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Managing troubled waters: The role of marine environmental monitoring
Marine Pollution Bulletin
regard the effects around oil rigs as less important than the Norwegian surely reflects that there is a different view in the UK than in Norway? I cannot see how this can be construed as using rhetoric. It simply acknowledges that these different viewpoints exist, which I chose to call ecocentric and anthropocentric, and these viewpoints should not be confused with scientific arguments. I am not in any way suggesting that Norway is the ultimate environmentally conscious nation. In relation to drilling muds Norway is more ecocentric than the UK but in other matters probably far worse. Sisyphus is indeed alive and well in Norway! The government recently decided that dumping inert mine waste in a hole in the sea bed was unaccepable and now a 100 m high dam is being built on land to contain the non-toxic waste, without any environmental impact study being
undertaken. So yes, we are pushing our waste up mountains! Norway has been hoisted with its own petard in relation to CO2 discharges. We had to be one of the first countries to agree to stabilization at the 1990 level by the year 2000. Yet it seems as if the politicians were unaware that 99.4% of Norway's electricity is generated by hydroelectric power. Now they find that we cannot explore for more oil or expand our industries as we will produce more CO 2. So now Norway is now arguing strongly for international exchange of CO 2 quotas, arguing that it is far better for us to help reduce Poland's CO 2 than do anything here. Nutrient output to the North Sea is another touchy point where Norway cannot meet its stated objectives. So Norway is by no means an ecocentric nation and here Alex Milne and I agree.
Marine Environmental Monitoring
countries, where many a time, inter-agency cooperation is lacking for various reasons, including a reluctance to share difficult-to-obtain information and data. Those developing countries in South-east Asia, which do have any sort of marine environmental monitoring, had these developed using guidelines provided by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) sponsored Regional Seas Programme in the mid-80s. However, these guidelines and manuals provide very basic recommendations pertaining to techniques and parameters for participating countries to start off a national marine environmental monitoring programme. This book would be very useful for such countries which intend to improve upon their marine environmental monitoring programmes so as to be more meaningful for their own national sustainable development planning.
Managing Troubled Waters: The Role of Marine Environmental Monitoring. Committee on a Systems Assessment of Marine Environmental Monitoring, National Research Council, USA. This book is authored by a committee comprising a peer group of experts for use by experts. The authors aim to address the many problems, shortfalls, and inadequacies in previous and current implementations of monitoring programmes and at the same time provide recommendations and guidelines for their improvement. It does, however, acknowledge the limitations of even well-designed programmes. A glance through the table of contents reflects the logical scheme of topics the authors have felt it was worth addressing and discussing. However, for a small book, the writing style tends to be too verbose at times, making for difficult reading and consequently understanding. The book does not claim to be a manual on marine environmental monitoring, but the discussions and especially the "Conceptual Model of Marine Environmental Monitoring" as outlined by the Committee, and adopted for assessments by the three regional programmes, could be adopted with appropriate modifications by developing countries. Developing countries, in general, do not have an adequate pool of experts nor the funding to undertake monitoring programmes as is done in the USA. Even so, the book could serve as a guide towards more sound planning and implementation of marine environmental monitoring, albeit on a more modest scale, in interested developing countries. As pointed out by the Committee, the success of monitoring programmes hinges on close cooperation between different government and non-government agencies. This is particularly true in many developing 326
JOHN S. GRAY
ISMAIL HAJI ISHAK Fisheries Research Institute, Penang, Malaysia
A Load of Cod FAO Species Catalogue. Vol. 10. Gadiform fishes of the world (Order Gadiformes). An annotated and illustrated catalogue of cods, hakes, grenadiers and other gadiform fishes known to date. D. M. Cohen, T. Inada, T. Iwamoto and N. Scialabba. FAO Fisheries Synopsis No. 125, Vol. 10, 442 pp. FAO, Rome. 1990. ISBN: 92-5-102890-7. The tenth synopsis in this excellent series from FAO deals with eight families of gadiform fishes, comprising the cods (Gadidae), hakes 0VIerlucciidae), grenadiers (Macrouridae), moras (Moridae), moray cods (Muraenolepididae), pelagic cods (Melanonidae), codlets (Bregmacerotidae) and eucla cods (Euclichthyidae). It
regard the effects around oil rigs as less important than the Norwegian surely reflects that there is a different view in the UK than in Norway? I cannot see how this can be construed as using rhetoric. It simply acknowledges that these different viewpoints exist, which I chose to call ecocentric and anthropocentric, and these viewpoints should not be confused with scientific arguments. I am not in any way suggesting that Norway is the ultimate environmentally conscious nation. In relation to drilling muds Norway is more ecocentric than the UK but in other matters probably far worse. Sisyphus is indeed alive and well in Norway! The government recently decided that dumping inert mine waste in a hole in the sea bed was unaccepable and now a 100 m high dam is being built on land to contain the non-toxic waste, without any environmental impact study being
undertaken. So yes, we are pushing our waste up mountains! Norway has been hoisted with its own petard in relation to CO2 discharges. We had to be one of the first countries to agree to stabilization at the 1990 level by the year 2000. Yet it seems as if the politicians were unaware that 99.4% of Norway's electricity is generated by hydroelectric power. Now they find that we cannot explore for more oil or expand our industries as we will produce more CO 2. So now Norway is now arguing strongly for international exchange of CO 2 quotas, arguing that it is far better for us to help reduce Poland's CO 2 than do anything here. Nutrient output to the North Sea is another touchy point where Norway cannot meet its stated objectives. So Norway is by no means an ecocentric nation and here Alex Milne and I agree.
Marine Environmental Monitoring
countries, where many a time, inter-agency cooperation is lacking for various reasons, including a reluctance to share difficult-to-obtain information and data. Those developing countries in South-east Asia, which do have any sort of marine environmental monitoring, had these developed using guidelines provided by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) sponsored Regional Seas Programme in the mid-80s. However, these guidelines and manuals provide very basic recommendations pertaining to techniques and parameters for participating countries to start off a national marine environmental monitoring programme. This book would be very useful for such countries which intend to improve upon their marine environmental monitoring programmes so as to be more meaningful for their own national sustainable development planning.
Managing Troubled Waters: The Role of Marine Environmental Monitoring. Committee on a Systems Assessment of Marine Environmental Monitoring, National Research Council, USA. This book is authored by a committee comprising a peer group of experts for use by experts. The authors aim to address the many problems, shortfalls, and inadequacies in previous and current implementations of monitoring programmes and at the same time provide recommendations and guidelines for their improvement. It does, however, acknowledge the limitations of even well-designed programmes. A glance through the table of contents reflects the logical scheme of topics the authors have felt it was worth addressing and discussing. However, for a small book, the writing style tends to be too verbose at times, making for difficult reading and consequently understanding. The book does not claim to be a manual on marine environmental monitoring, but the discussions and especially the "Conceptual Model of Marine Environmental Monitoring" as outlined by the Committee, and adopted for assessments by the three regional programmes, could be adopted with appropriate modifications by developing countries. Developing countries, in general, do not have an adequate pool of experts nor the funding to undertake monitoring programmes as is done in the USA. Even so, the book could serve as a guide towards more sound planning and implementation of marine environmental monitoring, albeit on a more modest scale, in interested developing countries. As pointed out by the Committee, the success of monitoring programmes hinges on close cooperation between different government and non-government agencies. This is particularly true in many developing 326
JOHN S. GRAY
ISMAIL HAJI ISHAK Fisheries Research Institute, Penang, Malaysia
A Load of Cod FAO Species Catalogue. Vol. 10. Gadiform fishes of the world (Order Gadiformes). An annotated and illustrated catalogue of cods, hakes, grenadiers and other gadiform fishes known to date. D. M. Cohen, T. Inada, T. Iwamoto and N. Scialabba. FAO Fisheries Synopsis No. 125, Vol. 10, 442 pp. FAO, Rome. 1990. ISBN: 92-5-102890-7. The tenth synopsis in this excellent series from FAO deals with eight families of gadiform fishes, comprising the cods (Gadidae), hakes 0VIerlucciidae), grenadiers (Macrouridae), moras (Moridae), moray cods (Muraenolepididae), pelagic cods (Melanonidae), codlets (Bregmacerotidae) and eucla cods (Euclichthyidae). It