Produced for #WorldOceansDay 2018 to recognise different perspectives on the oceans by the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) and the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI)

1. World Ocean Day
2018
#WorldOceanDay
The International
Association for the
Study of the
Commons
@iasc_commons
Different perspectives on the
world’s oceans
@CCRI_UK

2. Resources from the Digital
Library of the Commons:
International Fish Trade and Food
Security: Some Issues and
Perspectives (Kurien, 2005).
https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/handl
e/10535/5112
Open access fishery – Newfoundland’s Grand Banks
The seas were so full of fish that it was possible
to catch them by lowering a weighted basket
into the water and retrieving it quickly…
Giovanni Caboto,1497
In the 1950s…Factory
trawlers had emerged and
sailed to the Grand Banks
to make their money from
the cod that were found
there. Huge freezer factory
trawlers came from Britain,
Germany, Spain, France
Portugal, the USSR and
even as far as China and
Japan. Cod were the main
target…the peak of the
Grand Banks cod catch
happening in 1968…
“…We all knew it was wrong. They were
taking the mother fish which had been out
there spawning over the years.”
Newfoundland resident
In 1994 a major scientific study
made estimates that Grand Banks
cod levels were 1% of what they
were in the 1960s, meaning that
less than 2,000 tons of breeding
stock cod remained .
“… [when] the biological
reality of what we were
doing to our fish stocks hit
home, it was just too late.”
Professor George Rose of
Newfoundland Memorial University
(in 2002)
Text source: http://britishseafishing.co.uk/the-collapse-of-the-grand-banks-cod-fishery/
(the shoals of cod are) “…so thick by the
shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat
through them.”
English fishermen, mid-1600s
“Just three years short
of the 500-year
anniversary of the
reports of Caboto’s
men scooping up cod
in baskets, it was over.
Fishermen had caught
them all.”
Mark Kurlansky, Cod: The Biography of
a Fish that Changed the World

3. Resources from the
Digital Library of the
Commons:
Achieving Success under
Pressure in the
Conservation of Intensely
Used Coastal Areas
(Fiorenza and Federico,
2013).
http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/han
dle/10535/9231
There was a total ban on commercial fishing for cod in the
Grand Banks... The effects on the local economy were
devastating.
An estimated 30,000 fishermen lost their jobs in and around the
Newfoundland area, while a further 15,000 people working in
related industries such as shipbuilding and fish processing and
selling also found themselves out of work.
Fish processing plants shut down, trawlers were dismantled
…and as people left the communities to find work elsewhere,
and other business such as cafes and shops found that they
were no longer making enough money to stay open.
Around 46,000 people were thought to have left the province to
seek work elsewhere following the collapse of the Grand Banks
cod stocks.
Open access fishery – Newfoundland’s Grand Banks
Text source: http://britishseafishing.co.uk/the-collapse-of-the-grand-banks-cod-fishery/

4. By 2050, there will be more
pieces of plastic in the ocean
than fish
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/19/more-
plastic-than-fish-in-the-sea-by-2050-warns-ellen-macarthur
Theme for 2018…
Plastic

5. Plastic pollution has been recognised
as one of the most pressing problems
we face. Fish eat the plastic debris,
mistaking it for food, and can choke or
starve to death.
The long-term effects are not yet
understood, but we do know that
plastic micro particles are now found in
drinking water across the world, as well
as throughout our oceans.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/25/david-attenborough-on-the-scourge-of-the-oceans-i-remember-being-told-plastic-doesnt-
decay-its-wonderful https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/robert_frost_397559
What we live by we die by.
Robert Frost, American poet 1874 – 1963

6. Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“A ship is a living thing, you can feel the life-force
through her structure, every move, every change
in speed, every adjustment to the course.
You can feel it through the deck, walking down
the passageway, lying in your bunk - you can
feel the state of the sea, the reaction to weather,
when things are going well, and when we are in
trouble. ”
Resources from the Digital Library of the
Commons:
Mining the Gold of the Sea (Scharer, 2013).
https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/handle/10535/2496

7. Deep Diving is any dive deeper than 20 meters (60 feet). For
recreational diving, the maximum depth limit is 130 ft (40 m).
In technical diving, a dive deeper than 200 feet (60 m) is
described as a ‘deep dive’. It is believed a military nuclear
submarine can go down to around 1,500 feet (450m).
Film director James Cameron has gone to the deepest depths
of the ocean in a submersible (Deepsea Challenger) which
reached a depth 35,756 feet in the Mariana Trench.
The deepest part of the ocean is the Mariana Trench - a depth
of about 36,000 feet or about 11,000m.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-cameron-reaches-record-7-mile-ocean-
depth/
Excerpt from The
Submariner's Prayer
…We beseech Thee to
keep in Thy sustaining
care all
who are in submarines,
that they may be
delivered
from the hidden
dangers of the deep…
Though acquainted
with the depths of the
ocean,
deliver them from the
depths of despair and
the
dark hours of the
absence of
friendliness…
http://www.trolinger.com/dav
id/prayer.htm
Short videos on
hydrothermal vents:
https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=rTR6gGDWcJk
https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-
life/invertebrates/submarine-
volcanoes-and-hydrothermal-
vents

8. Resources from
the Digital Library
of the Commons:
Geopolitical Genetics:
Claiming the
Commons through
Species Mapping
(Campbell and
Matthew, 2008).
https://dlc.dlib.indiana.ed
u/dlc/handle/10535/1449

United Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea 1982
Preamble
Recognizing the desirability of establishing
through this Convention, with due regard
for the sovereignty of all States, a legal
order for the seas and oceans which will
facilitate international communication, and
will promote the peaceful uses of the seas
and oceans, the equitable and efficient
utilization of their resources, the
conservation of their living resources, and
the study, protection and preservation of
the marine environment…
Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.
Ryunosuke Satoro
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ryunosuke_satoro_167565?src=t_ocean

9. #WorldOceanDay
Become a member
of an international
commons
organisation (IASC)
https://www.iasc-
commons.org/membership-
options/
The International Association for
the Study of the Commons Find out more about how we
share resources like the
oceans:
• iasc-commons.org/
• worldcommonsweek.org/
Find resources:
• Digital Library (open
access)
https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/
• International Journal of
the Commons
https://www.thecommonsjournal.org
/
Check out
upcoming events:
https://www.iasc-
commons.org/events/
@iasc_commons

10. World Ocean
Day 2018
The International Association for
the Study of the Commons
@iasc_commonshttps://www.iasc-commons.org/