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Summer-Fall 2017, vol. XXIX No. 2-3

TABLE of CONTENTS

OPENING REMARKSDr. Christine K. DurbakH.E. Volodymr YelchenkoMs. Irena ZubcevicAmbassador Sofia BorgesHonorable Carolyn T. Comitta

KEYNOTEECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF THE BLACK SEA BASIN AND PROPOSED REMEDIATIONProf. Alexandr Myagchenko

CLIMATE CHANGE, OCEANS AND HUMAN HEALTHDr. Marjo Vierros

THE POLICY INTERFACE OF OCEAN HEALTH AND HUMAN HEALTHDr. Jake Rice

THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN AGENDA 2030Apurv Gupta

CLOSING REMARKSDr. Bernard Goldstein

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United Nations Headquarters, April 13, 2017

WORLD INFORMATION TRANSFER’S 26th International Conference on Health and Environment:

Global Partners for Global Solutions

[Left to Right] Mr. Danylo Zhuk, Dr. Marjo Vierros, Honorable Carolyn Comitta, H.E. Volodymir Yelchenko, Dr. Christine K. Durbak, Dr. Jake Rice, Dr. Bernard Goldstein and Apurv Gupta

See WIT’s 26th Conferenceyoutube.com/user/WITConferences

Our 26th Conference Health and Environment: Global Partners for Global Solutions is focused on the life in the oceans and how it affects human health. Our oceans cover more than two third of the planet’s surface and are the source of 80% of the world’s fisheries. Barriers such as coral reefs, mangroves and salt marches also protect densely populated coastal lands. However, our oceans are increasingly more polluted on a scale that threatens to impair their ecological function and threatens both marine species and gene pools. Since development must be sustainable, we need to focus on conservation that protects the structure, functions and diversity of the world’s natural systems on which life of our species depends. The ecological processes that keep our planet fit for human life must be protected and we must ensure that the use of renewable resources is sustainable. By presenting scientifically grounded information WIT works to influence government and non-governmental stakeholders. This process needs to continue unimpeded if SDG’s are to be achieved.

Education brings choices.Choices bring power.

World Ecology Report is printed on recycled paper.

Special Conference

Issue

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veloped into a totalitarian regime which in the 16th, ruled by Peter First annexed the name RUS and later transformed it into Imperial Russia. Current political situation prevents the resolution of the problems of the Black Sea Basin.

World Informations Transfer’s Mission is to pro-mote scientific facts regarding the relationship between environmental contamination and human health, and for the last 26 years we have presented our findings during our annual conferences held at the United Na-tions Headquarters. Chornobyl epitomises the inter-relationship between the health of the population and environmental health. It brings together the relevance of integrating scientific knowledge with political will.

This year, our focus, in conjunction with the UN Ocean Summit which will be held in June, is on the contamination of oceans and seas. We will begin with what is little known about the ecological problems per-taining to the Black and Azov Seas region of Ukraine and it’s prehistoric bays-Fedotova, Obtincha, Berdyn-ska and Bilosaryska, which form a national park known as the “Azov Bays”, flowing from the southern rivers of Ukraine.

Due to the significant decrease of water from the Dnipro River, many social-ecological conflicts, includ-ing unrestrained development, lack of drinkable wa-ter, ecological-recreational problems as well toxic emissions of radioactive sand on the banks of the Azov Sea have been growing since the 1980s. The famous Dniprogas hydro energy complex was built in 1930s on the bones of the Ukrainian peasants and Soviet politi-cal prisoners without any ecological impact assessment. So the current problems are not surprising and do not yet benefit from a global awareness they deserve as a major environmental vulnerability of our times. You can follow Professor Myagchenko’s presentation which is included in your folders.

You will learn from our experts of the relationship between your health and the oceans around you and we hope that this will make you more aware of the signifi-cance of the Precautionary Principle, which basically tells you to think before you act. As a psychoanalyst, this is one principle that I always try to share with my patients. Thank you for your attention.

“Chornobyl epitomises the interrelationship between the health of the population and environmental health. It brings together

the relevance of integrating scientific knowledge with political will.”

Dr. Christine K. DurbakConference Chair and Founder, World Information Transfer, Inc.

Opening Statement

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Col-leagues, Students, Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of World Information Transfer, I would like to express our sincere appreciation to the Govern-ment of Ukraine, H.E. Mr. Volodymyr Yelchenko, Per-manent Representative of Ukraine to the UN for their co-sponsorship of our Conferences since 1992 and to Mr. Juwang Zhu, Director, Division for Sustainable De-velopment of UN DESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) for their continued co-sponsorship of our Conferences. I would also like to thank the NGO Committee for Sustainable Develop-ment of New York and the World Association of Non-Government Organizations (WANGO) for their support together with our panelists, our Administrator, Modou Cham, our Youth Representative, Apurv Gupta and our interns whose assistance has been invaluable.

WIT began following one of worst man made nu-clear disasters - Chornobyl (Ukr. spelling) on April 26, 1996. This catastrophe not only caused many lost lives, contamination of the land and long lasting effects of the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but also ex-pedited the fall of the Soviet Communist Regime which failed to inform its citizens of the consequences of the catastrophe. This lack of transparency and denial of the consequences finally woke up the citizens of the former Soviet Union to the realization that their Communist government ignored their welfare and their future, thus contributing to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Few people know, that the Chornobyl nuclear reac-tors are situated 15 miles from the capital of Kyiv which was founded in the 9th century AD as the first Judeo-Christian democracy in what was then Kyivan, RUS - the largest feudal state in eastern Europe. In the 14th century the Principality of Moscovia began and de-

“Current political situation prevents the resolution of the problems

of the Black Sea Basin.”

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H.E. Volodymyr YelchenkoPermanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations

Opening Statement

Excellencies, Dear colleagues, Distinguished guests,

At the outset, let me thank Doctor Christine Durbak of the World International Transfer, Conference Chair and Founder, for being our supporter and partner for so many fruitful years.

Let me also express my sincere appreciation to Mr. Juwang Zhu, Director, Division for Sustainable Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs for their continued co-sponsorship of our Conferences. And I would also like to welcome our distinguished speakers of today.

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased that Ukraine has a long lasting tradition of co-hosting this essential open dialogue at the United Nations, that give us an opportunity to discuss a number of the most relevant items of the international, national and regional importance.

“Oceans, seas and their resources underpin the well-being of humanity and the health of our ecosystems.”

As Doctor Durbak already mentioned, this year, our focus is in conjunction with the UN 2030 agenda targeting Sustainable Development Goal 14 - Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

Oceans, seas and their resources underpin the well-being of humanity and the health of our ecosystems. They are essential to poverty eradication, food security, trade, economic growth and the supply of water and oxygen, while also serving as the primary regulator of the global climate and an important sink for greenhouse gases.

Moreover, all states should be strongly committed to the UNCLOS – the constitution of the oceans, which

reflects customary international law and establishes the overarching legal framework for all activities in oceans and seas.

The States Parties to the UNCLOS have recognized the desirability of establishing through this Convention, with due regard for the sovereignty of all States, a legal order for oceans and seas which will facilitate international communication, and will promote the peaceful use of oceans and seas, the equitable and efficient utilization of their resources, the conservation of their living resources, and the study, protection and preservation of the marine environment.

“...all states should be strongly committed to the UNCLOS.”

Unfortunately, nowadays the UNCLOS legal order faces great challenges in Ukraine and its adjoining maritime areas. In view of the occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and city of Sevastopol by RF, Ukraine’s rights as the coastal state in maritime zones adjacent to Crimea in the Black Sea and Kerch Strait have been interfered and usurped by the aggressor state.

Dear colleagues,

The approach of the new United Nations system must ensure comprehensive consideration of security, social and environmental aspects, particularly in priority areas such as ecological safety, comprehensive environmental conservation and risk reduction management. Only such approach will facilitate sustainability and efficiency of developing world.

In this regard, I would like to recall that this month, the international community will also commemorate the 31st year of the Chornobyl disaster.

“The Chornobyl disaster was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, in terms of cost and

casualties.

This catastrophic nuclear accident occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the town of Prypyat, in Ukraine, which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. The Chornobyl disaster was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, in terms of cost and casualties.


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Ms. Irena ZubcevicChief, SIDS, Oceans and Climate Branch, DESA/DSD

Opening Statement

Dr. Durbak, Ambassador Yelchenko, Ambassador Borges, Honorable Carolyn Comitta, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen

I would like to thank you for this invitation. I am delighted to be able to address you here today at the World Information Transfer 26th International Conference on Health and Environment. For 26 years, the World Information Transfer has been bringing timely and relevant discussions to the United Nations. This conference is yet again a proof of this commitment. It is very timely and relevant given that the preparations for the Ocean Conference in June 2017 are well under way.

“Strengthening the resilience of affected communities and restoration of their self-reliance

is the foundation for their sustainable development and our utmost priority. ”

Oceans, seas and their resources are vital for human wel-being and sustainable development. They underpin poverty eradication, food security, employment and protection from natural disasters. They provide humans with water and oxygen while also acting as the primary regulator of the global climate and an important sink for greenhouse gases. Marine and coastal ecosystems provide a vital basis for the livelihoods of many coastal communities, particularly in developing countries.

Nevertheless, despite their importance, oceans, seas and marine resources are increasingly threatened, degraded or destroyed by human activities, reducing their ability to provide crucial ecosystem services. Main threats include, among others, climate change, marine pollution, unsustainable extraction of marine resources, and physical alter-ations and destruction of marine and coastal habitats and landscapes.

This disaster had a serious political and security impact and changed attitudes towards many aspects of the day-to-day life, in particular to the nuclear energy industry and its safeguards. For Ukraine in its modern history the scale of the catastrophe can be compared only to the Famine of 1933 (Holodomor), Second World War and ongoing Russian aggression.

For 31 years, Ukraine has made every effort to improve the well-being of affected communities and revive the afflicted districts’ economic potential. This catastrophe disrupted the livelihoods of almost 2 million people in more than 2000 affected locations. Strengthening the resilience of affected communities and restoration of their self-reliance is the foundation for their sustainable development and our utmost priority.

By all means, the shift from restoration of the area to its sustainable socio-economic development can only take place if radiation safety requirements are fully met. Therefore, Ukraine has been placing emphasis on converting the Shelter facility into an environmentally safe system and concluding the construction of the New Safe Confinement. As a result, last November, the New Safe Confinement was completed. This construction project is unprecedented in the history of engineering. Never before has such a huge structure been constructed at a heavily contaminated site.

Understanding the long-term nature of the implications of the Chornobyl accident, we find it essential to continue collaboration with the United Nations and other international organizations regarding the study and minimization of health, environmental and socio-economic consequences of the disaster.

Ukraine firmly believes that goal-oriented cooperation of all government agencies, non-governmental and international organizations will result in long-term solutions to complex problems triggered by the disaster.

Dear colleagues,

I tried to shape the main ideas of the Ukrainian delegation in the United Nations on relevant issue and now I guess that it is time to listen to the views and approaches of my colleagues. Thank you.


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Ambassador Sofia BorgesSpecial Advisor on Strategic Engagement and Transparency to the UN President of the General Assembly

Opening Statement

I wish to convey the apologies of the President of the General Assembly who is actually in another room briefing member states as well, so he would’ve loved to been here because he made a strong push to outreach to youth, and this would’ve been an audience he would’ve been honored to have addressed. Dr. Christine Durbak, Chair of the World Information Transfer; His Excellency Volodymyr Yelchenko, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations; Mr. Juwang Zhu, Director of Division for Sustainable Development, UN DESA; Excellencies; Ladies and Gentlemen, I congratulate the organizers for this important and timely gathering on health and environment, with a focus on the ocean. The ocean is the lifeblood of our planet. It covers ¾ of the Earth’s surface, and its temperature, chemistry, currents, and life drive global systems that make the

Earth habitable for humankind. It contains 97% of the Earth’s water, provides more than 50% of the oxygen we breathe, absorbs around 30% of human-produced carbon dioxide, and serves as a critical buffer to the ever worsening impacts of global warming. Over 3 billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods, and the ocean serves as the world’s largest source of protein. The health of the ocean is therefore intimately tied to our health and all life on this planet. Ultimately depends on a healthy ocean. Regrettably, this life-supporting resource is facing some simultaneous pressures that threaten its health and sustainability. Marine pollution is causing havoc in the ocean. There are growing hypoxic dead zones, overfishing and ruU fishing that are threatening the sustainability of fish stocks and the impacts of climate change are further aggravating the situation by raising sea levels, exacerbating ocean acidification, bleaching coral reefs, and increasing global water temperatures to the detriment of marine life, people’s habitats, food security, and livelihoods.

“If we are to ensure a healthy planet for ourselves and for future generations, the time for action is upon us. ”

“...delays in implementing solutions to the problems that have already been identified will lead to incurring greater

environmental, social and economic costs. ”

The First Global Integrated Marine Assessment, completed in 2015, notes the alarming current state of our oceans. It emphasizes that the world’s oceans are experiencing such great impacts that the limits of their carrying capacity are being or in some cases have already been reached, and that delays in implementing solutions to the problems that have already been identified will lead to incurring greater environmental, social and economic costs. Projected global population growth to 9.6 billion people by 2050 is foreseen to aggravate the situation if no countermeasures are taken.

“Oceans, seas and their resources are vital for human well-being and sustainable development.”

A lot of the issues that will be discussed here today are covered in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, for example through sustainable development goal 13 on climate change and sustainable goal 14 on conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources. The implementation of this ambitious agenda will take concerted efforts and collaboration by all stakeholders and an open knowledge and information exchange like the one taking place today.

In the same spirit, the General Assembly decided to convene the UN Conference to Support the Implementation of SDG 14 at UN Headquarters in New York, from 5 to 9 June 2017. The Governments of Fiji and Sweden have the co-hosting responsibilities for the Conference and Under-Secretary-General, Mr. Wu Hongbo, the head of DESA has been designated as the Conference Secretary-General.

The Ocean Conference is set to play an important role in putting words into action and finding sustainable solutions towards reversing the decline of our oceans

through partnerships and voluntary initiatives. I am sure that this conference will contribute to informing further all those interested to support the implementation of SDG 14 on oceans during the Ocean Conference.

SDG14 will be also discussed in the context of the upcoming high-level political forum on sustainable development to be held from 10-19 July 2017 in New York and the discussion and political guidance on oceans at the forum. discussion and political guidance on oceans at the forum.

I wish you good and fruitful discussions here today. Thank you.


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The importance of the ocean to humanity and to the planet was acknowledged by world leaders in 2015 when they adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which critically included Sustainable Development Goal 14, which aims to conserve and drive sustainable use of the ocean, seize marine resources for sustainable development. This inclusion also highlighted the important contribution of the ocean through sustainable development and its link to other SDGs, such as SDG 3 on health. Implementing SDG 14 is therefore crucial to the 2030 Agenda and a key opportunity to ensure this is the Ocean Conference to be held from June 05-09, 2017 here in New York at the United Nations Headquarters. The Ocean Conference is the best chance we have of saving life as we know it in the ocean. It will be a historic coming together of ocean stakeholders from across the world to drive global action for the sustainability of the ocean and its resources. The conference will rally all stakeholders, both large and small, to forge new and innovative partnerships and to make voluntary commitments for actions to help save our ocean. You have an opportunity to contribute to global efforts to reverse the cycle of the decline of the ocean by registering your commitments and initiatives on the online registry for voluntary commitments that have been launched on the Conference’s website.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the challenges facing the ocean emphasize the impacts of our human activity on the environment, in which we rely on for our own well-being. If we are to ensure a healthy planet for ourselves and for future generations, the time for action is upon us. Young people, however, you have an especially important contribution to make. I feel really old saying that. This was for the PGA. I’d like to think I’m still young. In an era where technology and innovation are driving social and economic change at a pace in scale never seen before, the ideas, creativity, and commitment to succeed of young people can have an exponential impact on our world. Shifting entrenched ways of thinking, consuming, governing, and behaving, and transforming humanity’s trajectory towards a sustainable future. So be agents for global change that drive new and disruptive ways of thinking to transform our societies, to ensure that the health of our planet and humankind’s ongoing place in our world. I wish you all the very best in this deliberation this morning. Thank you so much, and it’s really lovely to see so many young people in this room. Thank you.

Honorable Carolyn T. ComittaPA House of Representatives

Opening Statement

Good morning Distinguished Delegates, Speakers and Guests.

I bring you greetings from the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and congratulate and thank you for presenting the 26th International Conference on Health & Environment!

Thank you, Dr. Durbak for your dedication to this Conference and to the education of the future leaders of our country.

I have been honored and delighted to help support each Health & Environment Conference, since our first in 1992.

I am proud that with the support of faculty and staff, over 2600 students from Chester County PA schools, including West Chester University, have attended WIT’s Health and Environment conference over the last 26 years!

World Information Transfer is dedicated to presenting balanced, timely, scientific information about health and environment in order for people to make well-informed decisions. One of our goals has been to help empower young people so they can become effective leaders, shaping a healthy future. Two key opportunities for students to engage are through WIT’s conferences and internships. For many students, attending this conference is your first visit to the United Nations. For some, this conference as well as intern-

For many students, attending this conference is your first visit to the United Nations. For some this conference as well as internships with WIT has inspired an educational or career path that includes environmental and international health, biology, medicine, and law.

How will YOU be inspired today? A quote on each World Ecology Report reads:

“Knowledge is power.” That is the POWER to shape your future. Today’s conference will open your mind

“... be agents for global change that drive new and disruptive ways of thinking to transform our societies...”


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“Change starts with citizens, voters, deciding to do something to improve things.

“Knowledge is power. That is the POWER to shape your future. ”

Prof. Alexandr Myagchenko Professor and Chair of Department of Environmental Studies, Berdiansk University, Ukraine

“Ecological Problems of the Black Sea Basin and Proposed Remediation” (Presented by Mr. Danylo Zhuk)

Your Excellences, Distinguished Delegates, Students, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Black Sea is part of the Mediterranean and belongs to the Atlantic Ocean basin. The territorial waters of Ukraine in the Black Sea occupy over 15000 square miles and the shelf is about 57 percent of its total area. There are about 1000 species of plants and 2000 species of animals inhabiting the sea. Starting from the 1970s there has been a continuing loss of living organisms over the large areas of more than 6000 sq. miles at the depths of up to 130 feet. About 100 to 200 tons living organisms are dying every square mile, including 10-15 tons of fish dying due to the lack of oxygen. The major problem of the sea is the algae caused by fertilizers from the agricultural fields. The phosphates and the nitrates are brought by the river runoffs into the Black Sea. Over the past 15 years this phenomenon has been continually increasing. The Black Sea with an area of more than 1.2 million sq. miles is mainly isolated from the World Oceans and its topography causes a considerable excess of pollutants that is higher than the

to a new place, new ideas and new people who may help inform how YOU will shape your future.

I was a senior in high school on April 22, 1970 and remember very clearly organizing my friends to walk the 6 miles to school bagging roadside trash to celebrate the first Earth Day! Every time I feel discouraged or worried about the health of our environment, I remember the power and satisfaction I felt by taking action to DO something about it that day. Now when I see a problem and think “SOMEONE should do something about that”, I realize that someone is ME! And that other SOMEONE is YOU!

One of the reasons I ran for elected office was so I could be part of a government that works together with citizens and organizations like WIT to make changes that will improve people’s lives, especially forging a healthier environment.

As an elected official for 12 years, I have seen again and again that dedicated action taken by an individual or a small group can spark significant change. If you are waiting for someone else or for the government to fix things, you will be waiting forever! Change starts with citizens, voters, deciding to do something to improve things.

The Founders of the United States stated clearly in the Preamble to the Constitution that the “more perfect union” they were seeking would need to work not just for us, right now, but “for ourselves and our posterity” – that we must consider the needs of future generations as well as our own - they were talking about sustainability in 1787 – just as we are today.

I applaud each of you being here and participating in the 26th International Health and Environment Conference – you are raising YOUR awareness and expanding YOUR knowledge - so you can take thoughtful action to shape a healthier future.

I will leave you with another inspiring quote that appears in every issue of WIT’s World Ecology Report and reflects the spirit of WIT’s mission and today’s conference.

This is a familiar quote by Margaret Meade, who was a 20th Century American cultural anthropologist. She made 24 field trips studying the cultures of the South Pacific, was a best-selling author and a popular speaker, often tackling controversial social issues. She is credited with changing the way we study different human cultures.

Margaret Meade reminds us that each of us has the power to make the world a better place. She said…

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

I thank Dr. Durbak, WIT’s Board of Directors, Amb.assador Yelchenko, Mr. Zhu and our distinguished speakers for your dedication and wish you another successful and inspiring Health and Environment conference.


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“Increasing salinity, chemical and biological pollution... have led to changes in biocoenosis of the sea and greatly

reduced its fishery value. ”

“The main sources of marine pollution are toxic runoffs, coastal wastewater and marine vehicles.”

assimilation capacity of the Black Sea ecosystems. This has led to a significant pollution of marine waters, reduction of fish stocks, reduction of the quality of recreational resources, and a threat to public health of the Black Sea communities.

The main sources of marine pollution are toxic runoffs, coastal wastewater and marine vehicles. The most common and dangerous contaminants of the marine environment is oil and synthetic surfactants, especially within the harbor waters. Except for a thin surface layer of around 400-650 feet, saturated with oxygen by photosynthetic organisms, the rest of water of the Black Sea is full of poison ous hydrogen sulfide. Therefore, we can say that the sea has two layers - the living layer and the dead layer saturated with hydrogen sulfide. As a result, there is a poisoning of all trophic marine systems, leading to the destruction of traditional biocoenosis. To improve the state of the Black Sea in 1992, Ukraine has signed and ratified the Bucharest Convention of six Black Sea states including Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Romania and Russia. In 1993, the ministers of these countries signed the Odessa Declaration and in 1995 there was a Sofia Conference on “Environment for Europe”, which examined the protection of the environment in all of the Europe and the Black Sea in particular. There is an Environmental Program on the Black Sea (BSEP), but the problems of the Black Sea and its gulf - the Sea of Azov are far from being resolved.

The Sea of Azov - is a unique reservoir on the planet which preserved the ancient forms of flora and fauna. There are 400 species of living organ-isms in the Sea of Azov - from unicellular organisms to mammals. Fish fauna is represented by 80 spe-cies, 40 of which are relic, 22 Mediterranean spe-cies of worms, 12 species of shellfish. Around 20 spe-cies of freshwater fauna are representatives of major

rivers - the Don, the Kuban and the smaller - Byrd, Mius, Kalmius and others. Typical on the sea coast are the estuaries, where the birds nest, and peloids - a special form of medical mud is formed. It is the basis for the development of recreational and resort activities. Geographically the Sea of Azov is a shallow bay of the Black Sea, but ecologically it is an independent reservoir. Due to its low salinity, shallow waters and thus greater degree of warming water in summer, the temperature can rise up to 78-82 degrees Fahrenheit. This is one of the smallest and the shallowest sea in the world with a maximum depth of 46 feet and the average of 21feet. It is connected to the Black Sea via the Strait of Kerch, which is 26 miles long, 2 to 27 miles wide and around 22 feet deep. Because of this the water exchange between the seas is very limited and therefore the Sea of Azov is even more isolated from the oceans than the Black Sea. This

Rivers play an important role in maintaining the ecological balance of the Sea of Azov and its coastline, supporting not only sea salt balance, but also building its shores through the removal of solid materials like - sand, gravel, stone and soil, thus creating very long peninsulas - the spits. There are 25 spits along the coast of the Sea of Azov. The longest of them: The Arabat Arrow - 70 miles long, the Fedotov Spit - 27 miles, the Obytichna Spit - 18 miles and the Berdyansk Spit - 14 miles.

Unlike the other seas, the catchment area of the Sea of Azov is huge in relation to its size. Therefore, the Sea of Azov in comparison to other seas is extremely polluted and is considered to be the most “chemically polluted sea” in the world. Through the rivers, it gets huge amounts of washouts from nearby farmlands - the pesticides, fertilizers and industrial wastes. It is located within the Azov Trench


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that is slowly descending thus increasing the sea depth 0.10 inches per year which is partially affecting its coastal zone. The coast suffers from landslides destroying the beach, agricultural lands and buildings. It is also caused by an intensive construction on the coast, which is a violation of the Water Code of Ukraine. Buildings on the deep foundation that has appeared within 300 feet of water protection areas greatly increased the rate of destruction of the east coast of the Berdyansk Spit in the last 5 years.

The intensive construction and natural processes have increased erosion and destruction of a shoreline. This is seen throughout the Azov coast from the town of Prymorsk to Berdyansk and Mariupol where large areas of agricultural land is destroyed, beaches are polluted as is the sea coast. The coastal strip of the Sea of Azov is part of Azov Upland that is 90-150 feet above sea level, which is a remnant of the ancient Ukrainian crystalline (granite) board of more than 2 billion years, that is made of minerals that contain compounds of uranium and thorium, forming a natural radioactive background that ranges from 4 to 20 micro-roentgen per hour (mR/hr). But in some places, where radioactive sand accumulates, it increases to 200 to 700 mR/hr, such as the beach area of Berdyansk Spit. Through millions of years the Azov rivers have blurred sand. Currently, this radioactive sand, a mixture of ilmenite, monocytes and torianite, averaging 100 to 300 mR/hr is washed out on the coast during storms, creating a health threat to people.

The rivers - both large and small, flowing into the sea, were bringing in almost 26 sq. miles of fresh water, desalinating the sea, and maintaining its average salinity of about 8 promille. Presently, the flow of all rivers has decreased by almost 85% to 18.5 sq. miles per year, while the minimum required is 20-22 sq. miles. This is due to the fact that a huge amount of fresh water is used in agriculture for irrigation and industry, thus influencing the salinity of sea water, which in turn impacts fish productivity. The salinity ranges from 2-5 promille in Taganrog Bay to 18 promille in the southern part of the sea near the Strait of Kerch. Increasing salinity, chemical and biological pollution, particularly during the period of 1960 to 1980 have led to changes in biocoenosis of the sea and greatly reduced its fishery value. In 1937 the catch of walleye was 73.8 thousand tons, compared to current average catch of about 1.2 thousand, the sturgeon catches in 1937 was 7.3 thousand tons and currently there is a ban on their capture. The habitats of major commercial fish like vimba, sablefish and walleye, for which salinity over 18 promille is destructive, have also sharply declined.

The Sea of Azov with its fish productivity per area unitexceeded the Caspian Sea by 6 times, the Black Sea by 40 times and the Mediterranean Sea by 160 times.

Currently from the environmental perspective, the Sea of Azov is dying because of the increased salinity of water and the infiltration of toxic substances from the industrial and domestic effluents. The destruction of the ecosystem is further contributed by appearance of an alien fauna - the Ctenophora. These predators are the jellyfish from the Atlantic Ocean. An anthropogenic addition on the other hand is the red lip mullet from the Far East that quickly became an active food competitor to native fish. The ecological condition of the Sea of Azov, as well as the Black Sea is very complex and its further deterioration will cause irreversible changes to the surrounding seas as well.

Despite its environmental conditions, the Sea of Azov is a major recreational area and the basis for the development of tourism. The area has great natural resources such as mild climate, warm shallow waters, medical mud and mineral waters of the estuaries. Yet from the business perspective it is greatly underdeveloped and is represented by private sector and small businesses who have no knowledge of the local and regional features. In March 2001, to overcome the crisis of the Black Sea, a law was adopted “On approval of national program for rehabilitation of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.” The total cost of the work under this program amounted to 30 million USD. This document is aimed at protecting the environment of the Azov and Black Seas and enforcing the Convention for the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution (1994), the Ministerial Declaration on the Protection of the Black Sea (1993) and Strategic Action Plan for reproduction and protection of the Black Sea (1996).

The program defines priority directions for solving the basic problems of the ecological condition of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov: 1) reduction of marine pollution and anthropogenic pressure on their ecosystems; 2) reduction of the risk to human health associated with the contamination of sea water and coastal zone; 3) conservation and restoration of biodiversity, natural landscapes


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“...the Sea of Azov is dying because of the increased salinity of water and the infiltration of toxic substances

from the industrial and domestic effluents. ”

and coastal habitats of species, expanding the network of national parks; 4) sustainable usage and restoration of marine biological resources and development of aquaculture, particularly valuable commercial fish species, ensuring proper state control; 5) prevention of the destruction of the coastal strip; 6) the establishment of integrated environmental management within the water protection zones of Ukraine; 7) improved monitoring to assess the impact of natural and anthropogenic factors on the environment; 8) public involvement in the implementation of the environmental measures, improving environmental education of the population; 9) creation of a legal framework for the implementation of the state policy in the sphere of environmental protection of the seas in line with the requirements of international treaties of Ukraine. The document also highlights the danger of moving large amounts of sediment during extraction works on the sea floor, because it contributes to the destruction of the bottom biocoenosis through pollution with toxic substances. Unfortunately, due to the current political crisis in the region the environ-mental issues have

In conclusion, I would like to point out that only together with the world community, through the spreading of information about the environmental conditions of any territory, including Ukraine and its Azov-Black Sea basin, can the environmental situation of the seas and oceans be improved in the entire world! Thank you.

Dr. Marjo Vierros Director, Coastal Policy and Humanities Research

“Climate Change, Oceans and Human Health”

Good morning to everyone and it is a real pleasure to be here with you. I will be addressing the rather complex topic of climate change, oceans and human health, and will do this by showing you some case studies that illustrate aspects of this topic. But first I want to start by reminding us about how vital oceans are for human health and for our very existence. In fact, all of humanity depends on oceans for their survival. Oceans are the source of approximately half of the oxygen we breathe. This oxygen is generated through photosynthesis of small plants in the ocean called “phytoplankton”. Oceans also absorb roughly ~95% of sun’s radiation, thus keeping the planet a lot cooler than it would otherwise be, and avoiding extremes of temperature. Oceans form by far the largest carbon sink in the world, mostly because carbon dioxide readily dissolves in water. Oceans have a major role in nutrient cycling and the Earth’s water cycle, and are an important source of with fish supplying 20% of animal protein worldwide. In reference to our topic on human health, oceans and the biodiversity in them are also a source of pharmaceuticals. For example, the Anti-HIV drug AZT was sourced from a shallow-water sea sponge, and compounds used in anti-cancer medications and a recent painkiller also originate from marine creatures.

But oceans are also impacted by climate change in many ways. The oceans act both as a heat and a carbon sink for the atmosphere. These services come at a cost that includes rising ocean temperatures and increased CO2 in the oceans, which causes acidification. Ocean acidification is a problem that everyone is very concerned about recently, since we don’t yet fully understand its impacts, but know enough to say that they will be major. As atmospheric CO2 increases, more CO2 dissolves in the ocean across the sea surface. Carbonic acid is formed, which dis sociates to form carbonate, bicarbonate and hydrogen ions (H+), resulting in an increase in ocean acidity. More acidic oceans cause calcium carbonate to dissolve, and this will affect things like coral reefs, shellfish and many planktonic organisms that are the basis of food webs in the ocean. Increases in ocean temperature decrease oxygen solubility in addition to enhancing stratification. Stratification can result in decreased mixing between ocean layers, decreasing


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To illustrate this last point about multiple impacts acting together, I would like to take you to the place where I grew up, on the shores of the Baltic Sea in Finland. The Baltic Sea is an interesting environment because it is essentially one of the world’s largest estuaries. The catchment area includes 14 countries and is inhabited by 85 million people. So you have intense human uses in the Baltic and on its coasts. Because of the restricted flow of water from the Atlantic and large amount of fresh water input from rivers, the water is not very saline. And also, because of its Northern location, climate change is causing faster warming here. As we know, climate change has a strong impact on ecosystem health, and this is particularly true of marginal seas such as the Baltic. In my lifetime we have already seen many characteristics of the ecosystem being altered. Temperature in the Baltic Sea rose five to six times faster than the global average over the past 25 years, an average increase of 1 degree Celsius per decade from 1990 to 2008, with the greatest increase in the Northern Bothnian Bay area, which is where I grew up. An increase of another 2-4 degrees Celsius is predicted by the end of the century. This has caused a significant decrease in the extent and thickness of sea ice. It used to be that the ice was so thick that

“...we should not forget that climate change impacts act together with other human impacts, and the result of this

may be greater than the sum of its parts.”

But as I mentioned, climate change impacts don’t act alone, but together with other human impacts. Land-based pollution and resulting eutrophication has been a long-standing problem in the Baltic, and coastal countries, working through a regional organization called the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), have made a lot of progress in addressing this problem. Climate change, however, threatens to override the advances that have been made. Higher temperatures and nutrients loads, which are due to increased rain, are likely to cause more frequent algal blooms. This might lead to an alarming eutrophication situation in the Baltic. In 2016, surface blooms of cyanobacteria were observed almost uninterruptedly for three months, from June 20 to September 21. These maps created by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute show the number of days with cyanobacterial blooms in 2016 and from 2010 to 2015.

the downward oxygen supply from the surface. Thus, the major ocean processes impacted by climate change are ocean warming and associated phenomena (including stratification and sea level rise) as well as deoxygenation and ocean acidification. But we should not forget that climate change impacts act together with other human impacts, and the result of this may be greater than the sum of its parts.

you could drive your car over it in the winter. Now if you attempt that you might have to prepare for a very cold swim. There has also been increased rain instead of snow in the winter, and this is causing more flooding.


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“According to HELCOM, most sub-basins of the Baltic Sea are negatively impacted by eutrophication and

hazardous substances. “

So what are the human health impacts of climate change in the Baltic? According to HELCOM, most sub-basins of the Baltic Sea are negatively impacted by eutrophication and hazardous substances. The human communities linked to the sea have also been negatively impacted by the deteriorated state of the Baltic. Algal blooms and eutrophication, and the spread of anoxic areas, negatively impact human enjoyment of the sea. Algal blooms can cause skin rashes and so you are less likely to go swimming. This affects not only how locals use the sea and beaches in the summer, but also tourism and real estate values. And toxic algal blooms can contaminate shellfish and fish, meaning that it is not always safe to eat certain types of seafood, and this is not only leads to a loss of healthy protein from seafood, but also has an economic impact on the fishers. But some of the most alarming health-related impacts that we have seen recently are cases of outbreaks of potentially lethal Vibrio bacterial infections affecting humans that have been reported from the Baltic. Vibrio-related infections are common in warmer water, but this is the first time that they have been reported this far north. So this demonstrates how climate change is reshaping the distribution of infectious diseases worldwide.

So with this story I want to emphasize again that climate change impacts do not act alone, but in combination with other human impacts on the ocean, such as pollution, unsustainable fishing, coastal development and mining. The combination of these impacts can be unpredictable, and sometimes can be greater than just the sum of their parts. In the case of the Baltic Sea, climate change has increased nutrient loading of marine areas- a problem that countries had previously made progress in solving. Thus climate change has undermined our best efforts to solve other environmental problems.

I want to turn now to the tropics, and specifically I will talk about coral reefs, ocean warming and acidification. This is also a topic close to my heart, because as a young scientist I spent a lot of time working in coral reef ecosystems in the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific. Coral reefs are sometimes called the canaries in the coalmine of climate change, or the early warning systems of climate change. This is because they can only exist in a narrow band of environmental conditions found in tropical and subtropical waters: waters that are between approximately 18 and 30 degrees Celsius, but no warmer, and waters that have consistent salinity and chemistry and are clear of sediment and pollution. Today, coral reefs are

experiencing warmer ocean temperatures and more acidity than they have at any time in the last 400,000 years. This has multiple impacts on these delicate ecosystems.

Ocean warming causes a condition called “coral bleaching”, which occurs when water temperatures rise so high that the corals become stressed and expel the algae that live in symbiosis inside them. Because the symbiotic algae give corals their brownish or yellowish color, without the algae the coral appears white. This is why the condition is called “bleaching”. And it really does look like someone took a sack of flour and spread it all over the reef – the corals just appear white. Because corals get a huge amount of nutrition from the algae (often around 90%), a bleached coral is starving. If temperatures remain elevated for too long they will die. However, they can recover if the temperatures go down again. The longest global coral bleaching event on record began in 2014 and has affected some reefs in consecutive years, which gives them little time to recover. Just recently, scientists reported that as much as 93% of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia had recently suffered damage from coral bleaching.

But corals are also heavily impacted by ocean acidification, which decreases the ability of corals to construct their calcium carbonate skeleton. Sea-level rise may impact some reefs, though this is not one of their biggest worries given the magnitude of the other impacts. And we have also seen an increase in coral diseases linked to climate change. So coral reefs of the future, if they survive, may look very different from the reefs of today. A healthy coral reef is a very diverse environment, and they are often called the rainforests of the sea. Coral reefs are home to one third of all fish species and one to nine million species in total. They have high value, and economists have calculated that worldwide they provide $375 billion per year in goods and services from tourism, fisheries, coastal protection, pharmaceuticals, etc. They also provide livelihoods for local communities. Coral reefs that have been affected by climate change and other human impacts are very different. We see decreased coral cover and increased algal overgrowth. The diversity of fish and other organisms associated with coral reefs has been severely decreased, and there is a loss of resilience and the loss of those ecosystem services that we have up to now benefited from.

One example of a recent loss that I have witnessed in my lifetime is that of the Caribbean elkhorn coral, which was one of the most important reef building species in the Caribbean. Elkhorn corals formed forest-like structures that were truly spectacular and supported entire ecosystems of diverse species such as fish and invertebrates. The population of these corals crashed due to a combination of


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disease, pollution, coral bleaching, and storm damage. Remember, it is seldom one thing that goes wrong, but multiple things. These corals are now considered critically endangered. Because they supported entire ecosystems, the associated fisheries habitat and storm protection they provided were also lost.

Loss of coral reefs has major impacts on human health, particularly through impacting available food in the form of fisheries that coastal communities depend on. Loss of coral reefs also impacts shoreline protection and maintenance of water quality; availability of construction materials (limestone from coral skeletons); and discovery of new medicines, given that more than half of new cancer drug research is focused on marine organisms. And finally, loss of coral reefs impacts tourism, which sometimes provides up to 80% of a country’s total income. Losing coral reefs would have profound social and economic impacts on many countries, especially small island nations like Haiti, Fiji, Indonesia, and the Philippines that depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about sea-level rise while I am on the topic of coral reefs, since small island countries, particularly low-lying atolls in the Pacific are particularly vulnerable to it. Sea-level rise causes coastal flooding, ero sion and salt-water intrusion. As coastal areas of low-lying islands become more inundated, we will see increasing amounts of human migration away from these places. This is already happening in, for example, Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea and away from low-lying coral atolls of countries such as Kiribati, and it is likely to intensify in the

future. According to some predictions, between 665,000 and 1.7 million people in the Pacific will be displaced or forced to migrate by 2050. These figures are somewhat contested because it is often difficult to tell apart migration and displacement due to climate change and that due to economic factors, since climate change impacts the ability of people to make their living. Migration and displacement may cause potential for food insecurity, loss of traditional livelihoods, impoverishment, negative economic and health impacts, loss of place, social networks and culture. The pictures you see here were taken by a colleague of mine, Francis Hickey, from the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. Francis has been working in the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea, where rising seas are forcing the inhabitants to migrate. Together with a local NGO, Francis is documenting the traditional knowledge and practices of the inhabitants of Carteret Islands so that they don’t lose this knowledge when they move away. This, we hope, will help them preserve their culture and perhaps help them re-establish their traditional livelihoods.

“Loss of coral reefs has major impacts on human health, particularly through impacting available food in the

form of fisheries that coastal communities depend on. “

In the context of oceans, climate change and human health, I would be amiss if I did not mention fisheries. Fisheries supports the livelihoods of about 10 – 12% of the world’s population directly or indirectly, and provides the 3 billion people who rely on fish as an important source of animal protein, essential micronutrients and omega-3 fatty acids. Micronutrients are particularly important for maternal health and for the health of infants and children. Climate change will have multiple impacts on fisheries, and these may include a global redistribution of marine species towards cooler waters; local extinctions and decreases in catch potential and size of fish; and associated impacts on food security and health. Of particular concern are areas currently vulnerable to hunger and undernutrition.

Once again, climate change impacts, in particular ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation act together with other human impacts, such as overfishing and destruction of coastal fish nurseries, to cause a decline in available seafood. This results in a threat to food security, which is most severe for many low-income coastal populations. A recent study by Golden and colleagues that was published in the journal Nature showed that countries that are highly dependent on seafood-sourced micronutrients are projected to have the largest decrease in catches under climate change. This is the case in, for example, in the South Pacific where subsistence coral reef fisheries are


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already being impacted by ocean warming and acidification. It is also the case in sub-Saharan African countries, which are highly dependent on subsistence fisheries, and in Asian countries like Bangladesh that are highly dependent on fish and heavily impacted by climate change. In these countries, which are already vulnerable to hunger and undernutrition, climate change will likely exacerbate food insecurity.

So in conclusion, it is important that we think creatively about solutions, and start working in an interdisciplinary manner. For example, there is a stronger emphasis on human health needed in biodiversity, fisheries and conservation policies. An interdisciplinary approach to tackle current problems is also important because we need to be able to manage multiple human impacts, and implement response strategies in a coordinated way. This will require, for example, coordinating policies for poverty reduction.

that, I will say thank you very much for listening.

of many possible stories in that nature we can tell. But we can see just looking at what fish contributes to human well-being. Important to our nutrition, particularly important in low-income food deficit countries, where their reliance on seafood, even though their consumption per capita may be lower. By definition, in these low-income food deficit countries, their ability to consume is limited, so proportionately fish is even higher for them. Now it’s at least 15% of the animal protein for 3 billion people on the planet. That’s nearly half. It’s over 40% for about a quarter. It’s not just food to improve how much you can eat. It’s actually good for you. It reduces the risk, there’s medical evidence. Stroke, heart attacks, autoimmune diseases. All vulnerabilities decrease in proportion to how much fish is in your diet. There’s a high literature on how the omega-3 fatty acids, you’re all told eating fatty acids is bad. Not all fats are bad. Omega-3 fatty acids are particularly good. Fish are particularly rich in them. They’re essential for growth development, pregnancy, and for a few of us in the room, it’s comforting to know that it can slow the rate of cognitive decline and vision loss in the elderly. Some of us like that. Most people in the room aren’t elderly, and probably few of you are pregnant. So what does health and the oceans have that’s relevant to you? Many of us grew up hearing all kinds of pieces of folk wisdom. Fish is brain food. It is. It improves neurological development, it improves sensory neuro conduction as well. It is brain food. Eat more, be smarter. Some of you may have even heard of the semi-magical properties that oysters have, and yes, it’s true. Medical studies do support the fact that eating fish is positive for virility and libido. Not that anyone in the room would care about that. I can go on, as I said, but let’s look at how this link is actually being studied scientifically.

Dr. Jake Rice Chief Scientist--Emeritus, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

“The Policy Interface of Ocean Health and Human Health”

Thank you very much. Distinguished colleagues and equally Distinguished Guests of this day, it’s a real pleasure to be here. What I hope to do in the half hour or less that I have with you, and this is a very familiar room to me, I’ve have to understand how the ocean does done many science policy negotiations in this room. It’s delightful to see the age distribution that we have in the room. We may have some creative minds that we need working on these problems. What are the problems? Well, first wehave to understand how the ocean does contribute to human health. What kind of evidence do we have to support that claim that people have been making, and why do if the ocean is important to us, does it have to be health to fulfill those things that can do for us? If it should be healthy, is it, and if it isn’t, why not? The important things after we get the factoids out of the way, to the extent that it’s not, what can we do about it? We, collectively, from those of us who are the oldest in the room to the youngest. Now I could spend the time that I have listening fact after fact about how the ocean contributes to human health.

The area where I’ve primarily worked in the interface between conservation and biodiversity and global food security to which fisheries is a key component. It’s only one

fisheries, climate change and biodiversity conservation to ensure that they are mutually supportive and that any trade-offs are well understood.

Finally, the most important thing we can do to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change is to drastically reduce emissions. This is why the Paris Agreement is so important. On a local level, we can also try to adapt by improving ecosystem and human resilience through better environmental management. The UN Sustainable Develop ment Goals are another important policy tool for creating positive change. With a standalone goal on oceans, the Sustainable Development Goals have the potential to build global momentum for oceans in the context of sustainable development. But they can also force us to create those interdisciplinary linkages that are so important, for example between oceans, climate change and human health. And with


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“...coastal and seagoing recreation and tourism are strongly related to improving mental health...”

“Lifestyle changes are harder than writing a check. We need coordinated action, and we need to

understand the problem. ”

search the whole literature for you. If you put in keywords- youth, health, and the ocean--there have been a total of three scientific papers published, looking at those three things in combination since 2000, and I include for you the title of one of the three. That’s probably not what we need. If we look at youth, health, and nutrition, there’s over a thousand papers in the last 10 years that have been published, telling you eating fish is good for youth. Much better than youth, health, and exercise under a thousand papers. Youth, health, and recreation? You shouldn’t have a good time. It doesn’t do you any good. We need food from the ocean, but to get that food, we have to have a healthy ocean. When we contaminate the ocean, heavy metals is a good example, they bioaccumulate. Goes into small fish, every fish that eats a small fish takes its lifetime burden of mercury, stores it, and builds up, that’s what bioaccumulation means. In Japan, mercury contamination in the seafood, one bay, where there was a plant dumping industrial bioproducts into the bay. 1,700 fatalities.

My good friend, Marjo, told you about red tides and algal blooms, as did the previous speaker as well. These aren’t just bad for the oceans, they’re bad for you. They contaminate seafood, eat contaminated seafood through red tides, dienoic acid, paralytic shellfish poisoning, amnesic shellfish poisoning. It’s hard to tell, get good data on these occurrence rates because they’re episodic. Bay gets contaminated, people eat, get sick, you close the bay, and nobody wants to report on the hard data, but there’s absolutely strong evidence that these kinds of things are increasing. And when you get catastrophic events in the ocean, like the Deepwater Horizon. Again, nobody yet has quantified how much damage that actu-ally does for the chain from the

ocean, to food, to people, but 225,000 square kilometers of the Gulf of Mexico had to be closed to fishing because of the contamination for the Deepwater Horizon, and that’s a lot of seafood that could’ve been available to the Gulf coast of the U.S., Mexico, and Caribbean states, which is closed off to them probably for several years. I’ve spent most of my time harping on the value of the food we take from the ocean; it’s not the only way that the health of everyone in this room is affected by the ocean, though. The ocean, as you’ve heard, has a really influential role in weather formation. Global warming, it’s definitely shown the increase the proportion of tropical storms. Hurricanes and typhoons that are going to reach categories 4 and 5, going to cause the greatest amount of both loss of life and loss of property.

On the other hand, we can use the ocean as one of the least exploited sources of renewable, carbon-free energy as an alternative. So it can help us in both of those ways. Fighting climate changes leads to a reduction in the severity of storms and the way they occur, and we can get from the ocean energy sources that can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But I do want to spend a few minutes on mental health, which is increasingly acknowledged, an important dimension of human health, and there’s a huge amount of evidence that coastal and seagoing recreation and tourism are strongly related to improving mental health, through improved sense of well-being can be directly through the participation of tourists and the mental health benefits they can get from them, and the employment revenue it brings into isolated coastal areas, which often have relatively few alternative sources of employment in economics, so both the mental health benefits of the tourists and the money spent creating economic health of the communities, you have a win-win situation here.

To mention in passing, the fact that for many peo-ple on this planet, their cultural identity is tied to fea-tures of the oceans. All these features require the ocean to be healthy, just like its contributions through nutrition require it to be open. The intergovernmental panel on climate change assessments clearly lay out the linkages between the weather and the ocean, and we’ve heard al-ready how ocean warming threatens things. Ocean en-ergy, I’ve talked about.


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Recreation, one survey on ecotourism found that on average, a 42% drop in ecotourism, the benefits mentally to the tourists, economically to the communities. 40%, a 2% drop, quite in word spread of beach closures due to sewage or other contamination. Contaminate the ocean, red tides, anoxia, that whole class of benefits is lost.

Now, I’ve been dwelling on a bunch of science factoids that I pulled out in my career. The science information on the links between ocean and health is accumulating a lot of what’s new, but the concepts go back to the beginning of Western civilizations, and I apologize to our Asian and African participants in the room. I, simply, am not as familiar with the roots of your cultural identities, but I am equally sure to find it there. Homer in the Odyssey, Virgil in the Aeneid, the foundation writers of the Greek and the Latin classics, these are just samples of the quotations you can find in their work of how thousands of years ago, the ocean was acknowledged as a source of well-being and inspiration. They didn’t have the science to know why, but they had the knowledge to know why. Writers and politicians have known this, even if Flaubert in Madame Bovary, Rilke in his Duino elegies didn’t know the science of why they felt this way about the ocean. They knew that they did, they knew that it was important.

John F. Kennedy, a man I have admired since I was a high school student becoming politically aware when he was becoming President. I actually knew his brother, Robert, in my youth. Talked about an inspirational experience. Talked about how tied we are to the ocean, and why we go back to it. We know we need the ocean, even if we haven’t accumulated the science to understand why that need exists. If we need a strong ocean, we need strong ocean policies. I hope you can read this font from the screen. These are three of dozens of ocean policies I pulled out, particularly relevant because one of them is a UN General Assembly Resolution, partly negotiated in this room. One of them is an Aichi biodiversity target from the Convention on Biological Diversity, and one of them is the Sustainable Development Goal that’s been mentioned two or three times. These are strong policy statements, strong commitments by countries to a health ocean, and we’d all just have the policy commitments to keep our oceans healthy. We know how to do it. Because I work so much with food security, I’m familiar with FAO, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. This is only a subsample of the many reports and guidance documents on how fisheries should be conducted to maintain fish stocks sustainable. Read the titles, you can see the range of things that they can provide guidance, point by point. If you’re going to fish the deep sea, here are the things to keep it sustainable. We know how to do it, and yet, we don’t have a healthy ocean.

We have still nearly a third of fish stocks overexploited. The graph on the left, the rate has slowed down, but we haven’t been able to rebuild a third of the fish stocks on the planet because they’re exploited. On the right, these are different indicators of beach closures and contamination. It got worse, it gets better, but it doesn’t go away. We’ve made good policy, but we haven’t succeeded in implementing good policy. Why not? A lot of it is because even after you know how to do things sustainably, they’re not free, they have costs. You have to build infrastructure to protect your coastlines from contamination. Sewage treatment and waste disposal plants, very costly. You have to build pipelines and ocean tankers, come up with technologies for drilling oil wells, spend a lot of money on making them secure if you’re going to take advantage of those sources. Then, it costs a whole lot more money to governments to provide surveillance and control to have observers on fishing boats, to have inspectors visit all the coastal oil wells and to make sure all of the regulations are in place. Then, you have the operational costs to the person doing the job added on to it. You have to be able to motivate investments today to get long-term payoffs in the future. That’s a hard political sell.

In my introduction, Dr. Durbak mentioned that I work in the science policy interface now. What that makes me do a lot is look, where have we had successes and what can we learn. I’m going to digress from the ocean for just a couple minutes, to wrap up, to tell you a key lesson we learned on an intergovernmental panel on climate change, and trying to deal with greenhouse gas emissions. The challenges were pretty similar. The science was complex, the science is incomplete in biodiversity


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Where do you go? Places like the web of science to died in one winter of poor air quality. 100,000 people treated for respiratory distress. What did they do? They immediately implemented measures to control coal burning, which was causing the pollution. We go to Los Angeles, the “gas attack” in 1943, which they initially thought was done by countries they were in war with. Turned out to be an air quality change. What did they do? Immediately took action to deal with the human health problems that were caused by the poor air quality, and if you look at the recommendations from the Beckman Commission five years later, these look like exactly what you’d expect from a climate change-oriented approach to greenhouse gas emissions, and they weren’t. Immediate declines in ozone and other greenhouse gas emissions. They took the right actions for human health reasons and by now, people don’t even think about human health reasons to deal with smog and poor air quality.

conservation, in climate in greenhouse gas contributions. We know the direction in which solutions can be found, but they involve significant upfront payouts for much longer paybacks. This is unattractive to decision makers, and the solutions to both of them--healthy oceans and healthy climate--don’t just involve finding someone to write a check. They involve lifestyle changes of everyone in this room. Refusing to drink water from plastic that will end up in the ocean. Lifestyle changes are harder than writing a check. We need coordinated action, and we need to understand the problem. I don’t expect you to decipher all the details in these two figures, but I think they characterize how much further the depth of thinking of climate change has gone than we have in the intergovernmental panel on biodiversity and ecosystem services, which is still conceiving of all these problems as linear. Solve one

problem, hit the next problem, hit the next problem. A breakthrough for the intergovernmental panel

on climate change was when they acknowledged these problems are all embedded with each other, the way Marjo expressed. You can’t tease them apart and solve them one by one. You can tease them apart and put part of a solution in there, but it’s not independent of what’s going on in the rest of it, and you shouldn’t walk away smuggling you’ve done it. These are two figures from the last intergovernmental panel on climate change report on greenhouse gas emissions. The graph on the right on top is greenhouse gas emissions from developing economies skyrocketing. Whereas, for the economically developed countries, it’s averaged out. We’ve got it under control. How did that happen? There’s three phases to greenhouse gas emission trends in every single country on the planet. There’s a pre-industrialized phase where greenhouse gas emissions go up, and when that magic 20% gets hit, they’ve industrialized enough that the industrializations creating wealth, and they’ve reinvested that wealth in more industrialization, and the greenhouse gas emissions go up exponentially, and it’s when they get to about 80% of fully industrialized that you seem them turn over, and they turn over quickly.

Now why does that happen? It happened in England because of the “Killer Fog” in London in 1952. 4,000 people

“We can motivate the investments we need, the actions we need for a healthy ocean by focusing on the fact that the health of everyone in this room, everyone in this city, and everyone on this planet will be better when you get

the health benefits from the right policies, and the ocean will be better because of it. ”

If you Google co-benefits getting one benefit in an area like climate change because of a policy for human health, greenhouse gas, co-benefits. The first 100 sites you find, 97 of them make human health a co-benefit of dealing with climate change, not climate change a co-benefit of dealing with health. In conclusion, this is what we need to be thinking about to get a healthier ocean. We’ve tried marketing the implementation of good policies to keep the ocean healthy for its own sake. We can motivate the investments we need, the actions we need for a health ocean by focusing on the fact that the health of everyone in this room, everyone in this city, and everyone on this planet will be better when you get the health benefits from the right policies, and the ocean will be better because of it. Thank you.


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Apurv GuptaYouth Representative, World Information Transfer

“The role of Technology in Agenda 2030”

Your Excellencies, Madam Chair, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

My name is Apurv Gupta. I am a Technology Consulting Analyst at Accenture UK and an Executive Board Member of World Information Transfer.

Today, here at the United Nations, I would like to speak to you about the impact of technology and the transforming role of the private sector in successfully achieving the SDGs.

As a young person, myself, working at the intersection of technological innovation and international development with colleagues at Accenture, WIT and the UN – I cannot help but observe that we all – Governments, Businesses and Civil Society - are operating in a world of intersections.

Governments are operating at the intersection of increasing political volatility and greater transparency – Digital has empowered citizens to foster direct relationships with top tiers of government, demanding answers and explanations from their leaders.

Businesses are operating at the intersection where traditional business objectives, such as pure profitability, are rivalled by a millennial workforce – at intersections -where disruptive technologies are revolutionizing business operating models and corporate social responsibility is evolving into corporate social opportunity.

Civil Society is operating at the intersection where local field operations, activism and data are finding expression in a global audience. NGOs are increasingly looking towards digital capabilities as a method to expand outreach channels.

World Information Transfer is a prime example of a well-established non-profit organisation that is poised to gain from this technological revolution. Since its formation in

“Digital has empowered citizens to foster direct relationships with top tiers of government, demanding

answers and explanations from their leaders.”

the late 1980s WIT has partnered with another NGO – Human Info - to collate data and documentation on the SDGs. As of today, this database has an impressive collection of close to 5,000 publications. Hundreds of millions of people need equitable access to practical education and knowledge concerning sustainable solutions for their lives. Through this initiative, WIT and Human Info are looking to empower every individual with a knowledge base of the SDGs; perhaps a personal library on every smart phone?!

As technology empowers society, society begins to transform institutions. The private sector, for instance, has begun playing an increasingly crucial role in financing SDG targets through their own business operations. From the solutions, we heard at the Addis Ababa Development Finance Summit, to the participation we witnessed at COP21, to the ideas we read from the World Economic Forum – sustainability is increasingly becoming a core business strategy among corporate leaders. In fact, a study by Accenture and UN Global Compact published that 97% leaders agree that sustainability is important to the future success of their business.

“As technology empowers society, society begins to transform institutions. ”


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As a young person, I believe the millennial workforce plays a key role in enhancing this business trajectory. Millennials are the 2 billion people born between the 1980s and the 2000s; a demographic cohort that is defined by shared familiarity with communications, media and digital technologies. Often dubbed as the ‘true entrepreneurial generation’ – these are individuals who are connected and most sustainability-conscious. They question not just what businesses do, but rather why they do it?

According to the Pew Research Centre: As consumers, millenials are more likely to pay extra for responsibly made products, and roughly 80% want to work for companies that care about their impact. This is transforming the corporate world to not just look at sustainability as corporate social responsibility – but as a new currency of measuring business growth and performance and differentiating industry competitors. In this light, the SDGs can prove to be an inspiration guiding light to not just transform core business objectives, but to also solve common business dilemmas of expansion or profitability.

Albert Einstein once said, “If I was given 1 hour to answer a problem and my life depended on it – I would spend the first 55 minutes thinking of the right questions to ask” and I believe for businesses, this activity is now more crucial than ever. Leaders need to start questioning What does it mean to be a responsible business in a rapidly evolving digital world? How can we expect more from technology to measure social impact and communicate it?

“...the SDGs can prove to be an inspiration guiding light to not just transform core business objectives,

but to also solve common business dilemmas of expansion or profitability.”

“...environmental justice includes not knowing what’s happening. “

Dr. Bernard Goldstein Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh

Closing Remarks

Thank you, Dr. Durbak, and let me add my thanks to all of you. Seeing you here makes me be more optimistic about the future. My distinguished colleagues have given you the background of the science in ways that I could not. This is not my area of scientific expertise. Actually, Dr. Durbak got me involved relatively late by asking me to follow up on a paper that my colleagues and I have published in the New England Journal of Medicine about the Trump Administration and EPA. But the more I thought about it the more depressed I became. It is not really a very good way to end a much more positive meeting. So I changed my talk to focus on how to respond to community health issues related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Today, you have heard the compelling scientific evidence that human health is linked to a healthy ocean. But when the ocean is unhealthy, as it was after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, what can you do about it? How do you deal with the community health aspects of an oil spill rather than just focusing on compensating those directly affected and punishing those responsible? I’m going to ask you to imagine that you had $105 million to spend on improving community health as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. I’m also going to talk about the relationship between public health and sustainability and resilience. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was not an accident, it was an incident in that it was fully preventable. An accident is a comet hitting the Deepwater Horizon, it is not preventable.

Your Excellencies, Madam Chair, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are operating at intersections of multiple collaborations; where sustainability strategy in the private sector can increase bottom line where reliable data from civil society is reaching far corners of the world where priority and regulation from government can be digitally trackedwhere traditional business objectives are being challenged by young ideas. It is only at this intersection that we will successfully achieve Agenda 2030.


Summer-Fall 2017

When dealing with environmental risks a concept that I think is very important for all of us to understand is that of the social amplification of risk. The major determinants of risk perception that extend well beyond the potential scientific estimate of risk are how familiar you are with the risk and how much you trust those telling you about the risk. If you’ve lost the public’s trust, and very often our industry has, then nobody is going to believe you and the risk is going to be seen as worse than it may really be.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster presents issues that go beyond questions about the toxicity of a chemical. Community issues are very important, and these communities along our Gulf Coast not only have baseline poor health statistics that are among the worst in the country, they also have particular problems related to what is known as environmental justice. These communities have a disproportionate share of environmental burdens. They have very many sources of pollutants already present to which the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster added another. It is also a situation in which environmental justice includes not knowing what is happening. Many of you have heard of NIMBY. NIMBY stands for “Not In My Back Yard”. It refers to public opposition, including protests and political action, against locally undesirable projects proposed for our neighborhood - a halfway house for heroin addicts or thepsychiatrically ill; a hazardous waste site, etc. Environmental justice is very often what I call WIMBY – “Why In My Back Yard?”. You wake up one day, and it is there without either your consent or your ability to participate in the deliberations that led to the problem. That is what happened to the folks in Flint. Nobody told them that they were going to be drinking lead-contaminated water before it already had happened.

I began by asking what you would do with $105 million to help respond to community health issues caused by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. I’ll tell you what the Judge Carl Barbier, who presided over the $7.6 billion BP Medical Settlement, decided to do. The judge carved out $105 million for community health, reasoning that once you pay the affected individuals there would still be significant adverse effects to the community as a whole – and these communities have poor health to begin with that is related in large part to socioeconomic issues that were worsened by the oil spill. The judge put together an organizational structure that supported federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) doing primary care in 17 of the most affected counties and parishes in four states to help them become

This incident was disastrous to millions of people living on the Gulf coast. The direct effects included the deaths of 11 workers and injuries and adverse health effects in others. Much of the long lasting effects were due to what Dr. Rice and Dr. Vierros told you about, which was about mental and behavioral health and about what happened to communities.

The mental and behavioral health effects were compounded by an unnecessary lack of transparency about the composition of the dispersant used in unprecedented large volumes to disperse the oil. The chemical structure of one of the components of the dispersant was held secret. In the midst of all the fear that community members had about what was happening it was unnecessary to add to it fear about this secret chemical - which turned out to be probably one of the most harmless chemicals you can think of in terms of human health. It is the largest volume over the counter laxative in the United States. There are probably millions of doses taken every day by humans, so as a toxicologist I have little concern about the chemical. But I can’t tell you what it’s going to do to fish. So why was this relatively harmless compound kept secret? It would cause competitors perhaps $10 worth of chemical analysis to have found out its chemical composition so there was no business reason to keep it a secret from the rest of the industry. It is simply another example of the problem in our society of allowing industry to keep things secret on the alleged basis of confidential business information. Some secrecy is needed. Innovation to some extent depends upon innovators and investors who are willing to take chances on new chemicals, but unjustified secrecy which heightens people’s fear during a crisis like the Deepwater Horizon disaster is not acceptable.

“Increased and improved research is essential for a rationalization of current and for improved regulation.”


Summer-Fall 201722

more sustainable and to do a better job of responding to health issues in affected communities. The organization, known as the Gulf Region Health Outreach Program (GRHOP; see figure 1) was also charged with helping to add mental and behavioral health and environmental health to the usual FQHC approaches to take care of people in their communities. This broad organizational structure included community organizations headed by the Alliance Institute of New Orleans; the Louisiana Public Health Institute which oversaw analysis of needs and provision of funding to FQHCs; and five university-based programs from four states. Programs included the training of community health workers, and the involvement of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Health Clinics in Washington, DC to help develop a network of knowledgeable environmental health consultants. The GRHOP program is now in its 5th and final year. While not a research program, everything we do is evaluated. To achieve sustainability, funding for the projects was based on the criterion that it would be able to be continued after the GRHOP five-year funding period. The long term goal is to really make a difference that will persist and will make

these communities more resilient to future challenges. Sustainability and resilience, of course, are buzzwords,

- jargon that we’re throwing around a lot now. What is it that we mean? I find it very helpful to use the image of a glass that is half full. Usually the question of whether you consider the glass half full or half empty defines whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. In terms of sustainability the glass is twice the size that it needs to be – the extra glass is unnecessary. But for resilience the glass has to be bigger than half full. We need to be able to pour additional water in it at times to deal with expected or unexpected variations, such as will occur with a disaster. Our problem is trying to understand and plan for how much more than half full it has to be. Consideration as to how much more resilience is needed is often discussed in terms of infrastructure and other physical issues – but it also needs to be expressed in terms of human health. One way to consider it is the importance of community social capital. (Figure 2)

To build community social capital we need to use the lens of social and environmental justice. We also must recognize that different approaches are needed for different communities, and that these approaches must come organically from the communities. The diverse communities in the Gulf include, among others, Cajuns, African-Americans and immigrant Vietnamese communities, all of

whom have cultures that must be recognized and respected in abetting their response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

I will finish by responding to Dr. Durbak’s request and discuss a hopeful part of our New England Journal of Medicine article concerning the Trump Administration and EPA research. When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981 his rhetoric about the environment was very similar to that we now have from Donald Trump - that EPA’s unnecessary regulations were causing the economy to fail. After about 2 years, President Reagan realized that his major goal for the future was to be re-elected, rather than be repudiated by the American electorate, and that the American elector ate was unhappy about destroying EPA. He replaced Anne Gorsuch, his first EPA Administrator, very much like Scott Pruitt, with Bill Ruckelshaus, who had been the first Administrator of EPA. Ruckelshaus was considered to be a moderate Republican, strongly environmental conscious. Following President Reagan’s 1984 re-election, the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative organization chastised President Reagan because Ruckelshaus was bringing back liberal environmental policies which the Heritage Foundation was convinced were destroying American business. But they also said that Anne Gorsuch had made a mistake in cutting back on EPA’s science. They argued that research is essential for improved regulation and for EPA to effectively achieve all of its current legislative mandates. Later, during Reagan’s second administration, EPA did a number of good things. It got rid of the last lead from gasoline, it controlled a lot of air toxics like benzene that weren’t controlled before. Will the same thing happen now? Tune in, but your standing up and saying that what is happening now is wrong will make a difference.

“... research is essential for improved regulation and for EPA to effectively achieve all of its current

legislative mandates. ”

“... your ability to stand up and say that this is the wrong thing happening now will make a difference.”


Summer-Fall 2017

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