THE OCEAN AWARDS 2018
The currents that cause sargassum weed to aggregate in the
Sargasso Sea have also caused it to become a gigantic gyre, or
agglomeration, of plastic waste, so endangering the unique
species for which it is a breeding ground.
Thanks in part to the American lawyer Kristina Gjerde,
adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International
Studies at Monterey, California, and senior high seas adviser to
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Global
Marine and Polar Programme, this “wondrous place” is now the
object of a campaign to protect it and its ecosystem.
The Sargasso Sea Alliance, which she co-founded in 2010,
aims to ensure legal protection for fragile ecosystems and
provide insight to aid the establishment of other Marine
Protected Areas.
Gjerde began her career as a specialist in admiralty law at a
firm in New York, but it was winning a three-year Pew
Fellowship in Marine Conservation that led her to specialise in
advocating the need for governance of the oceans and seabed.
Applying the rule of law to the high seas is one thing,
enforcing it is another. This, as she said in her TED talk, leads
her to her second passion – space technology. “I wanted to be an
astronaut, so I’ve constantly followed the tools available to
monitor Earth from outer space.” This enables the tagging and
tracking of fishing vessels.The Visionary Award
KRISTINA GJERDE
US lawyer breaking new ground in ocean governance
Joint
winnerKristina Gjerde has brought her legal expertise
to bear on the issue of governance of the
oceans, a previously neglected area. Right:
crew members on board Team Alvimedica,
taking part in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race,
encounter sargassum weed on the leg from
Itajai, Brazil, to Newport, Rhode Island. The
weed can cause havoc with rudders, keels and
propeller appendages on all sorts of craft132