Human empowerment: Opportunities from ocean governance

Stimulus to reach the millennium goals of poverty abatement and empowerment, including education and employment, for the large part of the population in the coastal zone can be found in the resources and services of oceans and coasts; the required financial means, given political will and right priorities, can be provided through implementation of the related international conventions, in particular UNCLOS with the EEZ, the Common Heritage of Mankind and other provisions, Agenda 21 1] of UNCED and the WSSD 2002 Ocean Targets; the motivation is the necessity to address over-exploitation, depletion and destruction of resources, habitats and coastal ecosystem services, global changes, as well as economic transformations and social conditions of poverty, employment and unequity. Achieving adequate management and protection of natural assets as ecosystems and their services, habitats, biodiversity requires that the socio-economic and human security needs of the coastal populations are met. One way to reach the goal is to enable them, representing about 50% of the global population and increasing, to fight poverty and cope with uncertainties and changing conditions of employment, environment and sustainability through proper governance of the coastal and ocean assets. This includes provision of education and knowledge as regards these assets and their proper uses. They include energy, water, food, transportation and trade, communication, coastal developments, tourism, recreation and ecosystem services, as well as the need to properly manage them.The present economic system cannot fully harmonize with the required governance, partly since the ecosystem resources and services are not internalised in the market-oriented system. This calls for a revised education and training system, more comprehensive than the present, taking into account the social, cultural and environmental requirements, and stressing the sustainable development paradigm. In order to achieve ocean governance and comprehensive human security an understanding of the system is needed. This is substantiated through the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development as well as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.The aim here is to discuss some of the issues in context of implementation of related ocean conventions and commitments, which include achieving ocean governance, and to elucidate opportunities given by oceans and coasts, also in generating employment and providing for basic human needs.