TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Discourse: Oceans, coasts our best assets in coping with climate change
Warming seas are melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, leading to sea level rise that will impact billions living in coastal areas
Change Size
W
em>Warming seas are melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, leading to sea level rise that will impact billions living in coastal areas. Extreme weather events and flooding will become more frequent. For the first time in history, a day has been committed to oceans alongside the UN climate negotiations. Lynne Zeitlin Hale, the director of global marine initiatives at The Nature Conservancy, was an afternoon panelist at Ocean’s Day on Monday. The expert in coastal ecosystem management with more than 25 years of experience, who played a leadership role in the design and implementation of integrated coastal management programs in the US, Latin America, Africa and Asia, including Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post’s Stevie Emilia how healthy oceans and coastlines help combat sea level rise and other climate change impacts.
Question: This is the first time an entire day has been dedicated to oceans alongside a climate change conference. What does this mean?
Answer: Once considered a limitless and inexhaustible resource, our oceans are in jeopardy, and global climate change is exacerbating the problem.
Just as it’s critical to save forests, we also need to protect our coasts and oceans from the many impacts of climate change.
The oceans and the atmosphere are tightly linked, and together form the most dynamic component of the climate system, and we’re thrilled this is the first Ocean’s Day at a climate conference. It’s fantastic to have organizations and leaders like Jane Lubchenco (the US Under Secretary of Commerce and Administrator of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and Prince Albert II (of Monaco) come together to help ensure that oceans are part of the climate solution.
In this case, how bad are climate change’s impacts, especially in a country like Indonesia?
Half the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of a sea coast. The low elevation coastal zone — the continuous area along coastlines that is less than 10 meters above sea level — represents 2 percent of the world’s land area but contains 10 percent of its total population and 13 percent of its urban population.
With thousands of miles of coast, Indonesia is likely to be significantly affected. For example, in Indonesia and the Coral Triangle where warming oceans threaten to kill-off coral reefs, the Conservancy has helped local communities design a network of marine protected areas that will be able to bounce back from coral bleaching and ensure more sustainable fisheries. To do this, we link reefs through currents, which allow larvae from healthy reefs to replenish those that have experienced bleaching.
How can healthy oceans combat climate change?
Robust, resilient ecosystems can serve as protective buffers for human communities from sea level rise and increased storm events, while continuing to provide sources of food, fuel, fiber and livelihoods — provided we manage them adequately to increase their resilience. Coral reefs and mangrove forests reduce storm damage and slow erosion due to sea level rise. The Nature Conservancy is working around the world to ensure that these habitats keep working for people. Protecting nature improves food security and livelihoods.
In 2006, backed by Nature Conservancy experts, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a formal letter to the COP-8 Convention on Biodiversity, highlighting the critical importance of the Coral Triangle. The letter also signaled President Yudhoyono’s intention to accelerate its protection in collaboration with the other Coral Triangle governments.
In August 2007, he wrote to seven other regional and world leaders proposing the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security, aiming to bring together the six Coral Triangle governments in a multilateral partnership to conserve the extraordinary marine life in the region. An immediate and significant result of this effort was that all 21 heads of government at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in September 2007 declared their support for this new initiative.
What are the best ecosystem-based solutions for the most vulnerable communities?
Protecting and restoring coral reefs and mangroves is one of the best ways to protect people in vulnerable areas. Coral reefs are one of the most vulnerable habitats to climate change impacts. We need to give coral reefs a chance for survival, as billions of people depend on reefs for food, security and their livelihood.
What is the most urgent thing the Copenhagen talks can produce for those living in vulnerable areas?
Oceans and coasts are vitally important to the health and wellbeing of people around the world, but impacts of climate change are weakening the oceans’ ability to provide the resources on which we all depend.
An essential outcome from the climate conference is financial support, with the goal of a minimum of US$10 billion a year for the next three years, which includes support for ecosystem-based solutions to help the most vulnerable communities adapt to climate change.
With trillions of dollars and hundreds of millions of lives at risk in coastal communities and cities worldwide, there needs to be a much greater emphasis on using nature’s ecosystems to both protect shorelines and ensure that resources that sustain coastal communities are sustained into the future.
