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ndonesia hosted the Asia Conference on Ocean Food Security and Blue Growth (ACOFB) in Bali on June 18-21 in cooperation with the Netherlands, the World Bank and the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), attended by 214 delegates from 42 countries.

With a conference theme of Blue Growth for Prosperity, Asian countries agreed to prioritize marine and coastal development in order to contribute to the sustainable socioeconomic benefits that can be obtained by implementing the so-called Blue Economy approach.

Numerous marine challenges, such as marine waters hygiene, food and nutrition resilience, poverty, climate change and sustainable development, must be tackled with decisive mutual commitment.

More than 70 percent of the earth'€™s surface is covered by oceans where 80 percent of all life on earth is found.

Oceans play a major role both as an engine for global economic growth and as a key source of our food security.

The economy supported by the oceans is wide-ranging, and includes transportation and shipping; oil, gas and mineral extraction, and tourism and fisheries, among other things.

Oceans provide revenue in the global economy of more than US$190 billion annually from seafood, and some $161 billion annually from marine and coastal tourism.

Asia alone accounted for 39 percent of total global fisheries exports in 2011, valued at $49.7 billion, while Indonesia exported fisheries produce worth $3.9 billion in 2012, an increase from the $3.5 billion in 2011.

Ocean ecosystem services are currently contributing far less to global economic growth than they could be, largely as a result of human actions changing the underlying natural system.

With the exponential increases in population growth and economic activity that have occurred over the last half century, the environmental status of the living ocean is changing at a rate and scale not seen since the rise of modern civilization.

 Human actions have resulted in various deficiencies, such as overfishing '€” 85 percent of the world'€™s ocean fisheries are fully exploited, over-exploited or depleted, causing annual global efficiency losses of $50 billion.

Human actions have also increased ocean pollution, mostly due to excess nitrogen runoff from fertilizers and have resulted in a large '€œdead zone'€ in the ocean, covering some 95,000 square miles '€” an area the size of Great Britain. There is also habitat loss or conversion.

For example, an estimated 35 percent of global mangrove area has been lost or converted, approximately 20 percent of the planet'€™s coral reefs have been destroyed in the last few decades with more than a further 20 percent being degraded, and 30 percent of sea grass beds have been destroyed.

 Last but not least is food insecurity: the FAO estimates that 870 million people around the world go hungry every day. Up to 25 percent of world food production could be lost in 2050 because of climate change, while 1 million children will be malnourished by 2030, also due to the impact of climate change.

As the world prepares the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Post-2015 agenda toward 2030, issues related to sustainable oceans continue to be among the top priorities to be addressed.

The Bali conference produced eight action plans that include an integrated approach, by collaborating with scientists, decision makers and business sectors to ensure sustainable food production, poverty alleviation and sustainable development; governmental support for the sustainability and stability of natural resource utilization through data- and policy-based management; increased support to small-scale fishery businesses and local community initiatives; strengthened marine resilience to the impact of climate change in the Asia region; the repair and restoration of habitats and supporting ecosystems for fisheries to overcome marine ecosystem degradation, and an effort to manage marine aquaculture through the implementation of the Blue Economy concept.

This is the Asian road map in addressing food security and economic growth from the oceans through increased ocean sustainability. The outcomes of the ACOFB will be important input for the global oceans action summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, in September 2013.

This road map should also provide directions on the important role of oceans in achieving the SDGs by 2030, as the concept is currently being prepared by the United Nations Open Working Group on SDGs Post-2015.

The writer is FAO director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Resources Use and Conservation division.
This is his personal view.