Responses to the Challenge of Multiple Stresses in the Ocean Environment

Multiple stresses in the ocean environment is a global problem which cannot effectively be managed globally because it is too large and too complex. The traditional responses carve the problem up into sectors of human socioeconomic activities and seek to create international regimes, global and/or regional, consisting of objectives, standards, regulations, enforcement, and dispute settlement provisions, inter alia. Many of those regimes do not work effectively and the marine environment and the resources it contains continue to decline. This means that much of what is done at the national level also does not support sustainable use of the marine environment and its resources. Current global drivers of stress to the marine environment include CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and the oceans, human population growth, and human-generated patterns of land use and land cover change. The presentation will explore new ways of understanding the problems we now face and the changes they require in policy development and national strategies.