The Ocean Is in Trouble, So Why Is This Report Hopeful?

0:00 If you only read the headlines about the ocean, you probably think using ocean protection is not doing well. Coral reefs are bleaching, the ocean is warming, fish populations are under pressure, sea levels are rising. So why does a major new United Nation report actually leave me feeling more hopeful than I have been in years? This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update. If you care about staying informed on the ocean every weekday, Monday to Friday, hit that follow button right now on the podcast app that you're listening to so you don't miss next week's episode. Now, this week, a new UN report painted a stark picture of the challenges facing the ocean. But buried inside that report was something we don't hear much about or often enough. While the ocean health continues to decline, we're about to hit a super El Nino, so who knows what's going to happen over the next year or so. Our ability to govern and protect it is actually improving. Today, I want to talk about why both of those statements can be true at the same time and why that distinction matters.

1:05 Let's start with reality. The ocean is under tremendous pressure, like a lot of pressure. The UN's latest assessment doesn't sugarcoat that fact. Ocean temperature continues to rise, marine heat waves are becoming more common. Like I said, we're about to enter a super El Nino. Sea levels are rising faster than they were just a few decades ago. Coral reefs continue to experience mass bleaching events and many fish populations face ongoing pressures from overfishing habitat loss and climate change. And if you've listened to this podcast for a while, none of that is new to you because we've covered all these stories before. You've heard me talk about the reefs. You heard me talk about fisheries. You've heard me talk about climate change. The science is clear. The ocean is changing. We know that for a fact.

1:49 Whether we like it or not, it's changing. I think a lot of the stories that I've covered, you know, deep sea mining, the high seas, pilot whales, no pollution and just this episode this week. And then, of course, discovering the Mediterranean Great White Shark that was happening on Monday, that was really cool. But there's still some stuff that we see that every day, you know, the rollbacks like just the other day or just this last week, you know, during Oceans Week of all weeks, we saw rollbacks of a lot of marine sanctuaries in the US. We saw industry allowed to fish. So they're going to overfish, of course, not going to be managed properly. We see an administration in the US and elsewhere who are just even in Canada who are rolling back, rolling back environmental protections that are that that will slow down any type of natural resource development.

2:45 And that's been a story like since the beginning of time where we're seeing all these environmental regulations slow down economic opportunities. And I just got into a debate on a guy with a guy in TikTok being like, hey, we have to take care of the economy. We have to take care of the health of people. And I plainly remind them, like, well, if you want to take care of the health of people, you have to take care of the health of the planet. Because like there's there's a reason why we are seeing like here in the southern Ontario, we're seeing areas where you have the highest number of people with allergies, you know, and breathing problems. You know, I wonder why we live right beside Hamilton Harbor, which at one point was responsible for 11% of the greenhouse gases that were emitted, you know, in southern in the country.

3:29 And no, all the other stuff that goes with it, not just about greenhouse gases, but all the other stuff, the pollutants and stuff that comes with that. You know, there's a reason why we continue to do this. If we want the health of the people to improve, we have to improve the health of the planet, whether it be oceans, freshwater or land. That's really what it comes down to, you know. But, you know, like sometimes, like, you know, when you cover ocean every day, it can feel like challenges keep piling up. I had a recent, you know, person who commented on Spotify, which is great, comment on Spotify as much as possible. I love this, this, this topic that she has. She said, hey, you know, like I can't listen to five days a week because some of these topics are heavy and I can't listen to them every day. Totally understandable.

4:10 Total. I totally get it. I don't expect people to listen to five times a day or five times a week, you know, so I won a day pretty much for the weekday. But, you know, we do provide the news and sometimes it's a little light, sometimes a little heavy. It just that's just the way it is. So I understand the feeling of like, hey, you know what? People will feel like it's pile up. I get it. I share honestly. Right. Like that's what I do. You know, but there there have definitely been moments over the past few years when I've wondered whether we're moving fast enough. I even said it, you know, I think that's something, you know, the audience appreciates is what I'm honest with becoming without becoming pessimistic. You know, even though there are a lot of things that are going against the ocean, there's been a lot of improvement in international agreements and local action, regional provincial or state and national action.

4:59 We started to see things slowly turn around, even though some things are getting worse. There's things that are happening that are really working, even though for the time being, like four or five years, things will slow down. We need to move faster. There's no doubt about that. But we're starting to see improvement in the types of policies that are enacted that are put that are put in place and that when they're actually followed, they actually work. But here's what caught my attention in this report. The story isn't only about what's getting worse. It's also about what's getting better. You know, now let's talk about something we rarely celebrate is governance. I know, like the word probably doesn't even get anybody excited. Definitely doesn't get me excited. But nobody hangs a poster of governance on their wall.

5:40 Nobody plans a vacation around governance. But governance might be one of the most important conservation tools we have in that conservation toolbox because conservation doesn't happen just because science discovers a problem, right? Or discovers a trend, a negative trend. Right? The science and scientists will discover that negative trend, but it has to go into law to be able to, you know, enact that and to reverse that trend. Right? Happens when people create systems to solve them and it gets boring for sure. You know, there's nothing better than like tagging a shark or watching a video of somebody tagging a shark or or what, you know, observing from the air like marine mammals and stuff like that. Discovering icebergs and how they work and how they float and all that stuff.

6:22 But the systems that you put into place to solve the problems. They're the boring part, but they're the effective part. Right? And that's where the UN report offers some encouraging news. Around the world, we've seen stronger ocean governance emerge. The high seas treaty is moving forward. Countries are expanding marine protected areas. Illegal fishing monitoring is improving. Satellite technology is improving enforcement, which is great. International cooperation is also improving. None of these things solve ocean problems overnight, but they matter because for decades, many ocean problems existed without means. Meaningful global systems to address them. Like even just I would say about 16 years ago, I was working as a contractor with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and we were looking at ocean management and we were talking about how you put an NPA in the middle of the water, like just out of, you know, just off the continent shelf or within the continental shelf, but off the coast.

7:16 You can't see it from land. You can't see how those people are coming in. Those boats are coming in and out. You can't see if someone's fishing there illegally or anything like that. You can put satellites, but that time, like 16 years ago, even then the satellites aren't coming up often enough and we're not getting enough pictures and we can't really tell. We can't use satellite alone to do that. Now we're able to get to that point. You know, we can use drones, we can use aircraft, we can use satellites or a combination of those to give us a better picture. Like those systems are now beginning to emerge. AI data is helping, AI data analysis is helping and just sort of like crunching all that data. But I guess the question for you is like, what does governance actually mean?

7:57 Like, do you know what it means? I guess it's basically rules, agreements, any kind of enforcement, accountability, cooperation. It's not the stuff we hear about. We hear about a lot of that illegal activity, but we never hear about the good things like the enforcement that happens to eliminate those agreements. Right? Or those that illegal illegal illegal legalities, I guess. Right? We start to see those change. We start to see that like technology being able to catch people faster. Right. And I think that's really important. One case in point, you know, fisheries, when somebody is fishing illegally, they come to a dock, they want to unload as fast as possible, get their money and then go. A lot of times they can do that by unloading either major ships.

8:40 They can unload, not have anything happen to them. Right. Until it's too late, until they're gone. And then they start to realize that, wait, these fish are not coming for the right boat or we've been looking for this boat for a while. They come in and out of ports, like almost like ghosts. But now with AI and machine learning, that data gets crushed a lot faster. So managers can actually enforce better. And the enforcement arm of the law can actually do their jobs faster. And we're seeing those ships. They can't come into port in those in those areas because it's just this risk. Right. So that's that's getting better and better. Now, it's just a matter of like rolling out that information and those that technology to a lot more people.

9:23 And I don't know if that's happening. I hope that's happening. Right. But that's important. Right. And I think like, you know, when you when you it's like you're comparing, like, when I compare like governance, like traffic laws. You know, if people are speeding too much or that becomes a problem and there's some accidents because of it. Well, then they, you know, there's more enforcement on on speeding or they they make more strict laws and people have to, you know, go with those laws and they have to abide by those laws and there's enforcement. Right. Cars don't become safer because we hope people drive responsibly. They become safer because we create rules and force those rules and improve the system over time. Like people hate his seat belts when they first came up. But as cars started to drive faster and people started to get into accidents, yes, seatbelt would save lives, still does save lives.

10:09 Now we don't even think about it. You know, that's usually not a problem. It's very rare where that's a problem. Right. The same principle applies to ocean management. You know, I think I think when we when we start to look at things and how things are done, the more we can enforce, the better. Here's just a matter of can we get out to the people who are doing illegal activities and kept them in the act? And then when we do the enforcement, can we like, are the there's the punishment fit the crime? Because sometimes the punishment doesn't fit the crime in the past. Right. Or even now, I'm sure. Right. So I think that there's a lot of things that have changed over that. You know, when I started my career, I think like I focus mostly on like the science. You know, I didn't really know about policy. It didn't interest me at any point in time.

10:50 But it's something that I was like, as I started to mature within and evolve within the career, my career and within ocean science and conservation, I realized that's why I can an important part. Same with science communication. Just as important. Getting the information out there on the negative trends, but also what's been working helps because it gives people hope that things can change. You know, by telling people that the Magnuson-Stevenson's Act and the Endangered Species Act have helped and the Marine Mountain Protection Act have helped. Great white sharks become bigger, like stronger, basically, and more distributed and bigger population has helped because of those policies that brings hope to people.

11:31 Right. Sea lions increase because they weren't allowed to be hunted. They weren't allowed to be harassed. Magnuson-Stevenson's Act gave them the fish that they needed so the sea lions can increase in size and number as well as the great white sharks because that's what they eat. Right. It's all connected and we were able to help that and have a great conservation success story because of that policy and that governance. I just want to remind people, if you're getting value from this quick ocean news update or these quick ocean news update Monday to Friday, please follow the show. So you never miss another episode on your favorite podcast app. I personally, I usually listen to podcasts on either YouTube. I know they're not technically podcasts, but also I'll listen to Apple podcasts and Spotify every once in a while.

12:14 I mix all over the place. So follow me on all those if you want so that you can always get updates whenever we put out episodes. I think it's important, but follow it helps other people discover the podcast as well as well as keep you in for the subscription. So that really helps. So sometimes progress doesn't feel like progress. Like one reason people feel discouraged about the ocean is because ecological recovery takes time like a long time. You know, let's say a government creates a marine protected area today. Fish populations don't imagine you recover tomorrow. It's not a one day process. Coral reefs take a lot of time. They don't immediately bounce back. Ecosystems are not going to just instantly heal at a snap of the fingers. Nature works over longer timelines, longer than politics.

12:57 Right. That's why sometimes politicians don't like to make these big, big promises and commitments over longer than their tenure. Longer times than even social media, you know, longer times than news cycles. Although I going back to the social media, like this is a perfect opportunity for you science communicators to create like journey type of content. Like follow me while we watch the ups and downs of trying to bring this coral reef back or this mangrove back as we see plantings and ice as the cuttings and restoration happen. And, you know, we'll talk about grants and how sometimes we get them. Sometimes we don't are donors that help in because they follow this great opportunity, especially with these longer times.

13:39 And we don't have time lines say, hey, you know what? We're actually following this for long terms and people on social media can follow you during that time. That's really important. So these long timelines, you know, they're longer than the new cycles. We know news doesn't like to cover it too often. They just like the quick clicks because that's where they make most of their money. This one reason why conservation can feel frustrating. We often don't. We often see the damage immediately. So I can say that again. We often see the damage immediately, but recovery happens slowly. Sometimes over a year, sometimes over decades. The U.N. report that that really inspired me to do this episode highlights this challenge. We're improving governance, but the ecological benefits may take time to appear.

14:22 And to be honest, that's OK. A slow recovery is a good recovery because conservation has always been the long game. Always. You know, when we start to see like fishery rebuilds, it takes a long time. Like even the the the cod of the North Atlantic, we have seen rebuild over, you know, 30 years, over 30 years. It's still not to where we can really fish comfortably, even though they're expanding the fisheries in Canada, which is a big mistake, in my opinion. But we're starting to see that rebuild, but it's slow, depending on how bad the population was. We're starting to see that slow recovery. You know, recovery of whale populations can sometimes be a little quicker, depending if you can create the the environments where these long lived animals can actually reproduce and without having their young killed or dying for whatever reason.

15:19 We can see a better recovery, but it takes time. You know, some of these whale populations, they'll have one, maybe two calves in their entire lives, like for per individual, sometimes more depending on their health. Right. So making a healthy population is going to take time protected areas. You know, they show the benefits years after creation. A lot of times we have to find alternative livelihoods for what we put in a marine protected area for fisheries for the fishing community, because that's what happens. Right. Because like it takes time to recover. Like what would happen if we got if we just fitness after one trip to the gym, like, let's be honest, like, anytime I start to lose weight, I look at the scale and I'm like, if I'm going to die, I'm like, I'm looking at the scale.

16:02 I'm like, okay, I lost like three pounds, which is probably water weight, but then I'll have like reward myself the next day and I'll have like a slice of pizza or two or three or four. And then I go back to higher than what I was. You're not going to see that overnight success. You're not going to lose 20 to 30 pounds or whatever you want to use lose overnight. Right. That's going to be a long term thing. You know, just like it took a long time to gain the weight, it's going to take a long time to lose the weight in a healthy manner. Some you might see some progress over time that does a little faster, but that's because of the work that you put in. We might see some ebbs and flows with conservation recovery and restoration.

16:43 But, you know, it's not going to be much, you know, time a year over year because meaningful change takes time, especially sustainable change. Right. The same is true for ecosystems, you know, just like losing weight could take a long time, like one to two pounds a week. That takes a long time over time to lose that 20, 30 pounds. That's personally what I want to lose. You know, but you know, the same thing goes with building a coral reef, rebuilding. They're very slow growing organisms and it takes time to grow that skeleton. Right. And it takes time to make sure that all the ingredients to help them grow are there and they're healthy and they're available. Right.

17:23 I mean, if you like, if you look at all the episodes that we put this that we have this week, there's like ups and downs and everything that we talked about. And we start to see some progress with the way people are putting in their managing and then we start to see other things happen. You know, we're seeing like, hey, we saw great white in the Mediterranean, you know, pilot whales that are can't hear each other because there's so much shipping. You know, all these things take time to develop and take time to detect and take time to put into law. You know, one thing I could I could tell you, I remember I think I've told the story before, but when I was working for fisheries and oceans in like 2012, 2013, the conservative Harper government came in government and he was Prime Minister Harper and they removed a lot of like, they removed the fisheries habitat section, like the protecting habitat in the fisheries act out of the fisheries act.

18:12 They just took it out and they said, oh, we're just going to manage like commercially indigenous and recreationally important species for fisheries. We're not going to worry about their habitats because that doesn't matter. Apparently, which it does. And so when they took it out after they got a like basically when when the Trudeau government came in, it took them like five years to re implement the fisheries act the way it was. They made a little stronger, but they had to go through consultation. They had to do a bunch of readings and they had to put it back in. They had to go through testing that to go through debate and all that kind of stuff. It takes time. Government takes time, but it got better and hopefully changes will be harder to make, especially when you roll those back. We'll see how that works.

18:55 You know, but like this week, we've talked about great whites. We talked about fishing regulations, pilot whales, indigenous ownership. We talked a lot a lot that all has taken time. Right? Like all of it has taken time. And to be honest, that's why this report felt like left me with a little like cautiously optimistic. You know, the ocean is facing huge challenges, but the science is clear about that. We know that they're facing challenges. But for the first time in a long time, we're also seeing stronger systems, better cooperation and more tools to address those challenges. And even though we're not nearly where we need to be, you know, the ocean story is still a crisis story. We know that, but it's also becoming a governance story.

19:38 And that's one reason I believe the future can be better than many people expect. Now it's just a matter of implementing those and making sure we follow those. And speaking of follow, if you haven't followed this podcast yet, please do. You'll get access to all of our ocean weekday updates. And I think that's important to learn how to protect the ocean. That's what we do this podcast. That's why I named it that way. All right. But that's it for today's episode. If you want to get ahold of me, you can just go in the show notes. You can DM me on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, whatever you'd like to do. But I want to thank you again for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew. Have a great day. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday and happy conservation.