New Guinea's Marine Ecosystem

• Massive island split vertically by Papua New Guinea/Indonesia border, horizontally by Central Cordillera mountain range
• Snow-capped peaks few hundred miles from equator feed rivers, agriculture, coastal mangrove forests
• Mangroves serve as vital fish spawning grounds for Arafura Sea marine life
• Arafura Sea (between Indonesia/Australia) = one of world's most productive fisheries

Arafura Sea Fishing Disparity

• Indonesia's northern half: historically little fishing restriction/enforcement
  • 2001 survey: 85% of vessels over 50 gross tons operated without license
  • Only 30% of catch properly reported
• Australia's southern half: sparsely populated (except Darwin), small coastal towns
  • Northern Territory: 147 registered fishing vessels
  • Cost of living far higher than Indonesia
  • GDP per capita 14x higher than Indonesia
  • Indonesian fishing industry out-competes on cost

Indonesian Shark Poaching in Australian Waters

• Indonesian fishers believe Australian waters more fish-abundant (correct assessment)
• Shark fishing rare in Australia, shark finning entirely illegal
• Shark fins extremely valuable: $500+ per pound ($225/kg) in Asian markets
• Poaching process:
  • Small wooden boats leave Dobo island city
  • Travel south into Australia's exclusive economic zone
  • Set up camps on unpopulated Australian islands
  • Fin sharks illegally, discard bodies
  • Single poacher can kill dozens/hundreds of sharks per journey
• Australian Navy patrols but odds favor poachers due to vast, desolate coastline
• Boats use sharp obstacles on hulls, flee at high speed toward Indonesian border
• Arrests happen in record numbers but represent small fraction of incursions

China's Global Fishing Dominance

• China ranks #1 on illegal/unreported/unregulated fishing index
• Reels in most fish tonnage globally, operates world's biggest fishing fleet
• China's fishing appetite born in 1980s with rising personal income
• By 2000: catch tonnage in China's EEZ quadrupled, fisheries near collapse
• State planners/boat captains turned to foreign/contested waters

Indonesia's Anti-Poaching Response

• 2014: Indonesia tried halting foreign fleets
• Caught poaching vessels publicly blown up/burned at sea
• Chinese boats identified in hundreds across Indonesian waters
• Too many for cash-strapped Indonesia to catch
• Plundered Indonesian fishers then turned to Australian waters

China's Distant Water Fleet

• World's largest distant water fleet: estimates range 3,000-17,000 boats
• US distant water fleet: only 300 boats for comparison
• Chinese armada exports Asian Pacific problems globally

West African Impact

• Chinese companies buying fishing licenses since mid-1980s
• Countries offer cash quotas to protect fish stocks
• Senegal: 1/5 of people work in fishing, 85% protein intake from fish
• Chinese ships report only 8% of actual catch along African coasts
• Creates job destruction, food scarcity
• Developing countries lack navy/satellite tracking for enforcement
• Ships move to edge of EEZ in international waters when restricted

North Korean Waters Violation

• Chinese fleets tracked into North Korean waters
• Explains Korean ship fragments washing up on Japanese beaches
• Local Korean fishers can't compete, go farther out to sea in small boats
• Crews sent overboard, boats battered
• Violates UN sanctions forbidding fishing in North Korean waters

Dark Fleet Operations

• Chinese fishing armadas earned "dark fleets" moniker
• Disable AIS tracking systems for days/weeks
• Allows sneaking into EEZ, fishing, sliding back to international waters
• Enables catch laundering through transshipment to larger transport ships
• Muddles catch origin tracking
• Allows illegal dumping of low-grade fish, moving illegal catches
• Transshipment legal when authorized, often done with transponders off
• Requires expensive, difficult evidence gathering in vast ocean

Global Illegal Fishing Scale

• 1 out of every 5 fish on plates illegally caught
• Inexhaustible resource pushed to brink by ruthlessly efficient machine

Marine Medicine Potential

• Traditional medicine long relied on ocean plants/animals
• Modern medicine increasingly recognizing value
• Halavin: $300+ million annual sales, extends late-stage breast cancer life 5-6 months (from Japanese sea sponge)
• Prialt: treats severe chronic pain, avoids opioid downsides (from sea-based cone snail venom)
• Dozen+ marine-based drugs in clinical testing
• Ocean far more biodiverse than land, majority of Earth's biodiversity in ocean
• Only ~10% of marine species discovered
• DNA sequencing costs: 2001 = $5,000+ per million bases, today = ~$0.005
• Expectation of pharmaceutical gold rush when groundbreaking compound discovered

Deep Sea Mining Prospects

• Polymetallic nodules on ocean floor: potato-sized metal clumps
• Contain manganese, zinc, cobalt, copper, nickel
• High demand for wind turbines, electric car batteries, decarbonized grid
• Arguments: potentially low-cost, low-impact vs land mining
• Concerns: significant sea floor disturbance, habitat destruction, sediment blooms, carbon release

International Seabed Authority (ISA) Regulations

• UN body regulating deep sea mining
• 31 exploratory licenses granted for small-scale tests
• July 9, 2021: Nauru triggered 2-year countdown for rule-setting
• July 9, 2023: deadline passed, ISA failed to set rules
• Now theoretically zero environmental restrictions for operations
• Nauru partnered with Canada-based Metals Company
• Legal/Technical Commission told not to issue recommendations until regulations set
• Some members argue this violates law of sea
• Deadlock: some support regulated mining (Nauru, China), others want moratorium (Switzerland, Germany), others want outright ban (France)

US Non-Membership in ISA

• ~30 nations not ISA members, notably US
• US Senate voted not to ratify treaty
• NOAA already granted exploratory licenses to American companies
• Could kick off UN vs US showdown if US allows commercial operations while ISA doesn't

Treaty of the High Seas

• Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty
• 54 pages, nearly 20 years in making
• Final draft agreed March 4, 2023 at UN headquarters
• Framework for sharing marine genetic resources access
• Requires environmental impact assessments
• Groundwork for marine protected areas management
• Goal: protect 30% of ocean by 2030
• Doesn't encompass activities with existing regulatory bodies (like ISA)
• Adopted June 20, 2023, expected signatures September 2023
• Becomes law 2 months after 60th country ratifies
• International treaties historically weak on environmental enforcement

Current Ocean Crisis Statistics

• 1/3 of global fish stocks overfished (removed faster than reproduction)
• 60% fished at reproduction rate
• Nearly no fish stocks growing globally
• Statistics trending toward oblivion
• Tragedy of commons: economic incentive for individual actors to continue overfishing
• Problem solvable nationally but lacks international long-term solution

Future Implications

• Technology threatens new categories with same problems
• Outer space operates under same maritime law system
• Asteroid mining direct analogy to deep sea mining
• World globalizing, technology advancing problems beyond national scale
• Need diplomacy for cooperation/consensus for good of all vs good of one