 You are listening to the Make Change Happen podcast from IID, the International Institute for Environment and Development. Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life Below Water, seeks to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources to meet the 10 targets of the goal and ensure the many benefits from ocean seas and coasts are available to everyone in an inclusive blue economy. Action is needed both in the policy arena and in fishing practice. What is the economic value of marine and coastal ecosystems and small scale fisheries? How can incentives be employed for sustainable fisheries management? How can we ensure future high seas governance regimes or treaties are equitable and benefit all? To answer these and other questions, in this podcast our Director of Communications Liz Carlisle talks with two expert colleagues who are leading IID's research in this area. Hi and welcome to IID's new podcast, Make Change Happen. I'm your host today, I'm Liz Carlisle, I'm Director of Communications at IID and I'm going to guide us through a conversation with two of my colleagues. I've got on my left, Esam Yassin Mohamed, he's head of the inclusive blue economy team here and a fisheries economist. Can I call you that, Esam? Yes, absolutely fine. And formally you are head of the Fisheries Promotion Unit for the Ministry of Fisheries in Eritrea. On my right here is Laura Kelly. You are head of our Sustainable Markets Research Group and formally I think you're with Department for International Development as head of business engagement and the business hub. Have I got that right? Yeah that's right Liz, great to be here and part of this conversation, I'm very much looking forward to it. Good, I think we've got a few little issues here we can tease out. Esam what got you into kind of fisheries? I know it's been one of your particular passions. So it goes back to when I was in Eritrea very long time ago. I have this slightly unhealthy obsession with one particular fish called orange-faced butterfly fish. They're extremely beautiful creatures, they're ornamental fish in the Red Sea. And essentially I spend an awful lot of time maybe hundreds or thousands of hours strokling and diving to understand their behaviour when they breed and how they mate and all that. And that's what got me into fisheries in the first place. I decided to train as an economist and then end up being this very funny hybrid of marine biologist and an economist. Well I'm glad you're here with us and we're going to benefit from that funny hybrid. Laura what about you? I suppose the fish in your sea are kind of businesses, supply chains, all sorts of different characters. What's the interest for you around fisheries? Well I think as Esam explained from his own personal history, oceans and fish mean a lot to people. And putting people at the centre of development is really important for success and for sustainability. And I actually think the approach that we take here at IID is really about trying to get people at the centre of things. So we've got lots of fish and they're important but the people are really important too. And I think that leads us very very nicely to what we're talking about today. And so perhaps you can kind of kick us off, perhaps you Esam. I know this is a conversation but I think giving our listeners a bit of context would really help. So what do we actually mean by an inclusive blue economy? So I would say it is an ocean based economy that tries or aims to balance economic games of course and cultural and environmental games. So how do you strike a balance between all these three? But at the same time when we do so making sure that the people who depend on these resources for their livelihood are not left behind. I think that's really key. In business they often talk about the triple bottom line, something that's important for people and for the environment and for business. And I've been really struck talking to you about some of your work working with small scale fishers. I mean it's amazing that most of the fish in the world are actually caught by small and medium enterprises. They're not the big international, transnational companies. And I think that that's really important to remember in this debate that actually when we talk about business we're not just talking about big trawlerships. We're talking about small, often fisherwomen. It was great. I went to the Blue Economy Conference in Nairobi back in October last year. And it was great to meet some of the fisherwomen there, women from the Tanzanian Fish Workers Association. The great story is to tell about how they're mobilising and bringing their issues into these sort of real, really important debates about development. Absolutely. And I know, Sam, you've been to Bangladesh many times, I think, with the Hilsa Fisheries Community. You must give us an example of maybe a fisherman or a fisherwoman that you've met and has really struck a chord with you. I can give you an example in Bangladesh, since you mentioned Bangladesh Liz, where we went with this very well developed research proposal to work with fishers and with the government to find a way how to maximise the benefits that these small scale fishers receive. And as I will share my story, my project plan with the fisherman that time, and he completely dismisses our hypothesis and research questions, etc. The greatest lesson from that was to be able to listen to those individuals and see them as a source of inspiration and knowledge and information, and factor that in our research approach. So these are the people experiencing that catch every day. It's ups and downs, when it's working, when it's not, when they can make enough money, when they can't and so on. And if I were to pick up on what Laura just said about the significance of small scale fishers, as we call them, essentially small scale fishers, of course, what it means is that people who've got small capacity boats, maybe some of them have very small powered engines, some of them don't have any engine, etc. And globally speaking, they contribute up to more than 50% of the seafood supply globally. And guess what? They employ more than 95% of the global fishers as well. So we're talking about a large economy labelled as a small scale. But the other thing is those 95% don't get 95% of the benefits of global fish stocks. They also only go out a couple of miles from the coastline. What about the big oceans? Because that's where a lot of those fish come from. They go to spawn. We really need to think about the ocean in its entirety, even though we're focusing on small scale fishers. So the best way to put it into perspective is, so when you look at the planet, of course, about 75% I believe is covered by water, a significant portion of it being the ocean. And in terms of how we manage it, 50% of that planet's surface area, at this point in time, as we speak, we don't have any legal instrument of any sort to govern 50% of the planet. So this means that whoever's got the best resources and who can ever can go out and do what they want with the ocean for their own interests can do that at the moment. That's exactly what's happening as we speak now. So whoever's got the financial and technical means to go out there and explore the ocean resources is able to do so. But Esam, there's a new international negotiation that's sort of just been going on for about a year or so that's actually trying to redress that imbalance and it's a negotiation between national governments. What's your sort of perspective on that as a way to try to regulate a bit or to better distribute the benefits from that deep sea? So if you're a coastal state or nation, you can claim up to 200 nautical miles, up to 200 miles from your coastal line as your national sovereignty. Anything beyond that doesn't belong to anyone. That's what I was referring to as what's commonly called as the international waters or the high seas. Now the positives and the story is member states of the United Nations have agreed to come together to negotiate and strike a deal in developing a legal instrument to govern this portion of the high seas and to exactly redress that point that you mentioned about Liz earlier which is now anyone who's got the financial technical means can go and exploit it. But now we're saying now this one, this almost half or 50% of the planet belongs to everyone. In legal terms we call it a common heritage of mankind. This belongs to me, you are children, grandchildren and the future generation as well. So therefore how do we make sure there is a fair and just and sustainable way of managing this resource and whatever benefits extracted from that part of the world is shared fairly and equitably. These are the areas beyond national jurisdiction. That's correct. That this new process run by Unclos is looking at. Unclos Liz, what's that? That's the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. I'm just getting my head around some of these terms. It's a very technical area. There's another agreement around biodiversity. There's just been this report showing that we are losing biodiversity at an alarming rate. Millions of species, some we don't even know yet. But it seems to focus quite a lot on land. I imagine there's also a water-based marine aspect to that in terms of biodiversity loss. There's an intergovernmental body that was set up that has thousands of experts in it brought together. And this is ITBERS. This is the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Exactly. In short, IPBS or ITBERS as people call it. So these experts came together just to assess the magnitude of the threat that the planet is facing by diversity or nature is facing. And what's very striking in relation to the conversation that we're having today is the identify of a fishing as one of the major threats to marine biodiversity. Now, let's link that up to what we've just been discussing about these high seas negotiations. Within the high seas negotiations, there is no mandate or scope to discuss fishing in the high seas. Because that's better dealt according to some UN Fish Stocks Agreement or regional bodies. But what we're saying is we cannot talk about biodiversity in the high seas without tackling this biggest threat that marine biodiversity is facing, which is fishing. But exactly, there's a huge threat because a lot of that large-scale fishing is heavily subsidized. There are a number of large-scale fishing fleets from Europe, from other parts of the world. And it's really difficult to address that issue of subsidies. I think the negotiations have been going on in the World Trade Organization now for about five years. I think there's an opportunity potentially at the end of this year the governments have committed to reach an agreement on reducing subsidies. I think we also have to remember that sometimes some kind of financial support to the small-scale fishers is really important. Because if you want to protect fish stocks and you have a closed season or a marine protected area, if you're a small-scale fisherman who relies on that resource, you've got no other source of livelihood. So Esam, the team, you've been doing some work looking at how to actually use subsidies, and we do call it subsidies, in a way to support better fish stock conservation. If a fishing fleet was to go hundreds of miles from the coast and do fishing there and come back, that would be economically not feasible. The only way it can be economically feasible is when governments provide an offer of subsidy to reduce the cost. It could be the fuel subsidy, for instance. Don't worry about the cost of fuel. We'll give you this much money to subsidize that. And that's what's enhancing the capacity of these fleets to go out there and hoover the sea, essentially. So what we're calling for is we need to bring an end to that. And hopefully governments have agreed to hopefully strike a deal to eliminate quote-unquote harmful subsidies. We must make it clear at IRID we're not necessarily against subsidies. We're against harmful subsidies. What we say is there need to be a transition from bad to good. One may ask, what's a good subsidy? And that goes back to exactly the point that Laura was mentioning about. For instance, you impose a no-take season in Mauritania or Bangladesh or elsewhere. How do you expect them to survive throughout that closed season? That's what you bring in subsidy. Provide them subsidy to survive during the closed season. Allow the fish stock to recover for the fish to breed, produce more fish. And then that would sustain the sector and the economy. So yes, again, I can't emphasise more, but I think we need to work with governments to support them and put pressure on them to strike a balance by the end of the year to eliminate harmful subsidies. And this is a target within the sustainable development goals that need to be met by 2020 a few months down the line. 2020, but the goals overall are 2030. So we've got another 12 years, but those are 17 goals and goal 14 is on life below water. So it's a really important part of the sustainable development goals. But there are other things that obviously marine life can contribute to by diversity as we've already talked about. But also tourism, small scale fishers are obviously one part of the coastal economy. But tourism, we've got many beautiful parts of the ocean, the reefs, and they're all under threat as well from overuse. So finding sustainable ways to use the oceans as a whole, I think is really important. I've been quite interested recently looking at things like marine protected areas for tourism. But many developing country governments just don't have the resources to set those reserves up and then to actually pay for their upkeep or to pay for them actually being properly monitored. So we've done some work looking at the role of private finance to support that. There's a really growing movement now of impact investors, people who want to see really positive social and environmental outcomes for their investments and they're prepared to sort of accept a slightly lower rate of return. But they're the kind of people who you could attract to invest into a coastal reserve off of Mozambique or around Laos in Kenya or in places in the Caribbean. But it's really important to have a really good system by which you can demonstrate to those investors that there's really been the impact they've hoped to invest in. And sometimes local communities can be part of that kind of monitoring. But again, the SDGs can provide a framework. A lot of targets within Goal 14, but that is a way at least that everybody is judged by the same principles in terms of reducing fishing or concerning the environment. So that's an area where I think the private sector again can play a role. We've talked a lot about small scale fishes and we're talking also about the deep seas. To what extent, Tessam, do you think things like deep sea mining are really going to take off? If there was any positive development in the way we govern the ocean or the marine environment, it's the setting up marine protected areas. A number of experts and others who work in this space would agree with me in saying that that's the only aspect that we are on track in achieving. Of course, there's a debate about quality versus quantity. As Laura was mentioning earlier, of course, when you talk about the effectiveness in the way they're implemented, the way they're financed, et cetera, we can raise so many questions. But at least if we were to look at the surface area that's being put aside as marine reserve, there's a very encouraging development. Now, the second question is with respect to the deep sea mining is a very interesting development as well. When the law of the sea was codified in 1982, became an international treaty in 1982, we didn't really anticipate as much prospect for deep sea mining, but suddenly technology allowed us to do more of that, hence why people are taking it very seriously. Therefore, that's where now the International Seabed Authority and other partners are working together to straight a fine balance between allowing human prosperity from an economic point of view, but also making sure that activity doesn't harm or doesn't pose a threat to marine life. So as a lay person, this sounds overwhelmingly complex. We've got the bad things that are going on, the kind of the dumping. We all know about the plastics that's been raised and people are very much behind that. We've got overfishing, we've got big vested interests. We've got small scale fishers trying to make a livelihood. I think you said earlier that 50% of this resource belongs of our world is oceans and that is something that we need to get better at governing, understanding and sharing as a kind of common heritage of man, equal benefit. So this sounds a little bit like a free-for-all to me. It sounds sort of complex and disorganized. And I'm assuming that this process around the A, B and J, the areas beyond national jurisdiction is a way that we're trying to get that organized. So why is this an issue now? Why is it important now? And I think also between us, does everyone agree it's important now? I think to come back to the lovely David Attenborough and the Blue Planet and now his series on Netflix, my daughters have just been blown away by watching that. The technology enables the most incredible photographs to be taken. But just to see the scale of these shoals of fish and to see the dolphins in the oceans, it brings it home to people in a way that I think it's a really timely moment to act. It's almost like the tipping point that more people are concerned about this. So it is taking advantage of that public interest and pushing governments across the world to seize the opportunity of the A, B and J negotiations. But I think business is also realizing that a more sustainable use of high seas resources is in their interests as well. Businesses employ people, even the large-scale businesses. And many of them have committed to the SDGs, there are many SDG frameworks. But as I think I said earlier, a key thing is how do we demonstrate or how do they demonstrate and how do we hold them to account for delivering on these things. So SM, we haven't mentioned BB and J, which is Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction. So that's clearly important, and from an IAD perspective important to people. So can you tell us a bit about that? Indeed, indeed, yes. So BB and J, we referred to it earlier as the high seas. There was sort of the comment about wrong perception about the high seas. That it's too remote to matter. Coastal communities, they don't go beyond three to six or 12 miles. So why are we bothered for something that started plus miles away from the coast? And this is exactly what we did very recently in IAD in partnership with the National Geography Centre is we tried to look at the fact that the high seas and coastal waters are highly interconnected systems. And the best way to explain this is using rubber ducks. That famous story about this container, that was abundant in 1992 with thousands of rubber ducks. And that's what changed our perception when these rubber ducks were being found in a number of other thousands or hundreds of miles away from where they were dumped. And this is due to the highly interconnected system of the ocean. So what we've done is we tried to look at the reliance of coastal developing countries, particularly the poorest of the poor of the countries, how those coastal communities or their coastal ecosystems or waters were interconnected with areas that were hundreds of thousands miles away. And therefore that sort of information becomes very important for two reasons. One is to emphasise that the health of the high seas is extremely important for the livelihoods of coastal communities, particularly in those poorer countries. And the second reason being the government's measures that we take for the protection of the high seas need to take into account how they may benefit these coastal communities. I loved your rubber ducks story, Esam. I mean, it's like, is that the origins of the plastic pollution problem we have now? All of those rubber ducks. 28,000 Laura, 28,000 Laura. Interestingly, people refer to them as friendly rubber ducks. Because there is a... Friendly floaties or something. Yeah, friendly floaties. Right, exactly. It's because it's huge following globally. So you know, people are very enthusiastic about, you know, taking pictures. We have identified a found one and they post them in this website. And it's almost like it was called the Pokemon Go game of that sort. I think that's brought us to a very nice place because all of this was looking a little bit high level. But I think we're sort of drawing to a close now. So I'd like to ask, how can we get this down to, you know, what can the person in the street do? Is it any good, for example, buying fish with a sustainable sticker? What's the message here for those of us who are not deep in the process? I guess I think the public awareness through this excellent documentary such as that of David Attenborough for instance, that raises the awareness of the public, sort of, you know, making sure that whatever is on their table is sustainably sourced, sustainably in a sense that ecologically sustainable, but also making sure that no one was harmed when that fish was caught. This industry has got an awful lot of story about, you know, modern day slavery. They said that we need to be aware of. Of course we can discuss that. But I think people making conscious decision in terms of demanding a sustainable seafood for instance. And obviously the business will be able to react or to respond to that demand. And presumably with the growing interest that, you know, we've got a climate crisis or a climate emergency rather than just a climate change. This must have a relationship. This must be something that people can be interested in and understand. The oceans are a huge carbon sink. So if we start overfishing, we start destroying natural habitats. CO2, more COTs going to be released into the atmosphere and that's going to make climate change even while sea level rise. And of course it's going to be those poor coastal communities that are going to be hurt. But those of us who live quite near the Thames in London, we might think it's quite nice now. But when we're six feet underwater, we're not going to think it's so good. So it really is about changing our behaviors more broadly and, you know, turning off our lights, not driving so much. All of these things are really interconnected. And the public interest in things like plastics and the oceans and the sort of the response to, as you say, the climate crisis feels like now is a really good point to be acting and to be talking about how important these things are. And what it is, as you say, is the ordinary person in the street can do. So to finish then, Sam, I'm going to ask you what change do you think can happen quite soon in the work you're doing that would make a difference? I guess the most important thing that needs to happen or that can happen is that as we started this conversation is bringing people at the heart of the core of this blue economy discourse. So for me, it's about making sure the integrity of our blue economy or our ocean and marine resources is not compromised and we're not compromising the livelihoods of those people who neglect on this resource to survive. And that can be done 100% sure, sort of as there's a political will to end harmful subsidies and making sure that those systemic constraints that stop people from maximising their benefit from the ocean in a sustainable way are eliminated. So this is possible? I generally believe so. Good. Laura, what about a change that should happen that you're perhaps less convinced that we can do it quick enough? Well, I think we should be able to reach an agreement in these ABNJ negotiations but as we've seen in other international negotiations like the World Trade Organization or on climate it takes a long time and there are lots of competing interests around the table but at IID we are working with the poorest countries in those negotiations to make sure that their concerns are taken forward. So I think their concerns should be part of the negotiation and we're working to try to support that. Excellent. Thank you. I hope it's okay to do a little plug before I say thank you. We've got three animations that I think your team was responsible for as Sam. One is called No Hidden Catch. The other is about fiscal policy tools going back to your point and I think not having subsidies that support bad practice but thinking of them incentives to support good practice and then we have something that explains governing the high seas. Short animations to be found on www.iied.org if you'd like to know more. But can I finish by thanking Laura Kelly and Esa Myasin Mohamed for a very interesting conversation. And for more about Laura and Esam's work and the issues discussed today visit the Fisheries and Sustainable Markets sections of our website. You'll find them under the Our Work menu on the homepage. You'll discover related projects, articles, news and multimedia along with many freely downloadable research publications. You have been listening to the Make Change Happen podcast from IID the International Institute for Environment and Development. The podcast has been produced by our in-house communications team. For more information about IID and our work please visit our website at www.iied.org