Eromosele Abiodun highlights efforts by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, African Marine Environment Sustainability Initiative, and United Nations Environment Programme to tackle marine pollution, which is a major obstacle to Nigeria’s quest for blue economy.
Following global economic turmoil and the increase call for governments across Africa to diversify their economies, there has been a steady rise across Africa in the attention given to the responsible use of the oceans to contribute to economic development. Experts believe the opportunities around Africa’s blue economies are enormous with significant potential to create jobs and improve livelihoods.
Africa’s vast coastline hosts a maritime industry estimated at $1 trillion per year and this is only scratching the surface.
Africa has 38 coastal states and a number of island states like Cape Verde, Sao Tomé and Principe, Mauritius, Seychelles and the Comoros. Collectively African coastal and island states encompass vast ocean territories of an estimated 13 million km².
The Seychelles, for example, has 1.3 million square kms of ocean territory that remains largely underdeveloped. Somalia has the longest coastline in Africa (approximately 3 000 km) and claims ocean territory stretching about 120 km off shore.
But what is often missing in debates are issues of governance and security. Five themes are particularly important to ensure both: safety and security, rule of law and transparency, respect for human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development.
Experts believe many African countries are failing to ensure safe and secure conditions for those working and living off the oceans. Tracts of the sea off East, West and North Africa are often labelled lawless. Illegal fishing, sea piracy and armed robbery, drug and human smuggling have assumed staggering proportions. Capping this is the rise in illegal migration.
For this to change, experts said diverse actors need to start cooperating across national boundaries to secure and use ocean territories. It has become common knowledge that individual states can do little on their own. The solution of cooperation is simple but difficult to sell to a critical mass of African governments that are often suspicious of collective agendas.
Failure to ensure that ocean territories are secure promotes ungoverned spaces, which criminals exploit. At worst, neglected maritime spaces benefit insurgents and terrorists as is obvious in Libya, Somalia and Nigeria.
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Africa has had to contend with three volatile oceanic regions where criminality makes it impossible for countries to realise the potential of their oceans. These are the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Guinea and the waters of the Mediterranean to the north of Libya.
A common denominator in the three hubs is that countries on these coasts have failed to make the areas safe. This has opened the door to criminal actors.
Marine pollution
But the greatest danger now is the alarming rate of marine pollution. Experts believe the health of marine ecosystem is on the decline as a result of anthropogenic waste that is discharged into coastal or marine environments, resulting from the human activities on land or at sea.
They therefore warned that it is very critical that governments, global businesses and political leaders recognise the growing threats and urgently act to restore the marine environment to healthy state for economic development of Africa.
Last week, Maritime expert and founder of the African Marine Environment Sustainability Initiative (AFMESI), Dr. Felicia Mogo, called on Nigeria and other African countries to urgent tackle marine pollution so as to realise their blue economy ambition.
Mogo made this call during the second AFMESI symposium themed: “Marine pollution prevention and control towards blue economy,” held in Lagos.
Noting that pollution was one of the major limiting factors to the blue economy in Africa, Mogo also encouraged African countries to unify their positions and make contributions on the issue to the global regulatory bodies such as the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
“The BASEL Convention is a global convention that advocates for preventing transboundary movements of hazardous waste, among others. For example, a country may claim to have the resources to manage this and it is investigated but some others, especially African nations may go for it because of poverty and lack of understanding. They take such waste and dump it in the oceans and seas; eventually, these end up as very toxic substances,” he said.
Mogo, a former Director of Marine Environment Management at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), also called for more advocacies among African nations, their producing companies as well as communities in coastal areas.
Source: thisdaylive.com
