Ocean: War of Independence (11 page)

APPENDIX I

Declaration of Ocean Independence (1
^st
edition)

As Presented by Kimo Pohaku
to the United Nations Special Session
August 23, 2024

Statement of Purpose

Under the international Law of the Sea, humankind has traditionally treated most of the world’s ocean as a common area, available to be exploited by all, while continental shelves and other areas have been claimed by specific nations. It is a system that makes an important underlying assumption—that humankind as a whole
owns
the ocean, and has a birthright to take from it whatever it wishes, while giving nothing in return.

Over the years, a handful of environmental organizations have attempted to speak on behalf of the creatures of the sea and the sea itself, but with minimal success. The usurpation by the greedy has only accelerated, and a handful of corporations and nations have moved to the forefront, using factory fishing fleets, oil rigs, and other highly efficient methods of ocean exploitation that take the lion’s share of the resources.

Historically, colonial powers have plundered the minerals, plants, animals, and other assets of third world countries, and in parallel fashion certain parties have treated the ocean that way as well, extracting everything they can from it—and even adding insult to injury by using the water as a dumping ground and spillage area for plastics, sewage, industrial wastes, oil, and radioactive materials—and committing a long list of other atrocities.

Because of overfishing, as well as the catching of untargeted species (such as dolphins in tuna nets), and harm caused to wildlife by discarded monofilament nets, lobster traps, and fishing gear, the stocks of many fish have been drastically depleted, and some species have gone extinct. Coral reefs, estuaries, mangrove forests, salt marshes, and wetlands have been destroyed by mankind as well, in its headlong rush to take whatever each person, company, and nation can, without considering the cost.

But the cost of such behavior has been substantial. It has been
enormous
. This Declaration of Ocean Independence marks a turning point, in which all nations are formally notified that the ocean is not going to accept this pattern of misbehavior any more. The ocean is fighting back, driving humankind back. All nations, all companies, and all individuals must fully accept the terms of the declaration of ocean independence that underlies this declaration. This is the new reality.

No longer will any human being treat the ocean as a common area (or declare national sovereignty over portions of it), to be exploited for deep-sea mining, oil drilling, factory fishing, dumping, the transportation of goods, or any other purpose; no longer will any of you assert ownership over these waters, or the right to use them for any reason, except in very limited circumstances that will be closely monitored by the Sea Warriors.

As part of the penalty for the terrible damages that have been caused, humans will be required to establish scientific study groups to research problems involving ocean waters and the life forms in them, with the goal of repairing as much as possible. The study of marine microbes is one example of a permitted use, because of the sensitivity of these microscopically small organisms, which are the basis of the entire marine food chain, and are known to have been harmed by greenhouse gases and other human-related factors.

This radical historical transformation is only right, because of the damage human beings had done to the ocean over centuries and millennia. Mankind does not deserve to hold dominion over the ocean.

Should anyone attempt to circumvent the new rules, they will be discovered by inspectors or sea creatures around the world, and this information will reach the headquarters of the Sea Warriors. Penalties will be severe.

Our weaponry is vast, much more than we have displayed in the various battles that the Sea Warriors have conducted against imperialist forces. An appendix to this declaration lists some of the weapons at our disposal—the natural armaments of sea creatures, augmented by the special powers of some of our hybrid Sea Warriors, such as the tremendous and destructive tidal waves that Alicia Ellsworth can generate.

From this day hence, there is no longer a planet called Earth. We hereby remove the world’s ocean from the control of human usurpers and rename the entire planet Ocean—reflecting the fact that almost 71% of the surface is composed of interconnected seas, forming one great body of salt water. A much smaller portion of the world is land, or earth.

—Kimo Pohaku,
Director of the Sea Warriors, and Administrator
of the Declaration of Ocean Independence

***

APPENDIX II

Catalogue of Human Abuses Against The Ocean
And Its Inhabitants

(Addendum #1 to Declaration of Ocean Independence)

The Sea Warriors and their expert advisers who have prepared this official document are not herein providing an exhaustive list of the transgressions that humans have committed against the world’s ocean. Rather, this is intended to be an overview of a massive ecological crime, with more than enough detail to prove the case that the ocean must be protected from those who have treated it so badly, for so many centuries.

International treaties involving the protection of the ocean, coastal ecosystems, marine animals, and seabirds are filled with legal loopholes, and often provide only bandaids for wounds that require much more attention. One such treaty, involving the international regulation of whaling, took almost 40 years to reach an agreement among nations—from 1946 to 1985—and even then, it was a deeply flawed document. Some nations, such as the United States, have refused to accept major international treaties that involve the health of the ocean, the air, and the land—insisting instead that they have “exclusive economic zones” and the right to harvest whatever they please from the waters, thus maximizing profits.

Hereafter, all previous international laws involving the ocean and any ecological matter pertaining to those waters are declared null and void. There is no longer a Law of the Sea Treaty; there are no exclusive economic zones for any nation, corporation, or individual. The Sea Warriors are setting everything back to zero. From this day forth, human beings no longer have any
rights
whatsoever involving the ocean, and will only have
privileges
that they are able to earn from the Sea Warriors, under the close supervision of this ocean-protection organization and the oceanographers and other marine experts associated with it.

***

Index of Sections

Catalogue of Human Abuses Against the Ocean and its Inhabitants

I. Dumping at Sea and Carelessness.

II. Overfishing, Hunting, and Gathering.

III. Mining Problems.

IV. Noise Pollution.

V. Oil Spills and Oil Drilling.

VI. Marine Pollution.

VII. Damage Caused by Ships, Boats, and Aircraft.

VIII. Cruelty to Marine Animals and Other Acts.

IX. Imperiled Coastal Ecosystems and Shorelines.

X. War and Preparations for War.

I. Dumping at Sea and Carelessness.

Human civilization, overflowing with garbage, has a habit of dumping it from shore, from pleasure boats, from barges that go out into deep water, and into rivers that flow into the sea. Out of sight, out of mind, has been the collective thinking, as many items are carried out to sea by tidal action and dispersed, or sunk to the bottom. But some of it subsequently washes back up on shores all over the planet, and vast amounts of plastics and other floating items form into garbage colonies on the high seas, floating about in currents in full view of any ship that happens to pass that way. Divers can hardly go anywhere without seeing some piece of discarded junk on the sea floor, or snagged on coral, or jammed between rocks, along with sunken shipwrecks, rusted remnants of oil rigs, and other large objects that have been left in place after an accident at sea. There are even a surprising number of junked motor vehicles and parts, such as tires and engine blocks.

Creatures of the ocean and seabirds die regularly from becoming entangled in discarded nets, fishing gear, and crustacean traps, and strangle in plastic rings from six-packs of water and soda, or suffocate when they ingest plastic bags. Even the nets laid to protect swimming beaches from sharks are actually killing those animals when they get ensnared in them, along with dolphins, turtles, and porpoises.

II. Overfishing, Hunting, and Gathering.

As noted in the Declaration of Ocean Independence, humans have overfished the seas, catching untargeted species (i.e. dolphins in tuna nets), and carelessly killing wildlife in other ways. Factory fishing ships, aided by smaller launches, have harvested vast amounts of fish, keeping them in refrigeration units on the mother ship. Purse-seiners and vessels with even larger nets have also contributed to this problem. As a result, the stocks of many fish have been drastically depleted, and species have gone extinct.

Some of the abuses have been committed by suppliers of aquariums and tourist gift shops, who strip coral reefs and other regions of the ocean of angelfish, pufferfish, jellyfish, conch shells and shellfish, pieces of living coral, and various other living organisms, along with shells removed from shallow waters and beaches for necklaces, bracelets, and other adornments. In an outrageous action, designed to draw fish out of their hiding places so that they can be captured, explosives have been set off underwater, destroying coral reefs. Sport fishermen catch marlins and sailfish, and stuff them as trophies to hang on the wall. In some third world countries, people kill large turtles to stuff them and offer them for sale.

The demand by restaurants for wrasse and other reef fish, as well as red urchin eggs, eel, lobster, squid, abalone, shark fins, shark meat, and conch meat, has depleted those stocks dangerously. Crews are even raking sea floors for clams and scallops, not caring about the environmental damage they cause. Suppliers of agricultural feed have caused great harm by overharvesting the krill needed by whales, seriously disrupting the balance of the ocean’s food chain.

Despite bans on whaling, some rogue nations and individuals have continued to murder these large-brained animals—creatures so intelligent that they are sentient. Turtles, sea lions, and other marine animals are also being taken in large numbers, with no thought of species depletion. In the Arctic, men are lining up with rifles and shooting narwhal whales for their valuable ivory tusks, selling them to stores and collectors for large sums of cash.

III. Mining Problems.

The abuses are numerous and severe, including the obliteration of fragile seabed ecosystems by the mining of manganese, nickel, copper, iron, platinum, and silver, the destruction of coral reefs to obtain construction materials, and strip-mining around deep-sea hydrothermal vents to obtain gold and polymetallic sulfides.

IV. Noise Pollution.

The violations by human beings include setting off explosives to capture or kill fish, loud ship-engine and propeller noises, military demolition and armaments practice by world navies, nuclear testing, and the testing of sonar systems by the U.S. Navy that send sound pulses to locate enemy submarines—high-decibel, focused noises that cause the brains and auditory systems of whales to hemorrhage, which either kills the animals outright or causes them to lose their sense of direction and run aground.

V. Oil Spills and Oil Drilling.

Perhaps no other category of ocean-abuse has received more publicity, and more of a public outcry against the responsible industry. Despite this, and despite the availability of alternative energy sources, oil companies and their political lobbyists have managed to maintain their economic stranglehold on society, and keep drilling offshore and in the deep ocean, constantly finding new oil fields and pumping crude oil out of them. Inevitably, a share of those wells blow, and the tankers that transport petroleum products on the high seas (and on inland-ocean waterways) break apart and spew their hazardous cargoes into the ocean and onto beaches. In the Gulf of Mexico and other areas, oil refineries are located on shorelines, contaminating the water and nearby land with leakage. As a result of all this human carelessness, sea creatures and seabirds are covered with gooey black oil and die, while fishing grounds, shellfish beds, and beaches are ruined. But the drilling, transporting, and refining continues unabated.

Two more factors exacerbate an already bad situation. First, in many cases, the detergents and chemical dispersants that are used to clean up the messes cause additional damage, killing smaller species of fish and crustaceans in the area. Second, the seriously damaged cargo ships and twisted remains of oil rigs are often left where they have sunk to the bottom of the sea, littering the seabed and interfering with the normal activity of marine ecosystems.

VI. Marine Pollution.

Much of what humans do in the waters of the ocean can be classified as marine pollution in one form or another, from the dumping of sewage and garbage into the water to oil spills and the wrecks of sunken ships and boats. In addition, a great deal of pollution is caused by waste products that run into the ocean from mills, factories, and farms all over the world—whether directly into the water or as run-off from the land or from rivers or other bodies of water that drain into the sea. As a result, heavy metals, hazardous industrial chemicals, and farm pesticides and herbicides (and harmful nitrogen from agricultural run-off) flow into the water from all directions, contaminating it with mercury, lead, and other chemicals that enter the ocean food chain and adversely affect marine life.

On the shores of many cities, large outfall pipes discharge sewage directly into the ocean. In some cities, sewage sludge is collected from treatment plants and taken by barge to a saltwater dumping area. If untreated, the sewage contains living organisms that can cause viruses in marine animals. And all of this sewage, even when treated against harmful organisms, is still filled with heavy metals such as chromium and lead, along with nitrogen, which causes algae blooms that are too large for marine herbivores to consume, and can result in dead zones in the water with no oxygen—which in turn leads to species migrations and die-offs.

Less visible, but still deadly, the waters and islands in some areas where nuclear testing has been conducted in the Pacific Ocean are so contaminated that they are no longer suitable for habitation by human beings or any other animal. Many of the marine animals in the water near the test sites are killed instantly, while others suffer longer-term radiation damage, which also has adverse effects on their reproductive cycles and the food chain, and destroys coral reefs and their habitats. Nuclear power plants, frequently situated on shorelines to secure cooling water from the sea, routinely release radioactive materials into the water. Additionally, many canisters of nuclear wastes, buried at the bottom of the sea, are corroding and leaking into the water.

VII. Damage Caused by Ships, Boats, and Aircraft.

Even in peacetime, every year hundreds of large ships sink in the ocean, from collisions with other vessels, or storms, or a lack of seaworthiness, or a host of other reasons, many of them involving human error and carelessness. Some of them are oil tankers carrying hazardous petroleum products. These lost vessels are in addition to the sinking of thousands and thousands of smaller boats every year. Large planes flying over the ocean often drop hazardous fuel in the water, and aircraft of all types crash into the sea. The vast majority of sunken ships and boats (and fallen aircraft) are left where they lie, on the bottom of the sea, leaking whatever contaminants were aboard.

The amount of ship traffic is substantial—most of the trade between nations involves the transportation of goods over the sea. Many of these vessels run on dirty bunker-diesel fuel and their crews dump garbage and sewage overboard (see comments about Cruise Ships and Ocean Liners, below). Because a number of cargo ships are older, they leak oil and other contaminants into the water.

It is particularly upsetting that many whales are killed or seriously injured when large vessels (such as massive, fast-moving container ships) hit them. Humpbacks, finbacks, and northern right whales, all species that spend a lot of time on the surface of the ocean, are particularly susceptible to being hit.

Cruise Ships and Ocean Liners.
These vessels often use filthy bunker-diesel fuel on the high seas, which releases huge amounts of heavy metals and other contaminants into the water and air, resulting in harm to plankton, shellfish, and other organisms due to ocean acidity. In addition, some passenger ships violate international law by dumping garbage and sewage overboard, and they venture into ecologically sensitive waters, such as those around Antarctica, and get too close to whales and other wildlife, even striking them. In tropical waters, these ships sometimes collide with coral reefs or drop their anchors onto coral formations, destroying large pieces of the living structures.

VIII. Cruelty to Marine Animals and Other Acts.

While observing sea animals by boat (including glass-bottom boats and sea kayaks), or swimming with them, tourists, tour operators, and other persons have used motor boats to harass whales, dolphins, porpoises, manta rays, and numerous other sea creatures, resulting in the animals’ aggravation or death—sometimes due to collisions with boats that get too close. In other cases, swimmers or divers attempt to ride turtles that are smaller than they are, and sometimes drown the creatures in the process.

IX. Imperiled Coastal Ecosystems and Shorelines.

There are too many cases in which humans destroy critical species’ habitats and spawning grounds to build resorts, aquaculture businesses, farms, and other enterprises—tearing up coral reefs, sea grasses, tide ponds, mangrove forests, saltwater wetlands, salt marshes, estuaries, and beaches with dredging, logging, and other clearing operations.

Piers and docks are of special concern wherever they are located on saltwater shorelines, because they can interfere with the reproductive cycles of small organisms (such as snail darters) that form integral parts of the ecology of the shorelines. Bulkheads and bridges over water present similar problems.

There are many examples of careless practices in ecologically sensitive marine environments. The following are typical:

Beaches
: It has been customary for people to leave bottles, cans, food wrappers, and other garbage on beaches around the world, and—aside from the eyesore of this—the garbage is often washed out to sea by the tides. Sea turtles lay their eggs on beaches, in holes they have dug with their flippers, so it is important to protect such areas for this species.

Tourists:
Too often, Dive tourists remove pieces of living coral from coral reefs, or destroy the coral by touching it or bumping into it, thus seriously damaging the reef colonies.

Dive Boats:
Coral is frequently damaged by carelessly employed boat anchors.

Treasure Hunters:
Humans seeking gold bullion and other treasure from Spanish galleons, or trying to find various lost shipwrecks, often do whatever it takes to get what they want, even if it involves destroying coral reef formations and other sensitive marine environments.

X. War and Preparations for War

Throughout history, humans have proved themselves incapable of avoiding violence and warfare—and wherever military battles have occurred, the environment has suffered. Unlike battlefields that are on (or over) land, the ocean is hardly ever cleaned up afterward, and the seabed is left littered with the skeletons of sunken military aircraft and warships, including World War II German submarines off the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, and the Allied cargo ships that were their targets. In the Iran-Iraq war of the late 20
^th
century, the Iraqi government intentionally scuttled a huge oil tanker for tactical purposes, to block enemy warships from taking a particular route. This resulted in a massive, and
intentional
, oil spill that caused great damage to the marine environment. And earlier, in the Arab-Israeli war of the 1960s, an entire shoal of bioluminescent fish was blown up when it was erroneously identified as an underwater military operation.

As noted elsewhere in this document, nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean, military explosives testing, and navy sonar testing have caused injury and death to marine animals, including the organisms in reef colonies. In addition, whenever military authorities decide that certain explosives or chemical weapons are outdated, they typically transport them out onto the high seas aboard old cargo ships or warships, and then sink the ships. Such short-sighted, irresponsible acts result in biological agents leaking into the water, in addition to the petroleum and other contaminants released by the ramshackle vessels themselves.