Dr. Pitt Returns From Marine Workshop
Earlier this month Marine Resources Officer at the Department of Environmental Protection Dr. Joanna Pitt attended a regional workshop in Recife, Brazil, organised by the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity – a United Nations Convention, to which the United Kingdom is a party.
Dr. Pitt’s participation from February 28 through March 2 was sponsored by the Sargasso Sea Alliance and approved through the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DEFRA (Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) because of “Bermuda’s significant efforts towards the protection of the Sargasso Sea.”
The purpose of the workshop was for jurisdictions from around the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic to submit and refine (through the course of the workshop) briefs on Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) in the marine environment, as determined by the EBSA criteria.
An EBSA is a geographically or oceanographically discrete area that provides important services to one or more species or to an ecosystem as a whole. Criteria used to identify EBSAs are as follows:
- Uniqueness / rarity
- Special importance for key stages of the life cycle
- Importance for threatened, endangered or declining species / habitats
- Vulnerability / fragility / below average ability to recover from disturbance
- Biological productivity
- Biological diversity
- Naturalness
Sites are ranked as ‘High’, ‘Some’, ‘Low’ or ‘Don’t Know’ for each criterion, with the ranking supported by documented scientific observations. The Sargasso Sea is ranked as HIGH for criteria 1 through 6, and SOME for Naturalness.
Dr. Pitt explained: “Sites meeting EBSA criteria that were discussed in this workshop came in a range of sizes and were located in areas as different as the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and the mangrove habitats of tropical shorelines, and everything in between.
“Most sites were located within the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the countries nominating them, but some, including the Sargasso Sea, are located primarily on the high seas, in areas beyond national jurisdiction.”
A statement issued by the Department said, “For sites that lie within the EEZ of one or more countries, it is then up to those jurisdictions to determine what needs to be done to maintain and, if necessary, restore the ecological and biological value of the site so that it can continue to fulfil its role in the global ocean ecosystem.
“Having a site on the high seas officially recognised as an EBSA under the Convention on Biological Diversity is an important first step in achieving international agreement regarding its importance and the role it plays in the global ocean ecosystem.
“Agreement on the importance of the site is necessary in order to move forward with putting in place measures that will ensure that the site is properly managed in the future. The workshop report will now be sent to a subsidiary body of the convention parties whose aim it is to ratify the report.”
“Throughout the workshop our team received a lot of support for the Sargasso Sea,” said Dr. Pitt. “Altogether, it was an interesting process and a very important step in the campaign to get better protection for the Sargasso Sea.”
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