until 1997 x