Just after 3 a.m. on a recent Friday morning, a 4.5-foot-long leatherback sea turtle covered her freshly dug nest with sand, sweeping and packing it into place with steady strokes of her flippers just above the high tide along a remote, rugged stretch of Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

Nearby, a team of scientists watched the turtle’s every movement, using brief pauses between her motions to carry out their own work: attaching an electronic tracking device, known as a satellite tag, to the animal’s leathery carapace.

“We just satellite-tagged the first leatherback sea turtle in all of Ecuador,” said Callie Veelenturf, a marine biologist from Massachusetts and co-founder of The Leatherback Project, a global sea turtle conservation non-profit. Veelenturf co-led the tagging effort alongside Kerly Briones Cedeño, president and director general of Fundación Reina Laúd, a volunteer-run conservation group in Ecuador that monitors sea turtle nesting habitat.

The milestone marks a new step toward better understanding one of the most endangered marine species in the world and the threats it faces. Eastern Pacific leatherbacks – a distinct population of the world’s largest sea turtle – have declined by more than 90% since the 1980s.

“There are likely less than 1,000 individuals left,” Veelenturf said.

Satellite tagging has long been used to study leatherbacks by tracking where they forage, mate and nest. But most of that work, Veelenturf said, has taken place in Mexico and Costa Rica, where the largest nesting populations have historically been concentrated. That’s left major gaps in understanding how the species uses waters farther south.

“We know very little about how they use coastal waters in the East Pacific and specifically in Ecuador,” Veelenturf said.

What is known, Veelenturf said, is that these endangered turtles face a gauntlet of threats off the Pacific coast, primarily posed by fishing activity.

Ecuador hosts one of the largest artisanal fishing fleets in the eastern tropical Pacific, with tens of thousands of small-scale boats – typically fibreglass or wooden vessels operated by individual fishers. Large-mesh gill nets, widely used by these fleets, pose the greatest risk to sea turtles, which can become entangled in the gear and drown. Sharks, rays, whales, dolphins and seabirds are at risk too.

A 2020 study published in Scientific Reports by the Eastern Pacific Leatherback Conservation Network – also known as Red Laúd OPO – found that Eastern Pacific leatherbacks could disappear by 2060 without concerted efforts to reduce their incidental capture in fishing gear.

In January, Briones Cedeño saw those impacts firsthand. While monitoring a known leatherback nesting beach, she encountered a dead female she recognized as one that had laid several nests earlier in the season.

“We were expecting her fifth nest,” she said. The turtle showed signs of asphyxiation from drowning, she said, likely caused by getting caught in fishing gear. “We presume that she died due to the issue of bycatch fisheries,” she said. “Perhaps if we had tagged her, we would have known she was passing nearby, or perhaps we could have rescued her.”

But preventing these types of deaths requires a clear picture of how leatherbacks move through Ecuador’s waters and the rest of the eastern tropical Pacific region, Veelenturf said. “Understanding the overlap between artisanal, semi-industrial and industrial fishing activities with the leatherback habitat use is just so important,” she said. “If we don’t understand where they’re going and what their diving behaviour is like, for example, we can’t really know how to best protect them.”

Satellite tagging offers one of the clearest ways to answer those questions.

By outfitting the turtle with a satellite tag that transmits its location each time it surfaces to breathe, researchers can now follow the animal in near real time through an online platform developed by Wildlife Computers, a company in Washington State that specializes in tracking marine life.

The tag Veelenturf’s team used, also created by that company, records detailed dive data, too, offering insight into not only how the turtle moves through coastal waters and the open ocean where leatherbacks spend most of their lives, but also how deep they swim.

Because leatherbacks can dive thousands of feet below the surface, protecting them requires not only knowing where they are, but also how their behaviour may overlap with fishing gear set at different depths.

Over the past seven years, Veelenturf has led a long-term leatherback tagging program along the Atlantic coasts of Panama and Colombia, where her team fitted 24 nesting females with satellite transmitters. The resulting data has helped identify critical habitats, show migratory pathways and inform conservation strategies, particularly in areas where proposed coastal development projects, such as ports, may threaten the species.

Now, in Ecuador, Veelenturf hopes similar data can be used to pinpoint where turtles face the most risks and collaborate with local communities to mitigate them by altering fishing gear or establishing marine protected areas where certain human activities would be limited or prohibited.

Satellite tracking can help researchers focus those conservation efforts by identifying specific stretches of coastline or offshore waters where turtles are most vulnerable, as well as the times of year when risk is highest based on migration, nesting or mating patterns, said Bryan Wallace, a wildlife ecologist and co-coordinator of the Eastern Pacific Leatherback Turtle Conservation Network. That kind of precision can make conservation efforts more targeted and effective, he said.

But getting that data is not easy.

Satellite tags are expensive and not always accessible for local communities running entirely volunteer-led conservation operations like Fundación Reina Laúd, Briones Cedeño said. One satellite tag can cost up to $5,000, said Veelenturf, who received a grant from the National Geographic Society to tag 10 leatherbacks in the region in order to understand their habitat use.

The tagging process itself is also time- and labour-intensive.

First, conservationists must find a turtle. And unlike the well-known nesting beaches in Mexico and Costa Rica, leatherback nesting in Ecuador is sporadic.

It took 14 people four days of patrolling more than six miles of remote coastline – by foot, motorcycle and boat – before the team finally located a nesting turtle they could tag earlier this month. The encounter happened on Pajonal Beach, a rugged stretch of shoreline about 5.5 miles south of Bahia de Caraquez, bordered by steep jungle-covered cliffs and the Pacific Ocean.

Veelenturf had hoped to find the turtle while she was laying her eggs – a stage when sea turtles enter a trance-like state and are largely unresponsive. But by the time the team arrived, the leatherback was already covering her nest.

Working in near darkness, illuminated only by their red-light headlamps, the team moved carefully, timing each of their actions to coincide with the turtle’s natural pauses so as not to disrupt her.

“Every time she stopped and exhaled, I would do a next step,” Veelenturf said.

First, they sanitized a small area of the turtle’s shell where they planned to attach the satellite tag – a small, box-shaped electronic device fitted with an antenna designed to break through the water’s surface each time the turtle comes up to breathe over the next two years.

Then they anchored the tag to the raised ridge of the turtle’s soft carapace by drilling two small holes through it, threading small tubes that serve as fasteners for the device. A quick-setting epoxy was also moulded to serve as a secure base for the equipment, helping hold it in place.

Once the tag was attached, the team stepped back and watched as the turtle shuffled its way back toward the ocean.

They called her Lucero, a Spanish word that in English means “morning star.”

“Naming her Lucero is deeply meaningful to us,” said Briones Cedeño. “Just as the morning star guides those who navigate the ocean, this turtle will help guide our understanding of leatherback movements and the future of their conservation in Ecuador and across the East Pacific.”

Teresa Tomassoni is an environmental journalist covering the intersections between oceans, climate change, coastal communities and wildlife for Inside Climate News.

The post Scientists enlist sea turtles to fill gaps in ocean knowledge appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Since 1990, we have lost 90% of large fish, such as sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlin, groupers and cod, according to scientists in the Future of Marine Animal Populations program. Using highly sophisticated equipment, fishing fleets have taken so much life from the ocean over the years. We are the ultimate predator, attacking prey in the ocean at up to 14 times the rate of other predators.  

On December 19, governments from 188 countries reached an agreement at COP15 in Montreal to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030. While this is a significant achievement, given negotiators were at loggerheads a few days earlier, this is just the beginning of efforts to restore and protect our oceans. Here are seven ways governments can ensure that life in the world’s oceans can thrive.  

1. Put 30% target into action

The great thing about marine areas that exclude all fishing, dredging and bottom-trawling is how abundant they become with life. Nature bounces back quickly. A 2018 meta-analysis shows that compared to non-protected waters, such reserves have six times more biomass of fish and 15 times more sharks. Marine organisms are also reportedly 28% bigger.  

Protected areas seed the nearby ocean with increased fish and biodiversity, making life easier for local fishers. They become the mothers of ocean abundance, just as large old trees become the mother trees of the forest. In the Caribbean, when marine reserves closed 35% of St. Lucia’s waters, National Geographic’s Pristine Seas project reports that within five years fish catches around the reserve increased by between 45% and 90%. When Cabo Pulmo in the Gulf of California, Mexico, became a no-take marine park, the village became a tourism and diving mecca and the adjacent waters saw a 463% increase in marine biomass within 10 years.  

The goal that negotiators agreed to at COP15 (to protect 30% by 2030)  is a scientific target, not a political one. And it’s one that will take meaningful, swift action to reach. Only 2.7% of the world’s oceans is highly protected, according to a 2021 study. Less than 1% of Canada’s territorial waters are highly protected from fishing, according to the Marine Conservation Insitute. But the federal government said last summer it had protected 10% of its marine and coastal territory. 

2. Appreciate the economics of marine reserves

Fishing communities tend to start with the assumption that creating a marine reserve will destroy their livelihoods, but the data might surprise them. In the Cabo Pulmo marine reserve in Mexico, the spectacular recovery and a flourishing diving industry has made the local community quite wealthy. Off Australia, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has generated 36 times more revenue than was previously gained from commercial fishing, according to Enric Sala, the director of the Pristine Seas project. Studies show that if we protect 29% of the global ocean, we could preserve two-thirds of all possible biodiversity benefits, and increase the annual global fish catch by 8.3 million tons, while eliminating 27% of the carbon emissions caused by bottom trawling.  

3. End all fishing in the high seas

The high seas are all the ocean area outside the 200 nautical miles of territorial waters that nations claim as their own. It yields just 4% of the global fish catch, mostly for gourmet dishes such as tuna sashimi and shark fin soup. Sala and his team at Pristine Seas have analyzed the high seas fishing fleets using satellite technology and calculated their costs and revenues. Most are profitable but depend on forced or slave labour and receive US$4 billion in annual subsidies from governments. If the human rights abuses and subsidies were to end, half of the fisheries would not be profitable, Sala’s work has found. If the world’s nations were to craft a treaty to end most high seas fishing, they could create a High Seas Reserve that would cover much of the global ocean.  

4. Ban bottom trawling and deep-sea mining

Bottom trawling has been compared to dragging a massive net across the Serengeti National Park, killing everything. It disrupts or destroys all life on the ocean floor, including corals, anemones, sponges and urchins. It crushes soft-bodied animals such as worms, amphipods, clams, crabs and lobsters, and it leaves behind a barren area that can take years to recover.  

Species fishers aren’t targeting animals, such as sharks, turtles and dolphins, which are thrown back into the sea as bycatch. Bottom trawling is happening in Canadian waters, too. In Europe, Greenpeace crews have been dropping boulders into the North Sea and the English Channel to try to stop the trawlers from destroying the sea-bed. It needs to end. 

Deep-sea mining is also disastrous for biodiversity. The International Seabed Authority has issued 31 licences for deep-sea mineral exploration, covering an area twice the size of France, and it is getting ready to receive applications for much more. This is despite an urgent warning from 600 scientists who have called for a pause because of the loss of unique and ecologically important species and populations that would result from the degradation and destruction of seafloor habitat. They want a cast-iron commitment from global leaders that they will protect the ocean, top to bottom.  

5. End the harmful fisheries subsidies

Every year, governments give US$35 billion in fisheries subsidies, $20 billion of which researchers say are harmful, supporting vessels that would otherwise be unviable, mostly from Europe, the United States, Japan and China. These subsidies have enabled them to sail farther and harvest more fish. Small-scale and artisanal fisheries employ 90% of all fishers, but the subsidies fund the big fleets. The responsibility to end the subsidies rests with the World Trade Organization. The Stop Funding Overfishing coalition, which represents 182 non-governmental organizations, is leading the campaign to end these subsidies. 

6. Protect territorial waters fisheries 

The territorial waters within 200 nautical miles of land generate 96% of the world’s catch. To protect these areas, one solution might be to establish local ocean trusts that are accountable to nature and future generations, giving non-fishers a majority on their governing boards with a duty to ensure that the inshore marine ecosystem remains healthy. The marine property rights would be placed with the trust, and local and Indigenous fishers would be invited to organize cooperatives to manage the coastal fisheries on behalf of their communities. 

7. Teach all children to appreciate the oceans

For most people, the ocean is a realm we know almost nothing about. And our ignorance has let the long-liners, bottom trawlers and pair trawlers do such damage. If schools and parents accepted the challenge to inspire all children about the beauty and abundance of the ocean and teach them about the wounds inflicted by humans that are destroying marine life, we would have a better chance at saving it, enabling nature to recover.  

Guy Dauncey is the author of Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible.

The post Seven ways governments can reach their COP15 goals to save the oceans appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“Sadly, we have taken the ocean for granted, and today we face what I would call an Ocean Emergency,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at the opening of the conference, which aimed to mobilize science-based solutions to the crisis. “We must turn the tide. A healthy and productive ocean is vital to our shared future.”

Human actions have burdened the ocean and its inhabitants with serious problems, including more acidic and hotter waters from emissions and global warming, which represent existential changes for many ocean-dwelling organisms. Meanwhile overfishing, pollution and industrial activities have depleted and damaged ocean ecosystems. Through these combined threats, we’ve robbed marine communities of their resilience at the very moment they need it most.

Could granting the ocean inalienable rights help turn all of that around — and protect people who depend on the ocean in the process?

A United Ocean

Experts at the conference argued that a declaration of oceanic rights from the United Nations could recognize the ocean as a living entity that has its own inherent entitlements, such as those to life and health, along with the right to continue its vital natural cycles.

Participants included representatives of the Earth Law Center, a Colorado-based nonprofit dedicated to the growing Rights of Nature movement. The organization has spent the past five years spearheading the concept of ocean rights.

In 2017 the center secured support from more than 70 nonprofit organizations in 32 countries for its Ocean Rights Initiative. That year, at the UN’s first ocean conference, then-executive director Darlene Lee explained that the initiative recommended “the United Nations governments, organizations and stakeholders, promote and adopt holistic and rights-based governance of the ocean, including incorporating the inherent rights of the ocean into law and policy.”

There’s historic precedent for establishing far-reaching rights principles through the United Nations. In 1948 the UN passed the groundbreaking Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined certain rights and freedoms — such as liberty and equality — as basic entitlements of all people across the globe.

Although that declaration of human rights is not legally binding, Earth Law Center oceans campaign director Michelle Bender says it has served as a powerful tool for embedding human-rights principles in laws and policies, including international treaties, national constitutions, and legal codes around the world.

Similarly, this summer the General Assembly adopted a groundbreaking resolution declaring access to a clean and healthy environment as a universal human right. And in 2010 a resolution was passed on the human right to water and sanitation.

Activists hope to extend the notion to the ocean we all share.

The Shift Begins

The effort took a step forward at the UN Ocean Conference, where The Ocean Race — a round-the-world sailing contest that also advocates for a healthy ocean — organized a panel discussion where advocates could discuss ways to advance the declaration and raise awareness of its importance.

Speakers included Prime Minister Ulisses Correia de Silva of the Republic of Cabo Verde, Earth Law Center representative Callie Veelenturf, and Ocean Race chairman Richard Brisius.

Addressing a packed audience, speakers argued that establishing legal rights for the ocean could start a cascade of societal shifts in peoples’ attitudes toward, and understanding of, the ocean. They called on the public to urge their UN ambassadors to support ocean rights and get a declaration on the UN’s agenda.

Although these speeches were given in a dimly lit, hushed venue — one of two adjacent rooms where everyone had to listen through headphones so as not to disturb proceedings next door — the audience was enthusiastic. Many attendees clustered around the speakers as the event came to close, eager to hear more.

Fighting an Anthropocentric Paradigm

Experts and national leaders speaking at the panel, and those I talked to after the event, said the declaration would prioritize the ocean’s interests alongside those of people.

This is a fundamentally different approach from most of today’s ocean-related decision-making, which is typically “anthropocentric in nature,” says marine biologist Guillermo Ortuño Crespo, who attended the event. He’s not involved in the ocean rights initiative, but his research has involved scrutiny of management of the ocean. He says the current approach puts humanity at the center, valuing and protecting the marine environment based on the services it provides to people.

Crespo describes this anthropocentric paradigm as “a limited value system that psychologically removes us from nature.”

Other experts said a declaration of ocean rights could upend that value system by giving the ocean a voice. It would represent, in Bender’s words, “a fundamental shift in our relationship with the ocean.”

Granting the ocean legal rights would be a step toward “a more ecocentric value system,” Crespo says, “which is still upheld by innumerous coastal and Indigenous peoples across the ocean. These communities recognize the intrinsic right that the ocean and its many species and features have to exist and be protected.”

Sailing Toward the Declaration

The UN panel didn’t occur in a vacuum — the Ocean Race is also in the middle of a series of summits, running through 2023, examining ocean rights as a solution to restoring ocean health. The organization has held summits since 2015 to bring together country leaders, industry figures, ocean experts and others to discuss critical marine issues.

Johan Strid, director of Ocean Race Summits, says the race has a “unique and neutral platform to host a dialogue and drive this discussion in a constructive way.”

The summits  and associated workshops, events and “action labs” are components of a strategic program that the Ocean Race, the Earth Law Center, the nonprofit organization Nature’s Rights and other partners ramped up earlier this year.

One major event took place in March in the Italian coastal city of Genova. There the partners started a consultation process to create a draft resolution. The consultation will “gather stakeholders from all backgrounds, regions and expertise to gain feedback on the process, partnership in outreach and raising awareness, as well as drafting of the principles themselves,” says Bender.

Moving forward, a series of workshops will allow consultation participants to analyze the  ideas discussed in the ocean rights summits. The workshops will then feed into a working group that will finalize the resolution.

Go Big or Go Bust

The push for ocean rights resonates with other Rights of Nature efforts, but its scale is particularly ambitious.

“It would apply to the ocean as a whole, including in areas beyond national jurisdiction,” says Bender.

That’s an important distinction, as international waters — those beyond individual countries’ control — are currently “almost completely ungoverned and unprotected,” as the International Institute for Environment and Development highlighted in March. The United Nations is working to address this, with member countries negotiating a legally binding treaty on the conservation and use of the high seas under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

But conventional safeguards for the ocean often exist in silos, piecemeal and poorly enforced. Provisions such as Marine Protected Areas only shield selected parts of the ocean, while frameworks currently under discussion like the UN’s proposed plastic treaty tackle individual issues affecting the marine environment.

Bender commends all these efforts as “great steps forward,” but contends that we also need a whole-ocean approach.

This is essential, she argues, because every impact in the ocean is interconnected: Pollution that originates on land enters the ocean and affects the entire planet. A declaration of ocean rights would provide an opportunity to encompass all ocean governance issues and align related frameworks under one overarching umbrella.

Ocean rights would be based on principles that reconnect humans “to the systems that sustain us,” she says. The application of these principles could help to put the brakes on activities like deep-sea mining, and potentially have ramifications for related issues like CO₂ emissions. Meanwhile, the standards it upholds could be systems-based. For example, recognizing humans as predators could result in efforts to guide fisheries management.

Err on the Side of Nature

As discussions continue, organizers aim to have a draft resolution ready to present to the United Nations in September 2023.

Bender says deliberations so far have addressed principles such as intergenerational equity, connectivity and reciprocal responsibility.

Another principle in discussion boils down to “when in doubt, favor the ocean.”

This is similar to the in dubio pro natura standard adopted in Panama and elsewhere, which translates to “when in doubt, err on the side of nature.”

Strid says the resolution would be the starting point for a process within the United Nations itself, assuming the international body agrees on the concept in the first place. Even if that happens, he says, getting “all states in the world to agree on a matter takes time.” They hope that can be accomplished by 2030.

Strid accepts that the timeline is “highly ambitious,” but history shows it’s not impossible. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights took around two years from initial introduction to adoption.

The endeavor has some wind in its sails already, with committed support from the nations of Cabo Verde, the Seychelles and Panama, along with the city of Genova.

In the panel discussion, former Seychelles’ president Danny Faure argued that the support of nations like theirs — known as Big Ocean or Small Island Developing States — is important if ocean rights are to be achieved.

Strid agrees. “Small island states are significantly impacted by the issues concerning the ocean,” he says. Their participation, he adds, can raise awareness of these devastating effects.

Public support will also prove essential. The Ocean Race has launched a campaign called One Blue Voice through which people around the world can sign on to a petition that organizers will present to the United Nations.

Gathering Momentum

Strid stresses that “we are in the early stages of the work.” As the process of shaping the resolution develops, they will focus efforts on gathering formal support from relevant organizations and policymakers.

Despite the immensity of the challenge ahead, both Bender and Strid say they remain hopeful.

“The nature of our sport is to overcome the impossible,” Strid says.

Bender, meanwhile, finds optimism in the successes of the rights of nature movement and the fact that ocean rights have been featured for the first time this year at the Blue Climate Summit and other events. She sees all this as essential momentum that will eventually achieve planetary support for nature and the people who rely on it.

“Humankind is a part of nature, and we cannot realize human rights without a healthy environment to support them,” she says.

This story was produced as part of the 2022 UN Ocean Conference Fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch). This story also originally appeared in The Revelator and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

The post Should the ocean have the same rights as people? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

A shift is happening, on a large scale, as a growing number of lawmakers voice support for circular policies. The European Commission’s directive on single-use plastic is considered one of the biggest steps taken to treat plastic and other materials people use in a less-wasteful way. Its nuanced policy for curbing plastic pollution is based around a simple premise: Making better use of the plastic we already have reduces the need to produce more plastic. Among the strategies outlined in this and other circular plans are obligations for corporations to assume extended producer responsibility, or EPR for short, assuming economic and ecological accountability for their products throughout the products’ entire life cycles. EPR schemes may involve continued research, deposit-return systems, vastly improved recycling systems, redesign and replacement, use restrictions, and better collection systems for many popular single-use plastic products, among other initiatives.

Unlike most plastic legislation passed to date, which has done little to shift throwaway culture, the EU’s directive seeks to rethink plastic as a resource, instead of waste, and close the present gap that exists between a plastic item’s final use and its potential next life—which is rarely ever realized.

For all the people on board with circularity, there are many others who are not—unsurprisingly, most people leading industries dealing in petrochemicals and plastic. While some companies, including Coca-Cola, have publicly committed to some voluntary measures to cut plastic use, behind closed doors it and other companies have opposed important policies that address plastic, including the EU directive. Further adding to the illusion of corporate concern is the common practice of allowing industry trade associations to do their dirty work. 

“While companies may tell the public they’re good guys, many belong to trade groups—including the Plastics Industry Association— which are strongly opposing the legislation we need right now,” said John Hocevar, of Greenpeace, who is now working to hold some of the world’s biggest companies accountable for their secretive trade association alliances. “We call up these companies and remind them that they are deceiving people by saying publicly that they care, but in reality belong to groups opposing meaningful action.” 

As a result of such efforts, big brands like Coca-Cola, General Motors, PepsiCo, and SC Johnson severed ties with the Plastics Industry Association in 2019. Still, when plans for the EU directive were first unveiled, Coca-Cola (then still a member of the trade group), was the biggest corporation to sign off on a letter to the European Commission opposing the new plans, which would require that manufacturers redesign their plastic bottles so that the caps were less likely to twist off and become unrecoverable in nature, among other measures meant to minimize plastic products’ harm on the natural environment and improve plastic recovery and recycling rates. 

In their letter, the beverage corporation leaders cite the efficacy of deposit return schemes and recycling in reducing plastic litter in their arguments against the EU directive, which would require serious commitment and investment by corporations. This, though Europe’s average plastic recycling rate, while higher than in many parts of the world, is nowhere near circular at just 42 percent, with much of it exported elsewhere, to be burned or piled up in landfills and the natural environment instead of actually being recycled. The corporations proposed increased efforts to “reinforce and incentivize [the] right consumer behaviors” in lieu of taking responsibility for their products. It’s the same old story. 

While companies may tell the public they’re good guys, many belong to trade groups—including the Plastics Industry Association— which are strongly opposing the legislation we need right now.

-John Hocevar, oceans campaign director at Greenpeace

When politicians in the world’s most wasteful country, the US, unveiled its first national circularity-based plan to tackle plastic pollution in 2020, the plastic industry, predictably, reacted in strong opposition. Called the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, and recently reintroduced in March 2021 by Congressman Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and more than ninety other members of the House and Senate, the act is designed to ultimately compel corporations and industries to cease production of certain non-recyclable single-use plastic products. To achieve this goal, the act would, among other strategies, require governments and industries to assume additional responsibility for plastic products, phase out some single-use plastic products entirely, restrict plastic waste exports, and place a temporary moratorium on permits for new and expanded plastic- and petrochemical-producing facilities.

Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, an organization focused on eliminating plastic pollution, has proven to be a valuable ally of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, advising lawmakers and other supporters of the bill. As a former EPA administrator, she is well aware of both the government bureaucracy and industry influence that so commonly impede passage of meaningful legislation. “The biggest hurdle to getting the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act passed is to get past plastic lobbyists in every state legislature and Congress who are trying to tinker with the language of the law so that it’s less effective,” Enck said in early 2021, the bill still under consideration. 

When asked directly about the issue of plastic pollution and how to best address it, a representative from the Plastics Industry Association, the major plastic-industry trade group, told me in an email that it “believes uncollected plastics do not belong in the natural environment and that is why we partner with other associations, non-governmental organizations, and intergovernmental authorities to coordinate efforts to strengthen recovery systems around the globe to prevent loss of plastics into the environment. Our members understand that our industry needs to be a part of the solution. We encourage education and call for the enhancement of our recycling infrastructure in order to encourage new end markets for plastics.” 

Scientists continue to reiterate that industry’s inclination to put the onus for plastic pollution almost solely on consumers is unfair. 

“Ocean plastics are a symptom of poor upstream waste management, poor product design, as well as consumer littering behavior,” Marcus Eriksen of 5 Gyres once explained to me. What industry suggests as a solution is “a perpetuation of old narratives, where pollution is caused by consumers. Regulation of products and packaging must be fought for intensively.” 

Those laws now in place have already proven themselves on varying scales over the past few decades. Local rules on single-use plastic have been linked to reduced amounts of plastic waste ending up as litter in the environment. But strong national legislation—and hopefully, one day international legislation—is by far most capable of making the biggest reductions in plastic production, use, and disposal, due to the global nature of the plastic crisis. 

To get effective legislation passed even in the face of widespread industry opposition, Enck urges people to contact their elected officials and express why we need strict plastic legislation now. “Yes, it’s hard, and there’s a lot already on people’s plates,” she acknowledged. “But believe it or not, many lawmakers are still fixed on the idea that plastic pollution is ‘just’ a straw up a turtle’s nose.” She suggested the public remind their representatives that the plastic crisis is much larger and more urgent than that single perspective—causing not only ecological catastrophes but also harming human health, while upholding systemic racism and other forms of injustice. And then there is plastic’s inherent connection to fossil fuels, and the catastrophe that is climate change. Because fossil fuels are finite—their underground stores cannot be replenished when exhausted—there will inevitably come a day when petrochemical industries and manufacturers will have to rethink their reliance on plastic. Looking forward, it seems most players in industry and business will remain focused on perpetuating the plastic status quo, all while continuing to rake in billions of dollars a year—at great expense to all of us. That is, of course, unless we stop them. 

Is it brilliant, or brainless, that petrochemical and plastic corporations are choosing to go down with a sinking ship?

The answer to that question depends on what matters most to each of us.

From Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis by Erica Cirino; Copyright © 2021 by the author. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C

Erica Cirino is a science writer and artist who explores the intersection of the human and nonhuman worlds. Her photographic and written works have appeared in Scientific American, The Guardian, VICE, Hakai Magazine, The Atlantic, and other esteemed publications. She is a recipient of fellowships from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and Safina Center, as well as several awards for visual art.

The post Thicker Than Water appeared first on Corporate Knights.

As the largest food retailer, Loblaw interacts with one-third of Canadian consumers from coast-to-coast. This places them in a strong position to lead change throughout the entire retail industry. “This includes our commitment to responsible sourcing of seafood sold in our 1000-plus retail locations, by the end of 2013,“ says Melanie Agopian, Senior Director, Sustainability, Loblaw Companies. “Source with Integrity is one of our five corporate responsibility (CSR) principles driving the way we do business, across the entire supply chain,” she added.

As Galen Weston, the Executive Chairman of Loblaw sees it, this commitment to influence market and industry change is more than a business opportunity for Loblaw. The issue of sustainable seafood is something that needs to see immediate change for future development too.

In spite of Loblaw’s market reach, their whole systems approach to sustainable seafood cannot be achieved without partnerships. That is where WWF-Canada comes into play.

“WWF-Canada has provided conservation and environmental technical expertise on sustainable seafood,” Agopian says. “They also have a diverse and global network from which to pull additional resources and expertise, and a great deal of experience driving transformational industry change.”

Call to action

The big issue that both partners are working to address is the devastating ecological and economic crisis created by a significant and growing decline in fish stocks. WWF points out that our oceans were once considered an inexhaustible source of food, but due to overfishing and poor management our oceans are now in a state of global crisis.

“The failure to adequately invest in recovery and sustainable use of fisheries negatively impacts its associated environment, social and economic benefits,” says Hadley Archer, VP, Strategic Partnerships & Development WWF-Canada. The World Bank and FAO – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – estimate that losses from inefficient fisheries amount to $50 billion annually, with the cumulative loss over the past three decades being around $2 trillion. “These numbers represent recoverable losses with exports worth more than $85 billion in 2008, and related economic activity generated in the range of $500 billion per year,” he says.

Closer to home, Atlantic Canada could recover losses estimated at a billion dollars annually with adequate investment in recovery. WWF and Loblaw, together with fishing industry, are working to do just that.

A coordinated response

As a retail giant, Loblaw’s access to marketing tools, global vendor networks, and overall company scope grants unique accessibility to a new market that WWF is not accustomed to. Likewise for Loblaw, being able to harness the expertise that WWF offers has been integral to designing an effective program.

“For WWF, a big advantage of partnering with Loblaw on this important project is that we can actually accelerate the achievement of measurable results, and create a new benchmark on how private sector business can work collaboratively with organizations and groups with complementary expertise – aligned around shared transformational goals”, says Steven Price, Conservation Science Director at WWF-Canada.

When working with government alone to address the overfishing issue, WWF was not seeing sufficient movement. It was clear that WWF had to engage with the private sector if they wanted to see more tangible results.

To illustrate how influential private sector companies are and why they need to get more actively involved in this market transformation: 300-500 companies control 70% or more of the trade of the world’s most essential commodities. “If these companies demand sustainable products, they’ll pull 40-50% of production with them”, says Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, Market Transformation, WWF-US.

If ten percent of those 300-500 companies were to think differently about how they source seafood, and worked in collaboration with the fishing industry and environmentalists to seek alternatives, a transformation of the market would already be underway.

In order to be a leader in today’s increasingly competitive markets, sustainable business plans and projects influencing environmental platforms can deliver a major advantage. As Canada’s largest food distributor with more than 1,000 corporate and franchise stores nation-wide, the impact Loblaw can have – on consumer attitudes and decisions and as a model for other industries in leveraging their sustainable practices – is enormous.

Measuring success

“Our seafood initiative also brings certified seafood to the Loblaw stores that meet the standards of the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) for all of their seafood-affiliated products, from fresh to canned fish, and non-seafood products with fish ingredients such as pet food”, says WWF-Canada’s Conservation Director, Steven Price.

MSC standards and certification requirements ensure that only seafood from a certified sustainable fishery is sold with the MSC eco-label and meet best practice guidelines for certification and eco-labeling.

Another integral sustainable seafood collaborator is Loblaw’s Marine Scientific Advisor, Dr. Jeff Hutchings from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. Dr. Hutchings has helped in successfully identifying sustainable seafood for Loblaw counters and has contributed insight into the fishing industry and at risk species.

“We live in the country with the longest coastline in the world and our rich heritage in fishing extends back more than 500 years,” Hutchings says. “As Canadians, we cannot afford to ignore our collective responsibility to recover the health of what lives in the oceans.”

Through the development of Sustainable Seafood Sourcing Criteria, and the expertise of WWF and Dr. Hutchings, Loblaw aims to evaluate the sustainability of species in order to better serve their customers with responsibly sourced and sustainable seafood. Progress updates are captured in both the annual Loblaw CSR Report and Sustainable Seafood Commitment Report.

De-listing at-risk products

Through the sustainable seafood initiative, Loblaw companies successfully identified products they had been carrying that did not comply with MSC standards. Dr. Hutchings’ expertise also allowed Loblaw to identify ‘at-risk’ species, and where and how to make changes to their CoC (chain-of-custody) certified seafood counters.

Since this collaboration, Loblaw has made changes to their seafood counters. In 2009, Shark, Skate, Orange Roughy, and Chilean Sea Bass were delisted from stores. More recently, in 2012, American red snapper was also delisted.

Delisted products do not just disappear from Loblaw’s counters. The goal is to bring Loblaw’s customers along on the journey – to engage, educate, and build new levels of customer loyalty. To make a powerful visual statement to consumers, Loblaw displays their removed at-risk and unsustainable fish with empty containers in the fresh seafood section, with suggested alternatives.

Loblaw is actively shaping a new way of purchasing seafood, one that is sustainable, and promotes knowledge behind the sourcing of fish stock. With the power of collaboration and multiple forces, Loblaw aims to source sustainable products and bring them back to customers in stores once they are confident the sourcing is transparent.

The flexible and collaborative nature of this partnership makes it a successful model for driving positive environmental and economic change. When Canada’s largest grocery retailer commits to healthy oceans and sustainable fishing practices, it is clear that long-term profitability is not at odds with environmental sustainability.

To view the complete collaboration series, click here.

The post The power of collaboration for creating sustainable value: Vol. 3 appeared first on Corporate Knights.