Earth Law for Coastal Communities Facing Sea Level Rise
Prime Minister of Cook Islands calls for ocean rights, by Michelle Bender and Jessica Lu
As rising seas threaten to inundate delicate marine habitats and flood critical infrastructure, we have a choice: continue to allow ecosystem destruction or take the opportunity to build regenerative, sustainable systems.
By creating holistic and thoughtful approaches to conserving and preserving our resources from the rising waters, we can enable a new system where humans and nature both have fundamental rights to life.
What causes sea level rise?
Many species, including endangered coastal marine life, are at risk. In the last century, global sea level rise has been accelerating and current rates are the fastest they have ever been in nearly 3,000 years.[1] Scientists estimate that, by the end of the century, global sea levels will rise by at least a meter on average.
Rising temperatures which contribute to melting of ice sheets, create a cycle. Less ice means fewer reflective surfaces and higher temperatures, which in turn causes more melting and fewer reflective surfaces and so on.[2]
The second cause of rising sea levels comes from a simple property of water — as water heats up, it expands. In the last two decades, changes in ocean temperature has contributed approximately 30% to the global mean sea level, whereas total land ice mass loss contributed twice as much at 60%. [3]
Impacts of rising sea levels on coastal communities
Rising sea levels will flood real estate and infrastructure. As seawater breaches further inland, it can cause contaminated freshwater sources, increased habitat loss, and decreased ecological resilience.[4] Not only will the size of habitats decrease, an inevitable consequence will be a shrinkage in biological diversity. More species will face threats of extinction due to the added stress from their rapidly changing environments.
Rising sea levels will also eliminate sandy beaches. These are critical nesting site areas for subsets of marine life, such as sea turtles and other endangered marine species. [5]
Low-lying island nations and indigenous groups face a unique challenge of relocation — and some have already begun to migrate. Mainstream media outlets have reported on the impact of sea level rise on small island nations and the steps that their governments have taken to ensure survival. In 2014, President Anote Tong of Kiribati, a nation composed of several islands in the Pacific Ocean, purchased 20 square kilometers of land from Fiji, another island nation with whom Kiribati has friendly relations.[6] Other nations at risk include Tuvalu and the popular tourist destination of the Maldives.
Why should you care about sea level rise?
Four out of ten people in the world — about 2.4 billion people — live in coastal areas.[7] These communities range from small island nations, like Tuvalu and Kiribati, to megacities, like New York and Shanghai.
Because of climate change, rising sea levels will submerge portions of many coastal communities, placing millions at risk of displacement. Changing sea levels pose threats not only to human society, both its population and infrastructure, but also to natural systems, including valuable and precious ecosystems.
Estimates of global losses due to flooding of coastal cities is expected to increase from $6 billion USD per year in 2005 to at least $60 billion USD per year in 2050.[8] A few of the cities that may experience the greatest losses are in the United States, but many are found across the globe — particularly in Asia.[9]
Threats to the Cook Islands
More than half a million people around the world live on atoll islands, often extraordinary and beautiful structures based on coral reefs. Their closeness to sea level makes them particularly vulnerable to climate change.[10]
NASA researchers recently predicted that we are currently “locked into at least three feet of sea level rise, and probably more” by the end of the century while naming the Cook Islands as among the nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.[11]
The Cook Islands is a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand and situated off New Zealand’s northeast coast. Home to more than 21,000 inhabitants, the islands are a cluster of 15 atolls scattered across some 2 million square kilometers (1.2 million miles) of Pacific Ocean. The country’s northern low-lying atolls suffer from low fertility and scant resources; the southern islands are twice as likely to experience cyclones. Its highest point, at 658 meters (2,140 feet) above sea level, is on Rarotonga — the largest and most populous of the nation’s islands.[12]
What are Cook Islanders doing about it?
The Cook Islands are diligently planning to protect their “enua” (lands) and “moana” (ocean) from effects of global warming and climate change, even though they bear minimal responsibility for causing them.
“Big countries are into mitigation, but adaptation is our only choice,” said Deyna Marsh, Education and Awareness Coordinator for the Cook Islands National Environment Services. “Changes are already happening. Sea levels are rising all around the Pacific. If nothing is done now, we will lose our Islands, our traditions, our culture. Buildings and infrastructure on the foreshore will be lost or damaged, and both food security and the health of the people will be affected.”[13]
Help for the Cook Islands
The Cook Islands has received $3 million to help build the resilience of its residents and protect their livelihoods from disasters and climate change. The money, a grant from the Adaptation Fund, will help the Pacific island nation strengthen its disaster risk governance, establish, and implement a robust water monitoring, reporting and assessment system and revitalize its agricultural production systems.[14]
The Cook Islands is the first Pacific nation to receive such funds directly. Previously, resources from the Adaptation Fund have been delivered via international organizations such as UN Environment.
Earth Law as an innovative solution
At the UN Ocean Conference in New York in 2017 the Cook Islands had growing support in its call to explore the rights of the ocean.
“And so, we must consider the rights of the ocean. For just as those who have been treated unfairly have found it necessary to fight for and claim their rights, so too has the ocean been treated with injustice and disrespect. And so now we find it necessary to fight for the rights of the ocean,” said Henry Puna, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands.[15]
ELC spoke with Jacqueline Evans, Marae Moana ocean sanctuary director at the Office of the Prime Minister, shortly after the UN Ocean Conference. Evans noted that it is the Prime Minister’s dream to pursue ocean rights in the Cook Islands, but education and awareness is key at this stage. The country needs the tools to see this vision become reality.
Additionally, groups committed to drafting a Convention on the Rights of the Pacific Ocean at the UN Ocean Conference. The declaration, expected to be signed by 2020, would outline the rights afforded to the Ocean and create a guardian to represent the Ocean in the political and legal arena.
The Earth Law Framework for Marine Protected Areas was officially launched at EARTHx in April 2018. The framework provides guidelines and a template to strengthen preservation and restoration of critical coastal habitats — both now and for future generations.
ELC helps communities to obtain legal recognition for the human right to healthy environments and an environment’s own right to be healthy. Marine Protected Areas conserve and protect ocean ecosystems. The team at Earth Law Center is working to create a legal framework for Marine Protected Areas that ensures our oceans have the right to life, health and well-being, diversity of life, water, clean air, equilibrium, restoration, and representation.
An Earth Law approach not only addresses the direct impacts on ocean wildlife, but also extends to make it a legal responsibility for ocean-dependent industries to adopt holistic sustainable practices, supporting long-term ecosystem and economic stability and growth. An Earth-systems approach, which builds upon the traditional “resource management” approach, explicitly provides a legal mandate to manage and protect marine ecosystems — including humans who live and rely on them. We can evolve to a new model of growth and development, respecting the basic rights of all species and ecosystems.
Earth Law for Cook Islands
As noted, both adaptation and mitigation are critical to the Cook Islands’ ability to face the impacts of climate change. The country developed a National Sustainable Development Plan that includes “good management of the environment” as a strategy. With over 99% of the Cook Islands territory being marine, good management is particularly critical. Incorporating Ocean Rights into ocean governance requires that human activities on the ocean and coast are done in such a way that allows the ocean and the Cook Islanders to thrive together.
The country is well on its way. In 2017, the country created the Cook Islands Marine Park, establishing “Marae Moana over the entire EEZ,” (Exclusive Economic Zone, a sea zone prescribed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over which a state has special rights) and creating marine protected areas around each island specifically for the local people. The Park was created with large support from the public, who believe that the ocean is “more than just the ocean.”[16]
Legal Recognition of the Rights of Marae Moana ocean sanctuary will help Cook Islanders ensure all activities that occur in the EEZ, outside the local Marine Protected Areas, are regulated and done sustainably.
At present, two commercial fishing boats allowed in the EEZ are longline and purse seine vessels. These types of fishing practice catch high amounts of tuna, but also high levels of other unintended species.[17] Cook Islanders traditionally only catch the amount of fish they need for the day. If commercial fleets continue unchecked, the Cook Islanders’ livelihoods will be impacted. An Earth Law approach ensures governance of these outside activities by the citizens of Cook Islands.
Additionally, keeping the coral reefs healthy will protect the island from the stronger waves and erosion that will occur due to climate change. Earth Law would require the undertaking of preventative actions, such as rebuilding reefs and reducing tourism impacts before reef loss.
How you can help today
Do you live in a coastal community facing the impacts of climate change, opposing new fossil fuel infrastructure, or working to protect the integrity of your coastal waters and the species within them? Earth Law can support your efforts! Contact us here.
● Read more about the Earth Law Center’s approach to ocean rights here.
● Sign up for our monthly newsletter here.
● Volunteer for the ocean program area.
● Donate here.
