THE OCEAN AWARDS 2018
Last year brought the publication ofPlanetary Boundaries for a
Blue Planet, an epic report that was 15 years in the making. It was
led by Ben Halpern, director of the National Center for Ecological
Analysis and Synthesis, an independent research ailiate of the
University of California, Santa Barbara.
“It builds on some of the seminal work that Johan Rockströmdeveloped about a decade ago at the Stockholm Resilience Centre
on planetary boundaries for the Earth,” he says. That focused on
the limits to which the Earth’s resources can be pushed and
remain sustainable but, as Halpern points out, it “essentially
forgot the ocean.” He continues: “The message of the work is that
we are probably closer to some of the boundaries beyond which
the system starts to break down irreversibly than we realized.”
Halpern believes it is possible to find solutions to managing and
conserving nature only if you also understand people and how
they interact with it. “To do that you have to include economists,
social scientists, anthropologists and so on...”
He is optimistic “for two broad reasons. First, we still have time;
the window of opportunity is still open.” And second because
there’s been “an awakening of appreciation of the oceans.” He
cites the ongoing creation of Marine Protected Areas “at really
quite an accelerating pace” and “the international treaties and UN
commitments focusing on oceans for the first time. There are
wonderful examples of success and hope,” he says.The Science Award
BEN HALPERN
Lead author of pioneering report on limits of Earth’s resources
WinnerDAVID OBURA
Led report into how local
economies rely on the oceanTheWesternIndianOceanisborderedby
10Africancountries,supportsabout60
million people who live within 60 miles of
theshore,andproducesorgenerates
$20.8billionayearingoodsandservices.
Adeclineinthehealthoftheocean,
therefore, threatens to be catastrophic
notjustecologicallyandenvironmentally
buteconomicallytoo.Thispromptedan
investigationintohowlocaleconomies
dependontheocean,publishedlastyear
by WWF, in collaboration with the
Kenya-based NGO CORDIO [Coastal
Oceans Research and Development –
Indian Ocean] East Africa, led by David
Obura and the Boston Consulting Group.
AsDrOburaputsit:“Withthefutureof
coralreefsinseriousquestion,theirrole
as an indicator of impending changes to
other natural and human-dominated
ecosystems is increasingly critical, to
prepare for and mitigate future disasters.”FABIANO THOMPSON
Discovered a unique reef system
at the mouth of the AmazonLast year a team of four scientists from
the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
sailed to the mouth of the Amazon to
exploreapristinereefsystemthathad
been discovered in 2016. Extending for
more than 600 miles, and with a
biodiversitytorivalthatoftheGreat
Barrier Reef, the reef continues to
surpass expectations. To date, three new
speciesoffishhavebeenidentified,and
about 40 that had never before been
encounteredinthispartoftheworld.As
Fabiano Thompson, a professor of marine
biology at the university, says: “We found
a reef where the textbooks said there
shouldn’t be one. We think it’s unique.
It’s a major ecological community of
plants and animals with its own endemic
species. We are rewriting the textbooks.”Finalists