Marine Living Resources

Coral reefs form important ecosystems, globally and locally within the Red Sea and Gulf
of Aden. These reefs contribute a variety of valuable benefits to local communities and to
the gross national product of countries in whose waters they lie. These benefits include
commercial, artisanal and ornamental fisheries; bio-prospecting for new pharmaceuticals;
mining; revenue from tourists keen to observe their natural beauty; and shoreline
protection.
That the value of these natural resources has only recently come to be appreciated is a
sad reflection on our understanding of our interactions with the physical and biological
environment. However, in the recent past, scientists and sociologists have begun to prepare
methods of calculating a dollar value for these natural resources.
Globally, and locally, coral reefs face a variety of threats and many have suffered severe
degradation. These are common resources; they form part of our natural heritage. When
damage is caused to these resources, compensation should be paid by the perpetrator and
efforts should be made to restore the damaged area so that it continues to provide the physical
and biological benefits to society.
Ship grounding incidents are just one of many threats that coral reefs face. These accidents
vary in scale from slight to catastrophic, from grounding by small pleasure craft or the
careless use of anchors, to complete loss of the physical framework of the reef if struck hard
by a large container ship or supertanker, with possible threats from subsequent chemical
spills.
Since the opening of the Suez Canal, and with the regional increase in dive tourism, the number
of large and small boats using the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has increased significantly.
With this rise in numbers has come a parallel increase in the number of grounding incidents,
damage and loss to coral reefs in the area.
The legal and institutional arrangements for prosecuting offenders in the region have
been varied and disparate, sometimes non existent. The presence of a clear set of regional
guidelines will assist national governments to pursue offenders and obtain compensation
that can be used in reef restoration or to improve navigation and management. The threat of
legal proceedings also focuses the minds of ships’ captains and leads to increased care and
fewer accidents.
This report provides historical records of ship grounding incidents and the current legal
framework in each of the PERS GA member countries and then proceeds to suggest a
framework for establishing compensation payments. The historical official records show
that the number of recorded incidents in each country ranges from zero in Djibouti and
Jordan, 4 in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, to 22 in Sudan, and 149 in Egypt. Administrative and
legal procedures for pursuing compensation claims are at different levels of development
and sophistication with varied formulae for calculating compensation rates in use.
Valuation systems for coral reefs currently only consider a few of the goods and benefits
described above. Values may be tempered by a weighting scale that varies with the quality of
the reef (percentage coral cover, biodiversity) and include a time factor for the period when
the reef can no longer supply these goods and benefits. In addition, compensation is usually increased to include a contribution towards the costs of surveys and legal proceedings, costs
of restoration, and costs of future monitoring.
Egypt has taken the lead in the development of valuation techniques and pursing legal
remedies to achieve compensation payments. The basic model developed by Egypt and used
to a greater or lesser extent within the region is as follows:
Compensation charge =
A x LC x D x RP x V
Where A is a measure of area in square metres, LC is the percentage of living coral, D is the
percent damage in the area, RP is the number years required for recovery and V is the value
of one square metre (set at US $120 but increased to US $300 for national parks).
However, coral reefs provide many goods and services within the region and this simple
formula is not a true reflection of them. Secondly, a one-size-fits-all scheme of compensation
in not necessarily appropriate as the uses of reefs in different countries are not the same. For
example in Egypt there is a large emphasis on tourism-related revenue and less on fisheries,
while in Yemen the situation is reversed. In light of these discrepancies, and aware of the
range of technical capacities within the countries of the region, PERS GA has embarked
on series of workshops to establish guidelines that can be used or modified to improve the
procedures for calculating and pursuing compensation claims.
The guidelines describe (i) an accident assessment system based on an underwater standard
survey method for assessing damage to coral reefs from grounding incidents following the
FISHBONE grid mapping system that has been successfully applied by the Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary; (ii) a set of valuation techniques that focus on three key goods
and services: coral reef-related tourism and recreation, coral reef-associated fisheries, and
shoreline protection services, chosen because these three goods and services are important
to local economies and data are available to support estimation of the values; (iii) restoration
of the damaged area.
In the final chapter, the benefits of a regional approach are discussed and areas for capacity
building are highlighted. These include underwater survey techniques; documenting/
reporting incidents; assessments of coral damage; fauna and flora identification; economic
valuation of natural resources; in-situ data/information collection and handling; and reef
restoration and rehabilitation techniques.
A regional compensation committee is proposed to consider scientific and economic studies
prepared on coral reefs and to draft laws specifically concerned with the conservation of
coral reefs, as currently coral reefs are only protected indirectly by legal articles. A regional
coral reef rescue team could be trained to be experts in the survey of grounding sites and the
preparation and recording of grounding evidence and damage size to improve the probability
of successful claims being won through the courts.

El 18 de mayo pasado, se publicó en el Boletín Oficial la Resolución 396/2018 del Ministerio de Seguridad que aprobó el “Protocolo de Actuación para Unidades de Superficies ante la Detección de Buques Pesqueros Extranjeros en Infracción a la Ley N° 24.922 y del Código Penal de la Nación” (en adelante, “el Protocolo de Actuación”), desarrollado a partir de las disposiciones pertinentes de la Convención de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Derecho del Mar de 1982 (en adelante, “la Convención” o “la Convención de 1982”, indistintamente), la Ley 23.968 de Espacios Marítimos, la Ley 24.059 de Seguridad Interior, la Ley 18.398, que crea a la Prefectura Naval Argentina (en adelante, “PNA”) y la Ley 18.711, que establece las misiones, funciones y jurisdicciones de las fuerzas federales, incluyendo a la propia PNA.
El Protocolo de Actuación constituye una guía de conducta desarrollada con el objeto de contribuir al combate contra la pesca ilegal e incrementar la eficacia de las medidas de conservación adoptadas por el Estado en los espacios marítimos donde posee competencias en razón de su soberanía o derechos de soberanía, según corresponda. En ese sentido, el Protocolo de Actuación es entendido como un complemento para la actuación de la PNA en sus facultades de vigilancia y control mediante sistemas radarizados y satelitales, buques guardacostas y aeronaves, estableciendo un procedimiento para la identificación, seguimiento, detención, visita, inspección y apresamiento de aquellos buques que contravengan el ordenamiento jurídico local e internacional adoptado de conformidad con la Convención de 1982.

By accident, the world-famous brewery Carlsberg became a central force in global marine science during the first three decades of the 20th century. Within a core group of scientists and managers, Johannes Schmidt (1877-1933) was the key figure combining the efforts of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the Danish state and several private companies. Launching 26 oceangoing expeditions Schmidt made landmark discoveries such as the breeding ground for the Atlantic eel in the Sargasso Sea. The scientific frontier was pushed literally kilometres into the deep sea and across the World’s oceans. While the formal North Atlantic Empire of the small state of Denmark was in decline, an informal empire of science was erected instead.