WOC Ministerial Meeting Opens in Indonesia

Manado, Indonesia | May 14, 2009 by D-8 Secretariat

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (C) and delegates from about 70 countries pose for photographers during the opening ceremony of the World Oceans Conference in Manado on May 14, 2009. Photo: ABROR RIZKI/AFP/Getty Images

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono officially opened the ministerial meeting of the World Ocean Conference (WOC) on Thursday in Manado of Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province, stressing the need of saving ocean for human kind sustainability.

Yudhoyono said the world had common responsibility to save oceans from distressed condition, over exploitation, pollution, and rising sea level.

“All this is happening right before our eyes. We have recently learned that a massive iceberg in the Antarctic is about to break off this iceberg is said to contain fresh water that is equal to 30 percent of the world’s annual water consumption. If the present trends continued, the world could expect more bad news to come,” he warned.

“There was a time, billions of years ago, when the world was one boiling ocean. According to scientists, it was there that living organism, life as we know it, began to form some hundreds of million years ago,” he said.

Until today, the president added, the sustenance of human life still depended heavily on the oceans.

“Civilization has been connected by the way of sea explorers, and many cultures and way of life around the world have been shaped by their love on the ocean. Covering two thirds of the Earth’s surface, the oceans today make a global economy possible,” he said, adding that seaborne trade is almost 80 percent of global trade.

He urged the world to care about the oceans, saying that without the oceans as source of protein and other nutrients, half of the human race would go hungry ad starve.

“Without food security that oceans make possible, we cannot effectively fight poverty and reach the Millenium Development Goals,” he said.

The president said Indonesia has more than 90,000 kilometers of coastline and some 17,000 islands and a rise in sea level of one meter, which is possible if the global warming is not arrested, will decimate those valuable parts of national territory.

“Some 405,000 hectares of coastal land will go under water and many low-lying islands, along with nearby coral reefs, will simply disappear,” he warned. That is why he urged the world to reverse the trend, to stop the widespread and rapid destruction of the world’s marine and coastal resources.

“We must protect them from human abuse and over exploitation and from the injuries impact of climate change. We must preserve them as our legacy for future generations so that they may live free from the shackles of poverty,” he said. He reminded that under article 192 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) adopted in 1982, all states have the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment.

“Thus, this World Ocean Conference could also be regarded as an implementation of the historic UNCLOS 1982. Indonesia will also doall we can do to faithfully implement UNCLOS provisions for the governance of the oceans,” the president said. At the same time, he said, the world must also enhance these priceless resources which could become a large part of the solution to the problem of food security.

“That means, apart from protecting the oceans, we must learn to sustainability farm so that they will yield much of what we need for human nutrition without depleting them.

The president that the world can galvanize and synchronize oceans and marine research activities. “Because even as we venture to the outer space, there is just so much we do not know about the deep ocean, and we still so not know enough about the inter-relationship between oceans and climate change,” he said.

He said that the WOC was a most auspicious antecedent to the historic event that would take place here.

“For it is my hope that the outcome of this conference and the historic document of Manado Ocean Declaration that we will issue here tomorrow will form one call that is loud and clear for the world to care for and take care of its oceans,” he said.

Yudhoyono stressed that what the world did here at the WOC was not to produce a new process but to strengthen and complement the United Nation Framework of the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“Simply put, the ocean community wants ocean issues to be partof the ongoing global climate change solution. This is critical because, frankly, ocean issues as of yet have not been adequately represented in overall global climate change discussion,” he said.

“Today, its is time for the world to hear yet another important message: that we can only survive the 21st century if we are united in preserving and caring for our oceans.”

As many as 1,835 people attended the WOC that discussed the ways to rescue the oceans. They gathered there for a hugely important challenge, namely to live up to their common responsibility to protect the oceans and to ensure that the seas and mankind will continue to be in harmony.

D-8 had also organized a Consultative Meeting on D-8 Working Group on Marine and Fisheries as an exlusive event on May 13, 2009 in Manado, Indonesia. The event was held during the World Ocean Conference that is attended by various countries delegation during 11-15 May, 2009 in the same place.

Source: XINHUA, D-8 Media Source, Various

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