Warning on empty 'natural resource bank account'!
Published on: Sunday, December 03, 2017
TWO-hundred-and-forty years of dream search for Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" has ended in a state of what some call "Eco-bankruptcy" of nations.If you are grappling for an answer to the deep-seated cause, remarks of Fabian Cousteau, first grandson of Jacques Cousteau the 'Father of Scuba Diving', comes down to this dastard homo sapien behaviour – constant raids into the "natural resource bank account" of planet earth since 1776 when Smith published his book – the Wealth of Nations. What happens is 'interest' shuts down as the 'natural resource bank account' diminishes constantly to chronic low!
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Even a 197 million sq-mile or 510m sq km surface earth 71pc of which is water and big oceans is not too big to fail or emptied resource wise when one culprit species start grossly over-spending all over the places while the millions of other 'lesser species' behave and abide strictly to instincts! It is a simple parable-style picture Fabian painted so expertly to help us understand what has happened and hopefully flee from any unreal imagination that everything is okay and well done on the marine front.True, Fabian has used very complimentary superlatives to describe the healthy state of corals inside Sipadan, vindicating his granddad being accurate on his stunning re-discovery of a an "untouched piece of art", likening it to a "display of fireworks", a wonderful, beautiful place thriving with biodiversity.But those praises for the inside world of Sipadan are meant to point out "what a healthy ocean is supposed to be like".
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The State of affairs outside Sipadan is quite a different story.Primary mission – bolster more marine protected areas
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As the newly appointed Ocean Witness for WWF, Fabian said the serious primary mission of his first foray to Sipadan is, as he said it: "to bolster the message of what Sipadan is and hope to propagate that message, encourage people in Malaysia to create an expanded network of Marine Protected Areas so that we can have a more robust natural resource bank account and start living off the interest of that bank account by protecting those areas that allow ocean biodiversity to recover and thrive!"Yes, Sipadan is "beautiful" and well worth protecting and preserving for the future generations to enjoy but do more and go beyond that laurel, he advised.The inevitable question posed to the grandson of the most famous scuba diving guru was: why do you equare the wealth of the oceans to a natural resource bank account?"The reason I equate the oceans as a natural resources bank account is because of the fact that many of us depend on those resources for livelihoods.""Far too long, we haven't put a value on those accounts that the oceans are providing this sustenance and economic support," Fabian lamented.Proper behaviour is the key that makes a world of difference: Fabian "There is an impact for everything we do," he noted. "For example, every time we fish a fish out, there is an impact. We are taking away from that natural resource bank account and if it is the wrong kind of fish or if you do it too often, you are taking away from the capital of that bank account rather than working off the interest that the bank account gives." "So things like Marine Protected Areas are the capital that need to be preserved so that we have interest that they give."Agriculture is another example. If done properly and that's the key – done properly, it can have a positive impact on both the economy, individuals, communities, the government as well as taking the pressure off the wild stocks of animals," Fabian elaborated. "So we need to look at these issues and we need to implement them in the proper way." One noticed Fabian kept repeating the quality 'proper' in obvious contrast to 'improper', which pin points the rot to all things improper.Proper, if we take it to its true intent means vigorously correct in conduct and behaviour and improper means all things irregular. And it is possibly the golden adjective to look at all the economic activities that easily mark out between things 'done properly' that yield positive impact and things 'done improperly' that yield all the rot! Palm oil not crucial, proper palm oil is crucial For instance, this is purely Daily Express' idea – somebody once said "palm oil is crucial" when actually what should have been said is "proper palm oil is crucial".Proper here means not converting all the high biodiversity low land and flood plain areas to plant the crop, taking care not to fragment wildlife habitats and chopping out the connectivities that cause extinction, not clearing riparian forests to plant right to the edge of rivers, by not dumping palm oil mill effluents into the rivers, by not clearing steep slopes that cause massive erosions and pollution of Sabah's rivers.So proper palm oil keeps both capital and interest.Where has Strategic Environmental Planning gone?Actually, 10 or more years ago, Danida actively helped Sabah with environmental pilot projects and did their best to sell the idea of Strategic Environmental Planning as the proper way to develop biodiversity- rich Sabah.That is, avoid or minimise disturbance of sensitive high biodiversity areas and develop all one wants in non-sensitive areas to reap the double benefits of the proverbial "killing two birds with one stone", thus preserving both the capital or a robust natural resource bank account and reaping the handsome interest simultaneously. But Danida left and little was heard about Strategic Environmental Planning thereafter. Similarly, it is not logging that is negative, it is improper logging and deforestation that had extinguished a once rich timber industry. It is not fishing that is wrong but all the improper fishing – fish bombing, cyanide fishing, over fishing, bottom trawling, all size fishing etc. What we try to say here is Sabah should embrace Fabian's instructive message – go for all things proper.So even though palm oil is a big revenue earner, it is proper palm oil that is crucial, not all the improper practices that are damaging the reputation an important economic product.Emerging guru for all things 'properly done'Fast emerging as a guru to spread the 'done properly' message, Daily Express asked Fabian what he had in mind about being proper."Well there are lots of examples on poor practices in the world, " he said. "Unfortunately, they have a negative impact on the environment, I don't like pointing fingers but I am sure it is very easy to find some bad examples. "But there are also good examples – people who take into account the long term impacts and take proper measures, use the highest standards to make sure what they are doing is the best of their abilities, the best of scientific research of the day, the best technology and practices as possible and therefore in pragmatic terms produce the maximum yield that one can without impacting negatively. "It can be done!"There is a delicate balance but it can be done," Fabian was sure."It is not a complicated formula. All these problems stem from very simple sources of our daily bad habits, every day bad decision making that are based not on the best information, especially the right information." He believes being a guru of quality information is a key platform he is working on as a story maker."Without the best information you can't have hope.""Once we get that information and nurture the community who want to do better for themselves and their children, then you have hope and then you can bring positive solutions and it does happen." As Ocean Witness for WWF, Fabian is here to convince Sabah Malaysia the benefits of creating a network of Marine Protected Areas to reap the 'interest' from a robust natural resource bank account. The two most urgent things "The ocean is a universal connector, a place without boundaries, it's a place for freedom, also a place of responsibility and it's a communal bank account but essentially in many cases what happens in one part of the ocean affect other parts, " Fabian said."So the two things that jump out of me is we need to do the most urgent: Create more sanctuaries and protected areas and networks of them.Managing the resources much better with much better information and possibly with better technology to lift the pressure off , better technology meaning the idea is not to take away from the people but to give more to people and at the same time take the pressure off the environment which is our life support system ," Fabian said. So Fabian advocates that Sipadan should be expanded.Tun Mustapha Marine Park first proposed as a million-hectare Marine Protected Area has taken 13 years to be gazetted as Sabah's first multiple use marine park but was somehow reduced to 900,000 hectares, said Rebecca Jumin, a WWF-Malaysia marine biologist. Fabian firmly believes that creating more sanctuaries to fatten the communal bank account of Sabah can be done.A very important NZ success story Sabah must know"You just have to think out of the box, you just have to be able to show the value of protecting nature as well as the tangible value as well as the philosophical value," he stressed. "But one thing I want to caution is when we talk about marine protected areas, often the reaction of the fishing community is they think the authorities are taking things away from them but actually that's not true. "The truth is marine protected areas are actually building a robust resource system for the fishermen and I am a big supporter of local fishermen.""A very good example in 1981, the New Zealand Government proposed to set up Poor Knights Marine Reserve on the east coast of North Island – a beautiful place, one of the wonders of the world with natural arches and caves and one of those places my grandfather had been," Fabian said."When the government proposed protecting this area, fishermen protested, saying: 'You are taking our livelihood away', 'We are going bankrupt', 'We are not going to be able to provide for our family'… all the usual arguments."When fishermen caught twice as many fish! However, the marine reserve went through and got passed anyway. Lo and behold, two years later the fishermen who were originally protesting against this marine reserve found they were catching twice as many fish around the reserve. "They became so excited about this that they became the biggest protectors of the marine reserve and actually petitioned to the government to expand it three times bigger because they had seen the benefits that it gave them," Fabian noted."This is a very important story that fishermen who had experienced this can share with fishermen or talk to their own kins that this is an extremely beneficial thing for the local community, especially those who depend on a healthy ocean." A Google check found this Kiwi story to be true.In 1981, the New Zealand Government established the Poor Knights Marine Reserve which banned commercial fishing but initially allowed recreational fishing.In 1998, they upgraded it into a full marine reserve and by New Zealand standard means a completely no-take zone, no disturbance to marine life, no removal of shells, rocks and no commercial fishing within a nautical mile.When fish abundance increased by 7.4 times and biomass by 818pc!How did the fish respond to full protection? Studies show significant increase in snapper abundance and biomass, particularly apparent for snappers bigger than 270mm whose numbers increased rapidly to levels 7.4 times higher in a final survey, compared to the initial pre-reserve survey.And total snapper biomass increased by 818pc!This incredible increase in snapper density resulted from immigration of adults into the reserve rather than within the reserve recruitment.The results show that partial fishing regulations as implemented in the early years as ineffective in protecting targeted species. So why has Tun Mustapha taken so long to become operational?Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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