AFRICA INSIGHTS9th Edition, January 2021

PATHWAYS TO SUSTAINABLE SEAS:

GOVERNING THE OCEAN AS A COMMONS

Contents

03 Foreword

04 Humanity’s relationship with the ocean

06 Ocean governance

08 Ocean sustainability transitions

10 The dynamics of sustainable transitions and transformations

10 Transition drivers and responses

12 Niche innovations

13 Empowering the commons for ocean governance

14 Conclusion and way forward

15 Key contacts

Africa Insights is a research collaboration between Bowmans and the University of Stellenbosch’s Centre for Complex Systems in Transition.

Research for this edition was done by Tanya Brodie Rudolph, Mark Swilling and Nina Callaghan.

Click here to read previous editions of Africa Insights.

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Foreword

In this edition of Africa Insights our research partners at Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Complex Systems in Transition consider the vast expanse of the ocean and ways of protecting a resource so essential for the planet’s wellbeing.

The ocean is under siege. Protecting it is arguably one of the most fluid and complex challenges to address because the ocean is neither state owned nor a private commodity but a shared resource that calls for a global response.

The researchers say this necessitates a form of ocean governance that goes beyond traditional state and private sector roles. They make the case for ‘polycentric governance’ in which multiple governing bodies interact to make and enforce rules within specific policy areas or locations.

They propose the establishment of a new, supra-national ‘Ocean Agency’ to inform national policies and corporate activities and manage the diverse views and ideas of many stakeholders, including civil society. They make the point that it will also be important to support the current UN ocean processes around the ratification of the new UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) agreement.

On the positive side, the research shows that when pressures build up and existing institutions do not have the capacity to respond appropriately, ‘niche innovations’ tend to open up and offer alternatives – much as renewable energy is challenging incumbent energy technologies.

With so much at stake for the continent, where millions of people depend on the health of the seas, it is vital for Africa to be part of the global efforts to chart a pathway towards ocean sustainability.

Fortunately, the continent is relatively well represented in global discussions on sustainable ocean economies and a number of countries are included on the Ocean Panel. It is also pleasing to see that some niche innovations have occurred on the continent.

Ocean governance is vast and complex, and while there is ample room for deeper debate, this report serves as a good starting point.

Robert LeghChairman and Senior Partner

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Life on earth depends to a large degree on the health of the ocean, which makes up 70% of the planet’s surface.

Our land-based lives are profoundly connected to the sustainability of the ocean.

The ocean, which provides these critical natural resources and services to humankind, is under stress.

In a business-as-usual scenario, where the rate of emissions remains unchecked and global

temperatures continue to rise, a series of radical collapses is likely and not a gradual slope of decline across species and ecosystems. This prediction was made by climate scientists Trisos, Merow and Pigot in a 2020 research paper. The ocean is projected to be the first ecosystem to experience this devastation, having already warmed to unprecedented levels.

Humanity’s relationship with the ocean

THE OCEAN

Provides

of the oxygen we breathe50%

Is home to between 50%-80% of life on

planet earth

Takes in

of excess carbon emissions25%

Has absorbed

of all warming due to climate change to date, raising sea surface temperatures by 0.7 degrees Celsius since 1900

93%

Provides nutrition for three billion people, with many of these living on the African coastline

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Global and regional pressures on the ocean include rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions and resultant changes in chemistry which, in turn, impact species and food webs throughout its ecosystems. Deoxygenation, overfishing and pollution run-off from land and coastal sources are also of concern.

Open ocean diversity has declined by up to 50% in the past 50 years, and the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 30% of the world’s assessed fisheries have already been pushed beyond ecological limits. A 2006 study by scientist Boris Worm and a team of economists, predicted fishless oceans by 2048 if nothing changes and urgent action is not taken.

Transformative change in ocean governance is required to ensure the ocean ecosystem continues to support the web of life. Humanity must forge a new relationship with the ocean to secure the diversity of ocean life and the services it provides.

This report applies transition theory to ocean governance. It explains how ecological stressors give rise to innovations across economic sectors and stakeholder communities. It outlines ways that these innovations can be taken up to support transitions to greater sustainability, thereby enabling a thriving and vibrant relationship between humans and the ocean.

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2019: Warmest years in recorded human history for the world’s oceansSource: Cheng, L., J. Abraham, J. Zhu, K.E. Trenberth, J. Fasullo, T. Boyer, R. Locarnini et al. 2020

-250

-200

-150

-100

-50

0

OH

C a

no

mal

y (

ZJ) 50

100

150

200

250

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2019

A fragmented urban form is associated with higher urban costsSource: World Bank, 2017

Members of the Ocean Panel

Ocean governance faces the challenge of reflecting the multi-dimensional and interconnected role that the ocean plays in environmental health, economic prosperity and human well-being, including justice and equity.

The ocean is not owned, controlled or managed by any one entity, be it a nation state, a corporation or an institution, no matter how powerful and far-reaching these may be. It is also not a commodity, a private good or a public good when considered in its entirety.

The World Commission on Environment and Development states that ‘Oceans are marked by a fundamental unity from which there is no escape. Interconnected cycles of energy, climate, marine living resources and human activities move through coastal waters, regional seas and the closed oceans’.

A state-centric approach is insufficient to imagine and configure a global governance effort that acknowledges the embeddedness of the ocean and associated actors in the wider planetary system. It is therefore best seen as a commons – a non-state, non-private shared resource that can only be protected if stakeholders who depend on it take collective responsibility for preservation and restoration with self-devised protocols, values and norms.

The High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (the Ocean Panel) was established in September 2018. It is constituted by 14 members who are heads of state and government, representing 40% of the world’s coastlines and 30% of exclusive economic zones.

The Ocean Panel has convened to build global political will to sustainably manage 100% of national waters by 2025. It is co-chaired by Norway and Palau. Members include Australia, Canada, Chile, Fiji, Ghana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia and Portugal.

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Ocean governance

Jamaica

Canada

Mexico

Chile

Kenya

Namibia

Ghana

Norway

Portugal

IndonesiaAustralia

Fiji

Palau

Japan

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The Ocean Panel’s aim is to work with diverse stakeholders (such as governments, business, financial institutions, scientists and civil society) to develop an action agenda for a sustainable ocean economy, supported by the interlinked tenets of protection, sustainable production and equitable prosperity.

The panel is currently one of the few policy bodies in the world that has the capacity and influence to initiate and accelerate action across the globe for ocean priorities – priorities that stretch well beyond national waters. This will require a transition to an adaptive, responsive and integrated global governance system.

It is salutary that African leaders, such as Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, are emphasising the importance of global action on governance for a sustainable ocean. To quote President Kenyatta:

‘Food from the ocean is of great economic and social value to Kenya and the rest of Africa. Millions of us in Kenya and across Africa depend on the ocean for income, jobs, food, protein and other nutrients. Yet, harnessing the potential of our ocean to provide food for the future cannot be achieved by any one country alone. It requires a unified global vision, centred around sustainability, multilateral actions and significant investments to support nations in their efforts to secure jobs, food and nutrition for billions of people.’

In December 2020, the Ocean Panel released a report titled Ocean Solutions that Benefit People, Nature and the Economy, which provides a strong foundation for charting a pathway towards ocean sustainability. One of the Blue Papers, on the ocean transition, which formed part of this report, states that a new, integrated system of global governance is required that responds to these pressures and recognises the ocean as a global commons.

However, an integrated approach to governance necessitates a questioning of the concepts, practices and institutions that oversee societal development.

More relevant and effective alternatives will be needed, the reason being that the traditional organising principles of modern industrial society – the nation-state and the market – are inappropriate for imagining the future governance of the ocean. Instead, we need to draw on the new literature and global activism related to the building of commons-based peer-to-peer systems that make possible many-to-many communications and collaborations on a global scale. Mozilla Fox and Wikipedia are examples of virtual knowledge commons, while ‘maker spaces’ and ‘fab labs’ also exemplify how commoners can collaborate and share knowledge and resources.

A more responsive and adaptive governance system for the ocean-as-commons requires an approach which ‘does justice to humanity’s obligations to itself, and to the planet which is its home’, to quote the International Court of Justice, 1997. These global and intertwined dynamics are not fully reflected in the current legal definition in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and international customary law.

The global ocean commons is made up of nation-state territory and what we know to be the high seas and the seabed beyond continental shelves, called Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. These latter areas do not fall within any nation-state’s authority. Governance of the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction is generally weaker than within national jurisdictions.

A treaty for Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction is being negotiated under the auspices of the UN. This means formal, legal protection of more than 40% of the earth’s surface will not be in place until the treaty is finalised. Currently, only a patchwork of sectoral organisations attend to the protection of the high seas.

A fragmented urban form is associated with higher urban costsSource: World Bank, 2017

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Ocean sustainability transitionsThe ocean has been identified as one of six key socio-ecological systems that require transformative change to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Transformation to a thriving ocean system requires changes in governance across sectors and scales, with effective and inclusive participation by multiple actors. The end result will be a form of ‘polycentric governance’, a system of decision making in which multiple governing bodies interact to make and enforce rules within a specific policy arena or location.

An entirely new institution – a kind of supra-national Ocean Agency (similar, possibly, to UNESCO’s ‘Man and Biosphere’ governance system) – is required to manage such polycentric governance.

It must not only set the rules for this new kind of governance but also coordinate and support multiple governing bodies, enrolling all players in a shared vision, guiding frameworks and applied processes to bring coherence to this form of governance. A polycentric system will require a balance among markets, government regulation and peer-to-peer commons-type institutional configurations that ‘crowd sources’ real-time data flows and solutions.

The pace of climate change and the degradation of the ocean is far outstripping the efforts of current agencies and multilateral institutions (such as FAO, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the UN Environmental Program). These ocean impacts are hitting islands, coasts, fisheries and polar seas hard.

The ocean has produced USD 2.5 trillion in goods and services annually for the past few years, with many new ventures becoming possible if the ocean economy can remain ecologically sustainable.

Reports by the Ocean Panel estimate the asset value of the ocean at USD 24 trillion. Without fundamental change, this growth in the economic uses of ocean resources is likely to exacerbate existing social inequalities (as certain communities lose their livelihoods) and accelerate the degradation of planetary environmental systems.

The envisioned Ocean Agency could govern through shared values to create flexible frameworks for the implementation, monitoring and management of blue economy activities. Its jurisdiction would inform and shape national policies and corporate activities and manage disparate views and ideas of the multiple actors in ocean and coastal governance processes.

Polycentric, or network governance, can create a decentralised system of multiple self-governing and interacting groups at different scales across policy levels, which often can handle complexity more effectively than centralised, top-down governance.

The diagram overleaf illustrates the elements required to transition to a more adaptive and responsive global ocean governance system. The model is driven by three primary levers: reconfiguring nation state governance, empowering the commons, and encouraging generative ownership.

Elements of the ocean governance transition

Rights

Knowledge

Empowering the commons

Reconfiguring nation-state

authority

Voluntaryadaptive

governance

Networkgovernance

Meta-governance

Makingownershipgenerative

Certification

User andproperty

rights

Industryinitiatives

Transition to ocean stewardship

through holistic direction in global

governance

Need a common vision

Nested scales of governance

Norms

Environmental justice

New modes of ownership

Pre-competitivecollaboration

Social learning

Global-localdigital commons

Meta-governance principles (such as transparency, accountability and inclusivity) must be in place to manage the trade-offs that will need to be made when there are policy conflicts in a multi-scalar, polycentric governance model.

Without this kind of polycentric governance system that goes beyond the traditional public and private sector roles, the bottom-up flourishing of commons-type initiatives will not automatically ‘add-up’ to coherent, systemic and transformative impact.

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Since the beginning of human civilisation, people have devised governance systems to sustain and protect the natural environment they depend on. Fishing grounds are a prime example of an open-access environment that has been transformed into regulated commons through self-devised, complex polycentric governance arrangements. Equal access and use are managed, while allowing the environment to regenerate and thrive – commitments crucial to commons management.

The principle of the commons and the practice of commoning have been eroded during industrialisation to be replaced by private ownership or public goods owned and governed by the state. The commons has come back into focus through efforts to support sustainability transitions and the transition of governance towards ecosystem stewardship pioneered by Nobel Laureate Eleanor Ostrom.

Socio-technical systems can change, even when they appear to be locked-in and path dependent. Resistance arises because of vested interests, entrenched economic or political subsystems that have endured for decades, the limits of human imagination, the persistence of societal norms, or the failure to recognise the mountains of scientific evidence that show the threats facing natural systems such as the ocean.

If existing institutions do not have the internal capacity or access to new knowledge to manage change and respond to pressures, then the tendency is for niche innovations to open up around these incumbent institutions and start to coalesce into alternatives. A good example is how coal-based energy utilities resisted change, but are now surrounded by a new generation of more profitable renewable energy companies.

The dynamics of sustainable transitions and transformations

Transition drivers and responses

The dynamics of systemic change in the ocean economy are depicted in the diagram overleaf, illustrating the process of transformation where isolated innovations emerge in response to wider systemic pressures.

Transitions to more sustainable ways are most likely to happen when incumbent institutions confront systemic pressures they were not designed to handle. Responses by specific sectors or communities may generate innovations that mature or expand. When scaled, these innovations (which can be technical, cultural, social, economic, political or legal) can ultimately replace unsustainable institutions.

Several regime responses illustrate how shifts in existing ocean systems towards sustainability can be made possible. For example, the IMO and the shipping industry have contributed to significant regime responses in the shipping sector, demonstrated by the regulation of green ship recycling and the decarbonisation of ocean transport.

In addition, fisheries certification schemes such as those developed and overseen by the Marine Stewardship Council, have contributed to transparency, accountability and traceability in the ocean-based food extraction regime. They have also generated increased attention to what this certification scheme does not do, namely address social injustices arising from competitive but declining fisheries.

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Novel approaches in response to systemic pressuresSource: Narberhaus and Sheppard, 2015

Landscape pressures

GHG acidification warming rising sea levels declining biodiversity overfishing pollution urbanisation demographic change technology innovation

Pre-transition cultureValues, frames and worldviews of consumerism, marketisation, (national) self-interest and growth

Post-transition cultureValues, frames and worldviews of well-being, sustainability and global commons

Unsustainable current economic systemDominant political, economic and social institutions

Niche innovations mature into

sustainable ocean economy

Novel approaches emerging in the ocean commons, as a result of

top-down and bottom-up governance innovation, new

knowledge commons,justice and stewardship

Cul

ture

Reg

imes

Nic

he

inno

vati

ons

Leve

ls o

f ch

ang

e

Transition to a sustainable ocean economy over time

ss1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4

Dominant societal values and worldviews shift over time, supporting transformation.

Economic system is rigid due to interdependent sets of interests, self stabilising and growth and market orientated.

Many isolated niche innovations forming at different scales, tolerated by the mainstream system.

Feedback between the three different change levels, all impact one another to generate transformation.

Niche innovations emerge in response to failing pre-transition regimes, thereby stimulating transformation.

Shifts in social values towards sustainability contribute to the decline of pre-transition regimes.

Shifts in social values towards sustainability positively impact the emergence of niche innovations.

Shifts in social values towards sustainability contribute to the transformation of niche innovations into mainstream regimes.

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Niche innovations

There are several examples of niche innovations within the African context. These have come about in response to different kinds of pressures, including legal innovations and knowledge and information-sharing platforms.

The legal innovations as put forward by the Organisation for African Unity (OAU) are founded on a growing awareness that earth systems and the livelihoods of local communities and indigenous people are threatened by monopoly rights over community biological diversity.

The OAU’s model law on the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers, Breeders and Regulation of Access to Biological Resources is a legal innovation that attempts to coordinate and harmonise existing national policies with legal and policy instruments beyond national jurisdiction.

It aims to regulate personal and private interests and uphold the rights of local communities while nurturing an ecologically just relationship between humans and other species that constitute earth systems. The law’s principles are enshrined in customary laws of Africa’s diverse cultures and are the culmination of a host of initiatives that involved stakeholders across international, national and local contexts across several kinds of institutions.

Another African niche innovation that has come about in response to ocean pressures is ABALOBI ICT4FISHERIES (ABALOBI). This social enterprise engages small-scale fishing communities in South Africa and on the continent. It focuses on the landscape pressure of declining fish stocks, unstable supply and value chains and the inequitable distribution of financial and social impacts of fisheries.

ABALOBI uses a suite of mobile apps that document seafood traceability, fisheries, transparent supply chains and community cohesion. In this way consumers can gain the full picture of where their seafood comes from, understanding the status of the fish species, who caught the fish and how it arrived on their plates.

The platform encourages equitable and responsible supply chains as a way to improve and sustainably manage small-scale fisheries and marginalised fishing communities (bearing in mind that nearly half of the global catch of marine resources is by small-scale fishers).

It provides the space for small-scale fisheries to participate in the economy by on-selling directly to restaurants. The first restaurant-supported fishery was facilitated through the platform when small-scale fishers on the South African west coast sold directly to a dedicated market with full transparency in the logistics chain. Small-scale fisheries and their customers are able to contribute to sustainability practices and provide rich datasets from which all platform users can benefit.

Despite these innovative responses across Africa and elsewhere, key challenges remain in shifting dynamics to sustainable ocean governance. These include a lack of coherence, coordination and clarity, outdated regulatory assumptions, conflict over allocation of space and rights of access to resources, and inadequate monitoring and enforcement.

A purposeful shift towards governance for a sustainable ocean is required to address these challenges and allow the innovative approaches to emerge more fully.

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Empowering the commons for ocean governance

Commons have traditionally been held in trust by sovereign nations, or collaboratively managed through inter-state relationships, but this has proven insufficient to protect the ocean and other planetary commons.

South Africa has a rights-based Constitution which provides that everyone has the right to an environment that is not detrimental to his or her health or well-being. This incorporates an obligation on the state to ensure that the environment is protected against any harmful conduct. South Africa’s territorial waters (as with all coastal states) are divided into different zones, which fall within national jurisdiction, up to the 200-nautical mile limit of the Exclusive Economic Zone.

The foundation provided by this constitutional environmental right (and the legislation which guides and enforces its implementation) is echoed in many other constitutions around the world, but remains a national affair as opposed to a universal right. National rights can be useful for the protection of ocean resources in areas that fall within the coastal state’s jurisdiction (see for example WWF South Africa v Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and others [2018] 4 All SA 889 WCC).

Beyond national limits, the ocean is defined as the high seas, and falls outside the national jurisdiction of any coastal state. Given that the high seas constitute over 40% of the ocean, the international recognition of an environmental human right through an international agreement would create an opportunity to generate a major shift in the collective understanding of legal norms and environmental rights. (A comparable shift would be that which occurred in the human rights body of law as a result of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights six decades ago). This could initiate a paradigm shift in global culture towards a ‘human rights-based holistic environmental stewardship for the planet’.

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Conclusion and way forwardThe ocean, like the Earth’s atmosphere and soil, has made human civilisation and life on earth as we know it possible. All of these vital components are under threat, forewarning a collapse of critical biophysical functions and major societal disruption.

A new system of global governance that responds to these pressures and recognises the ocean as a global commons is required. What is needed is a new mode of polycentric governance of the ocean-as-commons. This cannot be imposed from above, however. It needs to build on the transition dynamics already under way and the opportunities these present.

There are four key opportunities for action to strengthen ocean governance:

• Support for the current UN ocean processes, specifically the ratification of the new UNCLOS agreement and voluntary commitments under the UN Our Ocean Conference.

• In line with the argument for a ’global environmental right’, reconfigure ocean governance in ways that transcend the limits of national sovereignty. This would include establishing a polycentric governance framework with a new ‘Global Ocean Agency’ at the centre.

• Support civil society’s ability to play a more significant role in global ocean governance via the establishment of a global-local ocean knowledge commons.

• Integrate property rights with ecological stewardship responsibilities to establish local user rights programmes that result in shared responsibility for coastal regions by coastal communities.

History has demonstrated that social, economic and technological systems can and do transform, and that transitions can accelerate and generate impressive dynamics.

COVID-19 has highlighted just how much humanity depends on a healthy planet, along with the need for coordinated global action to respond to a global threat.

A governance transition that supports the building of a sustainable ocean economy is a way humanity can emerge from the compounded effects of the current COVID-19 crisis, while bolstering our chances of surviving and emerging from future crises with a sound economy, a healthy population and more resilient communities.

Primary research for this edition has been drawn from two sources:

An article published in Nature Communications, 3 September 2020, authored by Tanya Brodie Rudolph, Mary Ruckelshaus, Mark Swilling, Edward H. Allison, Henrik Österblom, Stefan Gelcich & Philile Mbatha. The article can be found here.

A report commissioned by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, titled The Ocean Transition: What to learn from system transitions.. The report can be found here.

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