Global Scores the Ocean Health Index Team Table of Contents

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2015 GLOBAL SCORES THE OCEAN HEALTH INDEX TEAM TABLE OF CONTENTS

Conservation International Introduction to Ocean Health Index ...... 1

Results for 2015 ...... 3

Country & Territory Scores ...... 9

Appreciations ...... 23

Citation ...... 23

UC Santa Barbara, National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis INTRODUCTION TO THE OCEAN HEALTH INDEX

Important note: Scores in this report differ from scores originally posted on the Ocean Health Index website, www.oceanhealthindex.org and shown in previous reports. Each year the Index improves methods and data where possible. Some improvements change scores and rankings. When such changes occur, all earlier scores are recalculated using the new methods so that any differences in scores between years is due to changes in the conditions evaluated, not to changes in methods. This permits year-to-year comparison between all global-level Index results. Only the scores most recently posted at www.oceanhealthindex.org should be compared, as scores posted or published in earlier years will have changed.

What is the Ocean Health Index? The Ocean Health Index is the first assessment tool that scientifically compares and combines key elements from all dimensions of the ocean’s health – biological, physical, economic and social—to measure how sustainably people are using the ocean.

What is ‘ocean health’? The Ocean Health Index uses this definition: ‘A healthy ocean sustainably delivers a range of benefits to people now and in the Future.’

How does the Index work? It tracks a portfolio of goals that people have for a healthy ocean and scores how well coastal countries and their marine territories optimize their potential ocean benefits. What drives goal scores? Present Status makes up 50% of each goal score and its Trend for the past 5 years makes up 67% of Likely Future Status. Thus 83% of a goal score reflects how sustainably a What’s the difference between a goal and a benefit?Each goal expresses a broad, goal’s benefits are actually being achieved now and in the recent past. Pressures and Resilience make up long-term purpose: optimizing a maximum sustainable flow of benefits to people. Benefitse ar the the remaining 17% of the scores. Individual pressures are ranked for their importance to different goals. specific and measurable goods (e.g. fish), services (e.g. coastal otection)pr or cultural values (e.g. sense Even though they only affect 8.5% of the score, Resilience actions are the only ways we can reduce of place) that the ocean provides. pressures and increase a score. Without effective Resilience, negative trends will continue. New resilience measures improve scores gradually, because status trend must shed five years of pre-resilience values, How were goals selected? For the global study, participating scientists, economists and but each year should bring more rapid improvement. sociologists reviewed existing studies of what people want and expect from the ocean, then grouped them into ten categories called ‘goals.’ Independent assessments at smaller scales could choose a How is a country’s score calculated? The score for a country or territory is the average of its different number of goals. goal scores. Goals not applicable to a region are not scored or averaged. Most goals are scored for a country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), that is, waters out to 200 nautical miles (nm) from shore; but Are some goals more important than others? They may be for some countries, but at the several goals are scored for waters out to 3 nm. For a country with more than one EEZ, the score is the global level the Index weights all goals evenly. Nations could re-value goals as part of an independent area-weighted average of the several EEZ scores. Scores are calculated for 220 EEZs, representing all of assessment. the world’s 151 coastal countries and their territorial holdings.

How is a goal scored? Each goal scores from 0 to 100. The amount of each benefit is compared How is the overall score calculated? The overall score is the area-weighted average of scores with a sustainable reference point. The most recent value, ‘present Status,’ forms half of the score. The for all countries and territories. What does the score mean? All scores range from 0 to 100. other half, ‘likely Future status’ is based on three things: the average rate of change for status (Trend) • 100’ means that the evaluated system has achieved its defined target (reference point), is during the most recent five years; the cumulative Pressures that will harm Future benefits; and the sustainably delivering all of the specified benefits that it can; and appears likely to be able to continue cumulative Resilience actions (e.g. treaties, laws, enforcement, habitat protection) that can reduce doing so in the near Future. pressures and maintain or raise Future Status and benefits. The global Index uses more than 80 global • ‘0’ means that global data were available, but the region either did not achieve any of the potential databases and strives to use the most current data available. It is updated and improved annually. benefits or that the benefits it did obtain were not gained in a sustainable manner. • Intermediate scores mean that the optimal benefit is not being obtained and/or is not being Detailed methods and data are at: www.oceanhealthindex.org/about/methods obtained in a sustainable way. The higher the score, the closer a region is to obtaining the maximal sustainable benefits possible with the given reference points.

1 2 Is it possible to score 100? Scores of 100 are surely achievable for individual goals. Country Are scores comparable place-to-place? All results of the Ocean Health Index’s global scores of 100 may be possible, but no country is close yet. Several remote territories have scored 90 or assessments are comparable geographically (place-to-place), because all regions are assessed using more. Some countries may underuse ocean benefits like food or tourism to protect resources for the the same methods and data sources. The global assessment only employs data drawn from global-level Future, thereby producing a score less than 100 in the current calculation. Negative trade-offs between databases in which similar data have been taken in the same manner for all regions. goals (and perhaps between countries or territories) could occur. For example, development that increased Tourism & Recreation could compromise coastal habitats, decreasing scores in Carbon Are scores comparable year-to-year? Yes, but only by using scores available at Storage, Coastal Protection, Clean Water, Biodiversity or Food Provision. Maximizing benefits from www.oceanhealthindex.org. The Ocean Health Index is relatively young and still evolving. Since its extractive goals such as Food Provision or natural Products could decrease benefits from other goals. launch in 2012, improvements have been incorporated each year. Some improvements, such as changes Conversely, high scores for Clean Water, Biodiversity, Coastal Protection, Sense of Place and Carbon in the methods, data layers or reference points used to evaluate goals, may cause substantial changes to Storage could improve the flow of benefits from other goals. Without detailed quantitative scores. When such changes occur, all earlier scores are recalculated using the new techniques so that understanding of such tradeoffs and interactions, it isn’t possible to say whether a country or global any differences in scores between years is due to changes in the conditions evaluated, not to changes in score of 100 is theoretically possible, but we aren’t really close enough to worry about that yet. methods. Therefore, all results of the Ocean Health Index’s global assessments are comparable year-to- year. Only the most recently posted scores should be used, as scores published in earlier years may have How can I discover why a score is high or low? First, visit the Data Explorer, which displays changed. The Ocean Health Index website, www.oceanhealthindex.org, is the most up-to-date source scores for the four ‘dimensions’ that comprise a score: Status, Trend, Pressures and Resilience. for scores. Dimension scores will give a hint about where problems (or successes) reside. What are independent assessments and how comparable are they? The Ocean Health Each dimension is derived from many databases, each of which measures one or more specific Index’s key strategy for driving ocean improvement is enlisting, encouraging and assisting countries to factors, for example the sea level rise, the extent of marine and terrestrial protected areas, the number or carry out their own independent assessments. The rationale is that countries or sub-regions may have people employed in the tourism sector, the extent of coral reefs, the risk of extinction for marine species finer-scale data available that cannot be used in global-level assessments because other countries do not or iconic species, or the annual amount of revenue provided by industries in the marine sector. Further have equivalent information, but can be used to conduct their own assessments. inquiry may show which of a dimension’s components is contributing to a high score or dragging the score lower. Independent assessments use the general framework of the Ocean Health Index, but modify it to fit local conditions and values. Results of such studies should be able to describe regional conditions more Information in the Ocean Health Index database helps to understand a score, but explaining its ultimate accurately and more usefully for local policy making, management and ocean health improvement than cause(s) usually requires additional digging, as in these three examples: the coarser results provided by the global assessment. By repeating such studies over time in the same region, countries will be able to track the success of measures that they take to improve aspects of ocean 1. Between 2012 and 2013, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands’ score for the Lasting Spe- health. cial Places subgoal increased by 95 points! Inspection of the Ocean Health Index database showed a large increase in protected area. Backtracking to the data source, www.protectedplanet.org revealed Results from an independent assessment cannot be compared either with results from the global that a new 1 million km2 square had been designated in 2012, causing the 2013 score to rise sharply. assessment or with the results of independent assessments from other places, because there is no way to gauge the extent to which differences in scores result from differences in methods or differences in 2. Several goals use species’ ‘risk of extinction’ categories (Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnera- conditions of ocean health. ble, etc.) from the IUCN’s (International Union for Conservation of ture) Red List, the Ocean Health Index databases do not explain the basis for each species’ risk category. That information must be obtained Independent assessments, which are branded as OHI+, have been completed or are at various stages of from the Red List Web site. discussion or development in: China, Colombia, Israel, Ecuador, Baltic Sea (Denmark, Estonia, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden), Canada, Spain, Peru, 3. The Livelihoods & Economy goal tracks changes in the amount of revenue gained by a Hawaii, New Caledonia, Brazil, Fiji, British Virgin Islands, South Korea, Japan, British Columbia, Pacific country from its marine economic sectors, but cannot explain their cause. Explaining the changes would Oceanscape, Mexico, Gabon, U.S. West Coast, Chile, Taiwan, Costa Rica, Panama, Western Indian require other sources of information about the country and the global economic background, such as: Ocean, Philippines, and Indonesia. Was there a global economic slowdown? Did environmental conditions affect the fisheries or tourism industries? Was there political unrest? Did a hurricane or other natural disaster affect coastal industries? As more and more countries carry out their own OHI+ studies, their combined efforts should be visible as Such information is beyond the scope of the Index. an increase in global Ocean Health Index scores.

Though the Index cannot provide all the answers desired, seeking them by digging deeper into its A website, www.ohi-science.org, has been developed to assist countries with their OHI+ assessments. underlying databases (available at www.ohi-science.org) and beyond will enrich anyone’s knowledge It provides all the instructions, methods, computational tools, maps and other information needed to about the ocean and the world. begin such a study. Links to results of several such studies are provided at www.oceanhealthindex.org

3 4 OCEAN HEALTH INDEX RESULTS FOR 2015

This summary includes results for the coastlines and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of 221 countries and territories that were also scored in 2012-2014. Assessments for the High Seas and the Antarctica region were done in 2014 and will be repeated periodically, but were not done in 2015. The 2015 study used improved methods and new data described at ohi-science.org.

In addition to many small improvements to data quality control and goal score calculations, important changes were made to the Carbon Storage and Coastal Protection goal models. New scores were not produced for the Fisheries subgoal of Food Provision; and for the Livelihoods & Economies goal. Explanations are included below with results for those goals.

What is the Overall Score for EEZ regions in 2015? The overall score, 70 is unchanged from 2014 and 2013, though improved by one point since 2012. It is not likely that a one point score difference is statistically significant. Studies are underway to quantify the uncertainty associated with scores. Though not as bad as it could be, the score of 70 remains far from 100, sending a strong message that marine life would fare better and we would gain more benefits if we used the ocean in more sustainable ways.

Is this score comparable with scores for previous years? Yes. Directly comparable scores for countries and territories for the years 2012-2015 are shown below.

Fig. 1. Ocean Health Index scores (inside circle) and individual goal scores (colored petals) for global area-weighted average of all 221 reporting areas under national jurisdiction. The outer ring is the maximum possible score for each goal, and a goal’s score and weight (relative contribution) are represented by the petal’s length and width, respectively. Note that for ‘food provision’ sub-goals are weighted by relative actual yield.

Source: NCEAS, 2015.

5 6 SCORE AVG LOW HIGH

INDEX 70 43 92

FOOD PROVISION 58 1 98 Fisheries 59 1 98 Mariculture 27 0 100 OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARTISANAL FISHING 68 42 100 NATURAL PRODUCTS 52 0 100 CARBON STORAGE 79 10 100

COASTAL PROTECTION 87 24 100 TOURISM & RECREATION 50 0 100 LIVELIHOODS & ECONOMIES 82 3 100 Livelihoods 77 0 100 Economies 88 0 100 SENSE OF PLACE 59 0 100 Iconic Species 58 31 88 Table 1. Comparison of annual global level Index and goal scores computed as area-weighted averages of the Lasting Special Places scores from all 221 coastal nations and territories, 2012-2015. Goals are labeled in upper case letters, subgoals in 60 0 100 lower case. All scores are comparable because they have been recalculated using the most current methods.. CLEAN WATERS 74 20 100 BIODIVERSITY 88 69 97 Species 86 77 97 Habitats Have any goal scores improved over the years? Most scores have not changed much from 91 54 100 2012-2015. An uptick in the score for Livelihoods & Economies between 2012 and 2013 may reflect the beginning of marine sector economic recovery from the recession that began in 2008. Slight increases also occurred for the Mariculture subgoal of Food Provision and for Tourism & Recreation. Rapid change in year-to-year global level scores is not expected, since change in most conditions usually cannot take place that quickly. What is the range for goal scores in 2015? All Ocean Health Index scores are expressed on a scale of 0 to 100. Global (EEZ )averages and ranges of scores for all goals are shown in the above table.

7 8 COUNTRY & TERRITORY SCORES FOR 2015

Scores by goal and sub-goal Global goal and sub-goal scores can provide individual countries with information on how their results compare to those of neighboring countries. Scores may also indicate high priority areas for investment to raise ocean health scores and provide more social, economic and environmental benefits.

FOOD PROVISION · overall score: 58 · range: 1-98 Target: Capture and raise the maximum sustainable amount of seafood. This goal and its sub-goals are not based solely on the quantity of food produced, but instead on how close each region is to the optimal sustainable production of the seafood available for it to potentially catch or raise. The goal score is the yield-weighted average of scores for Wild Caught Fisheries and Mariculture sub-goals, described below.

The low overall score, 50, indicates that the ocean’s potential for food is not being realized to full human benefit now and that full benefit of its resources will not be available in the future without more effective management and planning.

Highest scores were: Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea (all 98); Wallis and Futuna, Marshall Islands, Palau and Nauru (all 96), Georgia (95), Howland Island and Baker Island (92), Vanuatu (91), New Caledonia, Ukraine and Panama (all 89).

Lowest were eighteen (18) regions that scored 10 or below: British Virgin Islands (10), South Korea (9), Cayman Islands and Vietnam (8), Wake Island, Suriname and Cambodia (7), Sint Maarten (6), Jordan and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (5), Guadaloupe and Martinique and Bangladesh (4), Aruba, Anguilla, Table 1. Comparison of annual global level Index and goal scores computed as area-weighted averages of the scores Guyana and Jamaica (all 3), Myanmar (2) and Montserrat and Haiti (1). from all 221 coastal nations and territories, 2012-2015. Goals are labeled in upper case letters, subgoals in lower case. All scores are comparable because they have been recalculated using the most current methods.. Twelve (12) reporting areas, including both inhabited and nearly uninhabited islands did not have scores for this goal. They are: Phoenix Group, Northern Saint-Martin, Glorioso Islands, Curacao, Saba, Bonaire, Line Group, Sint Eustatius, Juan de Nova Island, Bassas da India, Ile Europa and Oecussi Ambeno.

Overall scores: Overall scores ranged from 43 (Libya) to 92 (Prince Edward Islands). The only other Fisheries sub-goal · overall score: 59 · range: 1-98 country to score 90 or above was Howland Island and Baker Island (90). Target: Capture the maximal sustainable amount of seafood. Reference point: The population biomass (B, the live weight of fish in the ocean) of each landed stock is compared to the biomass that can deliver the stock’s maximum sustainable yield (BMSY). MSY is the As in previous years, remote uninhabited islands scored highest, showing that Highest scores: largest amount that can be caught from the population year after year. The goal is for all stocks to have B despite the Ocean Health Index’s emphasis on benefits to people, relatively pristine locations can still within 5% of the value that produces MSY (BMSY). Scores are penalized for overfishing (B > BMSY) and score very high. Highest scores were for: Prince Edward Islands (92), Howland Island and Baker Island underfishing (B < BMSY) with increasingly penalties for larger departures of B from BMSY. Underfishing is (90), Macquarie Island (87), Heard and McDonald Islands (87) and Phoenix Group (86). Two French island penalized only half as much as overfishing. territories, Northern Saint-Martin (86) (population 38,000) and New Caledonia (85) (population 269,000), scored highest for populated areas. Distant water catches are allocated to the regions where the fish were caught, so all scores reflect the condition of fisheries in the region listed. Lowest scores: Ten countries scored 50 or below: North Korea and Lebanon (both 50); Liberia and Nicaragua (both 48); Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Democratic Republic of the Congo (all 47); Dominica A score of 100 would indicate that a region’s marine fisheries are sustainably catching a total amount of (46) and Libya (43). By comparison, 20 countries scored 50 or below in 2014. As in previous years when fish that is as large as it can be without jeopardizing future catches. some of these same countries were among the lowest scoring areas, all are poor and many have a recent history of conflict, dictatorship or natural disasters. Such conditions deplete the capacity to institute A low score indicates one of two things – that seafood is being caught in an unsustainable manner, or that resilience actions that could reduce social and environmental pressures. Until those conditions are countries are not maximizing the potential to catch as much as sustainably possible within their marine overcome, rapid increase in scores of such regions is not likely. Fig. 3 shows the geographic distribution waters. Countries that reduce their catch below MSY level for conservation reasons lose points on this of 2015. sub-goal, but may gain points on conservation-related goals such as Biodiversity or Sense of Place.

9 10 Fisheries sub-goal cont. Forty seven (47) countries scored 0: Algeria, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bonaire, Cook Islands, Curacao, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Eritrea, Estonia, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Gambia, Guadeloupe SPECIAL NOTE: New Fisheries scores could not be calculated for 2015. The Index had planned to use and Martinique, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Micronesia, Morocco, new catch reconstruction data being produced by Sea Around Us. Sea Around Us experienced an Mozambique, Nauru, Nigeria, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, unexpected delay in updating the taxonomic classifications of some catches. Since accuracy of catch Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands of the United States, Qatar, Reunion, Samoa, Senegal, Seychelles, identification is an important component of the Fisheries goal, scores for some countries would have been Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Tonga, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uruguay, Vanuatu and unfairly penalized by use of those data before completion. The last-minute delay left no time to default to Yemen. recalculating 2015 scores using the 2014 method. Therefore, the 2014 scores are presented, altered only slightly by small changes in other aspects of goal calculation used in 2015. Ninety-five (95) countries had no past or present Mariculture and were not scored.

Highest were 13 countries that scored 90 or above: Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea (all 98), New Caledonia (97), Wallis and Futuna, Marshall Islands, Palau and Nauru (all 96), Georgia (95), Panama ARTISANAL FISHING OPPORTUNITIES · overall score: 68 · range: 42-100 (94), Howland and Baker Island and Vanuatu (92) and Ukraine (90). Target: Opportunities for small-scale local fishing meet the estimated need to fish. Artisanal fishing refers to fisheries involving households, cooperatives or small firms (as opposed to large, commercial Lowest were 19 countries that scored 10 or below: British Virgin Islands (10), Cayman Islands (8), Wake companies) that use relatively small amounts of capital and energy and small fishing vessels (if any), make Island, Suriname and Cambodia (all 7), Sint Maarten (6), Jordan and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (5), relatively short fishing trips, and use fish mainly for local consumption or trade. Reference Point: Guadeloupe and Martinique (4), Aruba, Anguilla and Guyana (all 3), Bangladesh, South Korea and Opportunities for Artisanal fishing meet the need, as expressed by per capita GDP corrected by Myanmar (all 2), and Montserrat and Haiti (both 1). purchasing power parity (PPPpcGDP).

Fourteen (14) countries or territories had no fisheries landings and were not scored: Phoenix Group, The overall score, 68, suggests that most countries may not be meeting the apparent economic need for Northern Saint-Martin, Glorioso Islands, Curacao, Saba, Bonaire, Line Group, Sint Eustatius, Juan de their citizen’s to be able to carry out small-scale fishing for subsistence, barter or commercial purposes Nova Island, Bassas da India, Ile Europa, Jersey, Oecussi Ambeno, and Guernsey. (mainly local markets).

Mariculture sub-goal · overall score: 27 · range: 0-100) Eleven (11) countries scored 89 or above: Qatar (100); Jarvis Island, Palmyra Atoll, Johnston Atoll and Target: Harvest the maximal sustainable amount of farm-raised seafood (tonnes) per coastal inhabitant Wake Island (all 93), Australia and Norway (90); and Macquarie Island, Norfolk Island, Denmark, and (i.e. within the 50 KM coastal strip), making the assumption that production depends on the presence of Greenland. coastal communities that can provide the labor force, coastal access, infrastructures and economic demand to support the development of mariculture facilities. The score for each region indicates how Qatar tops the list because it has the highest PPPpcGDP in the world, $146,177 for te period from close its current yield is to the score for the most productive region in 2013, the latest data available from 2010-2014 according to the World Bank, so theoretically it has little financial need for this kind of fishing FAO, which was Norway. Because regional status values were highly skewed, the reference point is set at whether people do it or not. Four of the top scoring regions are small, remote oceanic islands, with either the 95th percentile region (Thailand) with all regions above that value set to a status score of 100. no year-round population or small numbers of research personnel. With GDPs that are low (or zero) plus unlimited access to the shore, those locations obviously score well. The high scoring industrialized A high score can mean that a region is sustainably harvesting as close to the maximum amount of farmed nations, Norway, Denmark and Australia, have reasonably high PPPpcGDP of about $44,000, $45,000 and seafood as possible based on its own potential. A low score can indicate one of two things – that seafood $65,000, respectively, as well as long coastlines that could accommodate what needs there are and is being farmed in an unsustainable manner or that a region is not maximizing its potential to farm fish and policies that guarantee good access to fishing opportunities. other marine animals in its coastal territory. Seventeen countries scored 45 or below: Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Micronesia, India and Ghana (45), The current score, 27, indicates that most countries are not sustainably producing the amounts of farmed Solomon Islands and Sao Tome and Principe (44); Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoro Islands, seafood that they potentially could. Cameroon, Benin, Somalia and Ivory Coast (all 43); Toga, Guinea and Liberia (all 42). All have very low PPPpcGDP and high need for Artisanal fishing opportunities. Nine (9) countries scored 90 or above: Chile, China, Ecuador, Faeroe Islands, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Norway (all 94); Belize (93) and Canada (90). China, which raises many species, exceeds all Seven essentially uninhabited islands were not scored for this goal: Prince Edward Islands, Heard and other countries in production. Salmonids are the main species raised in the cold water regions listed. McDonald Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Crozet Islands, Kerguelan Islands, Bouvet Island and Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island. The many low scores presented below suggest that large gains could be obtained by further development or improved management of mariculture.

Twenty-three (23) countries scored 5 or less: Portugal, Brunei, Venezuela, Montenegro and Myanmar (all 5); Brazil and Sweden (4), Tunisia, Colombia and Albania (3); Palau, Cuba and Singapore (2); and United Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates, Mayotte, South Africa, Mauritius, Ukraine, Madagascar, Israel, Suriname, Bosnia and Herzegovina and El Salvador (all 1).

11 12 NATURAL PRODUCTS · overall score: 52 · range: 0-100 High scoring countries have conserved their mangrove forests, seagrass beds and salt marshes to the Target: Harvest maximum sustainable amount of non-food products extent and condition prevailing in about 1980. The overall score, 79, indicates that the condition of those Reference point: Global data were available for metric tonnes of exports of six products: ornamental habitats has declined in most countries since that time. fish for aquariums, fish oil, seaweeds, shells, sponges and coral oducts.pr The reference point for each product is 35% below the maximum value (2008 USD) ever exported from that region. The 35% buffer The 24 reporting areas that scored 100 include both developed and developing regions. Alphabetically protects against the possibility that the maximum value resulted from overharvesting. The goal score is they are: Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Cuba, Denmark, Estonia, the weighted average of scores for any of the six values available in the region. French Guiana, Germany, Ghana, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Morocco, Netherlands, Northern Saint-Martin, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands of the United States, Russia, Saba, Seychelles, Sint No additional years of data were available, but methods for processing and gap filling data were Eustatius, Sint Maarten, South Africa and Suriname. Eleven (11) of the regions are in the general improved. A new approach was employed to estimate exposure values, i.e. the amount of harvest relative Caribbean area, five (six counting Russia) are in Europe. to the extent of habitats available for their harvest relevant habitat extents. Exposure is used to estimate harvest sustainability. In previous years, data were rescaled with reference to the maximum harvest value Ten countries scored 35 or below: Liberia (35), Senegal (34), Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast (33), ever reported in a country. Because there is a good chance that the maximum reported extraction rate Democratic Republic of the Congo (31), Guinea Bissau (30), Barbados (27), Dominica (26) and Nicaragua might not be sustainable, data are now rescaled with reference to an amount 35% less than the maximum (10). value. The buffer may also help to account for regional differences in harvest rates. Seventy-five (72) regions were not scored because the habitats evaluated for carbon storage do not exist The low overall score, 52, indicates that most countries are not gaining all the benefits they could from there. sustainable harvest of any of the six scored resources present in their location, either because of unsustainable harvesting methods or under-harvesting of potential resources. COASTAL PROTECTION · overall score: 87 · range: 24-100 Highest were 15 countries that scored 90 or above: New Caledonia, Bahamas, Samoa, Iran, Republique Target: Maintain or restore extent and condition of coastal habitats that protect against storm waves and de Congo and Eritrea (all 100); French Polynesia and Kiribati (99), Maldives and Bangladesh (94), Italy and flooding (coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt marshes, sea ice) to their ~1980 values. Tunisia (92), Madagascar 91, Mozambique and Indonesia (90). Reference points: The extent and condition of five of the protective biological habitats (tropical coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt marshes) is compared to their values in about 1980. At the Lowers were 12 countries that scored between 1 and 10: Georgia (10), Turks and Caicos Islands and recommendation of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (Cavalieri et al. 2014) the reference point for Barbados (9), Suriname (6), Tonga and Faeroe Islands (5), Panama and Jamaica (4), Ivory Coast (3), Saint sea ice was changed to be from the start of the data (1979) until the year 2000 (rather than until the Vincent and the Grenadines and Libya (2), Singapore (1). current year).

Ten (10) countries scored zero (0) because they had some Natural Products trade in the recent past, but In 2015 important changes were made to the Coastal Protection goal model to avoid penalizing not in the most recent available data: Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Cyprus, Dominica, Greenland, Montenegro, countries with healthy habitats that do not provide high coastal protection, such as seagrass. Status is Sao Tome and Principe, Uruguay and Venezuela. now based on the relative health of the habitats that provide shoreline protection and weighted by their area and protectiveness rank. Rank weights for the protective ability of each habitat come from previous Eighty-seven (87) countries had no scores for this goal because they had no reported exports of natural work by INVEST that ranks mangroves, corals and sea ice as 4, salt marshes as 3, and seagrasses as 1 products. (higher values are better). The area of each habitat type is multiplied by its protective rank and the ratio of its current extent to its reference extent. Those products are summed for all habitats present. That sum is divided by the sum of the product of the area of each type of habitat multiplied by its protective CARBON STORAGE · overall score: 79 · range: 10-100 rank yields the Coastal Protection score: Target: Reduce global warming by conserving coastal habitats that sequester carbon for long periods. Reference point: Maintain or restore the extent and condition of coastal carbon-storing habitats C is the condition at current (c) and reference (r) time points, w is the rank weight of the habitat’s (mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt marshes) to their ~1980 values. protective ability, and A is the area within a region for each k habitat type.

In 2015 important changes were made to the goal model. The model now incorporates coefficients The same new database was used for mangrove habitat as was described for the Carbon Storage goal. (weights) to account for the different amounts of carbon that different habitats sequester, using new data from (Laffoley & Grimsditch 2009). Weighting factors for relative carbon sequestration rates for habitats For all coastal countries, maintenance or improvement of extent and condition of biological habitats can used in the carbon storage goal are: Saltmarsh (210), Mangroves (139) and Seagrass (83). Also, a new add many years of protection from ocean incursion, but it cannot fully protect low-lying areas if global data layer (Hamilton and Casey 2014) for mangroves replaced data previously used, providing long-term sea level rise is severe. much higher spatial and temporal resolution. The new data estimate mangrove cover at 30 m raster cell resolution. Countries can independently take action that will maintain or increase protective biological habitats, but not sea ice. The only resilience measure that will maintain sea ice and its benefits will be the combined actions of many countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A region acting alone would generally not be able to act at a scale that could markedly increase sea ice extent. 13 14 CARBON STORAGE cont. The overall score, 82, suggests that marine sectors are not keeping up with the overall economy in terms High scoring countries have conserved their tropical coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds and of jobs, wages and livelihoods. Several factors could be involved, including more rapid expansion of salt marshes to the extent and condition prevailing in about 1980. jobs and wages in non-marine industries including technology as well as lack of global data on marine sectors beyond the six evaluated in this study. In addition to an improved model, future evaluation of Twenty-four (24) countries scored 100: Aruba, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bonaire, British Indian Ocean this goal will benefit from improved data, including global data on wages and development of global Territory, Curacao, Denmark, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Ghana, Howland Island and Baker Island, databases for other marine employment sectors. Japan, Line Group, Netherlands, Phoenix Group, Pitcairn, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, South Af- rica, Suriname, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna. Kiribati and Oman scored 99. Thirty-seven (37) countries scored 100: Albania, Algeria, Aruba, Bangladesh, Belize, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chile, Ecuador, Gambia, Georgia, Greenland, Guatemala, Israel, Kuwait, Liberia, Thirteen (13) countries scored 46 or below: Pakistan (46), Iceland (44), Lithuania (36), Liberia (35), Ivory Mayotte, Morocco, Mozambique, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome and Coast (33), Sierra Leone (32), Senegal, Guinea and Democratic Republic of the Congo Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sweden, Syria, Tanzania, Senegal (all 31), Guinea Bissau and Nicaragua (30), Dominica (26) and Belize (24). Tonga, Turkey, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Vanuatu.

Fifty (50) countries were not scored because the habitats providing coastal protection did not exist there. Twenty-two (22) other countries scored between 95 and 99.

The ten lowest scoring countries were French Guiana and Cook Islands (47), Philippines (45), COASTAL LIVELIHOODS & ECONOMIES · overall score: 82 · range: 3-100 Saint Helena (44), Samoa (43), Falkland Islands (40), East Timor and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Target: This goal aims to maintain the economic health of the marine workforce and coastal communities (27), Equatorial Guinea (13) and Eritrea (3). by maintaining coastal and ocean-dependent livelihoods (indicated by jobs), livelihood quality (indicated by relative wages) and productive coastal economies (indicated by revenues). Reference point: The goal Sixteen (16) essentially uninhabited islands were not for either subgoal of this goal because they did not is for a region to have no net loss of jobs, wages or revenue in its marine sector. Jobs and revenue use have jobs, wages or revenue. They were: Prince Edward Islands, Howland Island and Baker Island, a temporal reference point. Jobs must keep pace with growth in employment rates or sustain losses Macquarie Island, Heard and McDonald Islands, Jarvis Island, Palmyra Atoll, South Georgia and the no greater than national increases in unemployment rates; and revenue must keep pace with growth in South Sandwich Islands, Johnston Atoll, Crozet Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Ile Tromelin, Clipperton the region’s GDP or suffer losses no greater than the national declines in GDP. The reference point for a Island, Bassas da India, Ile Europa, Bouvet Island, and Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island. region’s wages uses a spatial reference point—that is, regional wages are compared to those in all other regions-- but always adjusted to the wages in non-marine sectors and to purchasing power of the local Livelihoods sub-goal · overall score: 77 · range: 0-100 currency. Target: The goal is to maintain the number and quality of jobs in marine sectors. Reference point: Livelihoods includes two equally important sub-components, the number of jobs and The reason for a ‘no net loss’ reference point is that we have no way on knowing whether it would be the average annual wages, each with its own reference point. The reference point for jobs—which is a desirable for marine jobs, wages and revenues to increase faster than for other sectors. In an proxy for livelihood quantity- is a moving target temporal comparison such that the number of jobs in independent assessment a region or territory could set its own reference point based on faster marine a region’s marine sectors should keep up with the number of jobs in all economic sectors, adjusted for sector growth, but that would not be appropriate for global assessment of all countries. unemployment. The reference point for wages—which is a proxy for livelihood quality-- is a spatial comparison in which a region’s marine sector wages are compared with the highest value observed SPECIAL NOTE: This goal could not be updated in 2015 so scores are essentially the same as in 2014. across all reporting regions. Wages are purchasing power parity (ppp) corrected and expressed in The Livelihoods component of this goal is based on job and wage data. The International Labor constant year US$. Organization’s central statistical database (ILOSTAT) no longer provides wage data at the resolution required for the model, so this subgoal now needs a new model based on different data; we have not yet Countries where employees of marine sectors are poorer than the rest of the labor force and where the been able to develop it. Furthermore, of the five job sectors evaluated for Livelihoods (tourism, commercial number of jobs in marine sectors has been decreasing can be expected to score less on livelihoods. fishing, mariculture, wave and tidal energy, marine mammal watching), new jobs data were only available for tourism, greatly limiting the value of updating the jobs component of the sub-goal. Data were available Highest were 54 countries that scored 100. They were broadly distributed geographically as well as by to update most aspects of the Economies component of this goal, but we elected to wait until the entire per-capita income and level of development. They are: Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, general model is revised in 2016. Bangladesh, Belize, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chile, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, French Polynesia, Gambia, Gibraltar, Greenland, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Nine (9) marine sectors are evaluated, including: Aquarium fishing, Commercial fishing, Mariculture, Liberia, Maldives, Mayotte, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Marine mammal watching, Ports and harbors, Ship and boat building, Tourism, Transportation and Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi shipping, Wave and tidal energy. Mineral extraction, including gas, oil, mining and others is not included Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sweden, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, as it cannot be sustainable, by definition, since even if carefully done, material is extracted faster than it Tonga, Turkey, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vanuatu and Yemen. can be replenished naturally.

15 16 Livelihoods sub-goal cont. Also, a better way to incorporate travel advisory information into the goal model was developed for the Twenty-seven (27) others scored 90 or above: American Samoa, Georgia, Guadeloupe and Martinique, 2015 assessment. Travel advisories were categorized by urgency of warning (‘risk’, ‘avoid unnecessary Kenya, Cuba, Northern Saint-Martin, Egypt, Montserrat, Sint Maarten, Mauritania, Suriname, Guinea travel’, and ‘avoid all travel’) and were weighted differently (penalties of 25%, 75%, and 100% Bissau, Western Sahara, Turks and Caicos Islands, Glorioso Islands, Norfolk Island, Cocos Islands, respectively). Penalties for region-specific warnings (within a country) were assessed at half the weight. Christmas Island, Djibouti, Juan de Nova Island, China, Comoro Islands, Singapore, Somalia, North Finally, we included updated Global Competitive Index data. Korea, Australia, South Korea, The low overall score for Tourism and Recreation, 50, suggests that many regions could obtain Twelve countries scored 40 or below: Guyana (40), Gabon (39), India and Anguilla (38), Cook Islands (36), substantially more benefits. The score could be an underestimate if data on employment in the travel Saint Kitts and Nevis (35), Libya (35), Benin (33), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (32), Equatorial Guinea and tourism sector do not capture all such workers. However, a likely reason underlying the low overall (7), Samoa (3) and Eritrea (0). score, as well as a number of national scores, is that a number of the low-scoring regions have suffered from poverty, political turmoil, natural disasters, civil strife, war, dictatorship or other volatile conditions Economies sub-goal · overall score: 88 · range: 0-100 that make tourism unhealthy, unsafe or unappealing and also make it difficult to provide infrastructure Target: The goal is to maintain economically productive coastal communities. that might support increased tourism. U.S. State Department warnings to travelers are factored into Reference point: The reference point is a moving temporal comparison for revenue such that revenue scores, as are indicators of the overall quality of governance that contributes to countries’ ability to from marine sectors within a region should keep up with revenue from all economic sectors year over support a vibrant tourism industry. year. A region should have no net loss of revenue from its marine sector over time and revenue must keep pace with growth in the region’s GDP or sustain losses no greater than the national declines in GDP. Highest were 20 regions that scored 100: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Updated revenue data were used for the tourism sector, aquarium fish trade, and mariculture. Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cape Verde, Croatia, Malta, Mauritius, New Caledonia, Saba, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands and Vanuatu. Highest were 90 countries that scored 100; and 41 that scored between 90 and 99. All of these nations suffered little or no loss of marine-related revenue compared to revenue from all economic sectors. They They were followed by 16 nations that scored above 90: Northern Saint-Martin, Greece and Belize (all are listed at www.oceanhealthindex.org. The large number of high scoring regions indicates that marine 99), Curacao, Maldives and Fiji (all 98), Montserrat (97), Germany (96), Gibraltar (95); Madeira, Palau, related revenue in most regions has kept up with the revenue from all sectors. Azores, Canary Islands and Cayman Islands (all 92), Cambodia and Cyprus (both 91).

The lowest scoring regions were: Canary Islands and Micronesia (49), Northern Mariana Islands and Lowest were 17 countries that scored between 3 and 10: Iran and Bangladesh (both 10), Angola and Guam (48), North Korea (48), Philippines (47), French Polynesia (46), Peru (45), Iceland (43), Marshall Algeria (9), Myanmar and Guinea (both 8), Suriname and Philippines (both 7), Papua New Guinea, Islands (42), Maldives (41), Niue (33), French Guiana (32), Guadeloupe and Martinique (32), Saint Helena Cameroon and Liberia (all 6), Gabon (5), Iraq, Pakistan, and Democratic Republic of the Congo (all 4), (26), Guinea Bissau (26), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (22), Equatorial Guinea (18), Falkland Islands Nigeria and Sierra Leone (3) and six countries that scored zero (0): Lebanon, Libya, North Korea, (18), Eritrea (7) and East Timor (0). Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Sixteen uninhabited islands were not scored. Sixteen essentially uninhabited islands had no score for Tourism & Recreation: Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island, Bassas da India, Bouvet Island, Clipperton Island, Crozet Islands, Heard and McDonald Islands, Howland Island and Baker Island, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin, Jarvis Island, Johnston TOURISM & RECREATION · overall score: 50 · range 0-100 Atoll, Kerguelen Islands, Macquarie Island, Palmyra Atoll, Prince Edward Islands, South Georgia and the Target: Tourism and recreation are important parts of a vibrant coastal economy, so the goal is to attract South Sandwich Islands. the maximal sustainable number of tourists to coastal areas. Reference point: The goal measures the proportion of the total labor force engaged in the coastal tourism and travel sector, factoring in unemployment and sustainability. This method attempts to capture both SENSE OF PLACE · overall score: 59 · range: 0-100 international and domestic tourism. All countries where tourism and travel employment made up 9.5% or Target: Preserve features of coastal marine areas with special cultural, spiritual or aesthetic significance more of the total labor force received a perfect score. This value was set by rank-ordering the countries for inhabitants, visitors or others. This goal uses the status of Iconic Species and Lasting Special Places and giving all countries above the 90th percentile a score of 100. Long-term sustainability of tourism was sub-goals to evaluate the importance given to Sense of Place and the potential benefits it provides. To estimated by the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index. score highly on this goal, populations of a region’s iconic species had to be at low risk of extinction and the proportion of its near shore coastline (inland to 1 km) and waters (seaward to 3 nm) in protection had For the 2015 analysis, data layers estimating the number of people employed in a region’s tourism and to be near 30%. recreation sector (hotels, airports, airlines, travel agents and leisure and services that deal directly with tourists) and the total labor force both came from the World Travel and Tourism Council (http://www.wttc. The mediocre overall goal score, 59, indicates that most countries are not valuing or protecting the org/research/economic-data-search-tool/). Sense of Place that could enrich the cultural, spiritual and aesthetic lives of their citizens and visitors.

17 18 SENSE OF PLACE cont. Johnston Atoll, Latvia, Lithuania, Macquarie Island, Mauritania, Mayotte, Mexico, Namibia, Netherlands, Highest scoring countries (above 90) were an interesting mix of remote and largely uninhabited or Nicaragua, Norfolk Island, Northern Saint-Martin, Palau, Palmyra Atoll, Phoenix Group, Poland, Portugal, sparsely inhabited island territories and four developed European nations. Scoring 100 were Estonia, Prince Edward Islands, Romania, Senegal, Slovenia, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Glorioso Islands, Latvia, Lithuania, Macquarie Island, Phoenix Group, Poland and Prince Edward Islands. Suriname, Tanzania, Tristan da Cunha, United Kingdom, Vietnam, and Wake Island. The other scores above 90 were Canary Islands and Finland (97) and Norfolk Island (94). Another 16 regions scored 90 or above. They are: Republique du Congo (99), New Caledonia, Malta and Lowest were 13 countries that scored 25 or below: Eritrea, Iraq, Sao Tome and Principe (all 25); Crozet Sweden (all 98); Canary Islands, Finland and Guatemala (all 97); Norway, South Africa and Spain (96); Islands, Kerguelan Islands, Qatar, and Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island (all 24); Syria and Libya Chile, Egypt and Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands of the United States (all 94); Mozambique (93), United (23); Bouvet Island and Bahrain (22); and Andaman and Nicobar (21). Arab Emirates (91) and Japan (90).

Seven areas scored zero (0): Bassas da India, Clipperton Island, Guernsey, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin and Lowest were 15 countries that scored between 5 and 1, including: Micronesia and British Virgin Islands Juan de Nova Island. (both 5), Haiti (4), Bahamas, Maldives, Tonga, and Sierra Leone (all 3), Ghana (2) and Vanuatu, Samoa, Tunisia, Singapore, Montenegro, Barbados and Dominica (all 1). Iconic Species sub-goal · overall score: 58 · range: 31-88 Target: Maintain abundant populations of all marine iconic species in the region. Forty-one (41) countries scored zero (0). They are: Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island, Anguilla, Reference point: All iconic species present should be at minimal risk of extinction (‘least concern’ in IUCN Aruba, Bahrain, Bassas da India, Benin, Bouvet Island, Cape Verde, Clipperton Island, Cocos Red List). Islands, Comoro Islands, Cook Islands, Crozet Islands, Djibouti, Eritrea, Falkland Islands, French Polynesia, Grenada, Guernsey, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin, Iraq, Jordan, Juan de Nova Island, Highest scoring regions were: Norfolk Island (88), Reunion (81), Aruba (79), South Georgia and the South Kerguelen Islands, Kiribati, Liberia, Libya, Line Group, Montserrat, Nauru, Niue, North Korea, Qatar, Sandwich Islands, Anguilla, and Faeroe Islands (all 77), Falkland Islands (76), Dominica (75), Australia (74), Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sao Tome and Principe, Sint Eustatius, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tokelau, Gambia (73), Denmark (72), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (72) and Pitcairn (71). and Wallis and Futuna.

Fourteen (14) regions scored 46 or below: Germany, Mayotte, Israel, Syria and Lebanon (all 46); Heard Though many countries scored very well, the large number that did not shows how much work needs to and McDonald Islands (45); British Indian Ocean Territory (45), Bouvet Island and Algeria (both 44); be done globally to achieve the maximal benefits that this subgoal should provide. Bahrain (43), Malta and Cambodia (41); Kuwait (39) and Monaco (31). CLEAN WATERS · overall score: 74 · range: 20-100 Twenty-two countries or territories were not scored for this goal, because there were no data for the Target: Eliminate pollution by chemicals, nutrients, pathogens and trash. species evaluated: Andaman and Nicobar, Azores, Bassas da India, Canary Islands, Clipperton Island, Reference point: the reference point is to have zero pollution from excess nutrients, chemicals, Estonia, Finland, Glorioso Islands, Guernsey, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin, Jersey, Juan de Nova Island, Latvia, pathogens and trash. Since global data do not exist for some of these pressures, modeled or proxy data Line Group, Lithuania, Macquarie Island, Madeira, Oecussi Ambeno, Phoenix Group, Poland, and Prince were used. Edward Islands. For the 2015 assessment a new global marine plastic dataset (Eriksen et al. 2014) replaced the coastal Lasting Special Places sub-goal · overall score: 60 · range: 0-100 beach trash clean up data used previously to measure trash pollution, providing much higher resolution Target: Protect aspects of the coast that are important to cultural, spiritual and aesthetic appreciation. and richer information on the kind of debris in all parts of the ocean, not just the coastline. Small Reference point: Few countries have official lists of places (if any) protected for their cultural and spiritual improvements to computing chemical pollution were also developed. importance, especially for various subcultures or ethnic groups. Therefore the Index uses places protected for other purposes to represent them, including coastal terrestrial protected areas, marine The overall Clean Water score, 74, may be higher than the public would expect given recent media protected areas, UNESCO World Heritage marine sites, national parks and cultural reserves and the attention to pollution from sources such as the Deep Horizon oil spill and Fukushima tsunami and United Nations list of protected places. The proxy reference for lasting special places is for 30% of the nuclear disaster. However, the harmful effects of those regional events have not spread to all oceans coastline from 3 nm seaward to 1 km landward to be in protected status. and countries, so they are not captured in global data. Where available, such information would greatly influence the scores of independent assessments that used regional data. Improved global data more specifically tailored to this goal would add value to its assessment. If countries have such goal, they could be used in an independent assessment. Highest scoring were 17 regions that scored 100: Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island, Bassas da India, Bouvet Island, Clipperton Island, Crozet Islands, Heard and McDonald Islands, Howland Island Highest scoring were 57 countries that scored 100. The list includes uninhabited, developing and and Baker Island, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kerguelen Islands, Macquarie developed areas. They are: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Belize, Brazil, British Indian Ocean Territory, Island, Palmyra Atoll, Prince Edward Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. All are Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, France, French Guiana, small, remote island territories that are either uninhabited or have very low populations and are located Germany, Gibraltar, Glorioso Islands, Greenland, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Guinea Bissau, Heard and at high latitudes in the South Atlantic, Southern Ocean or southern Indian Ocean. Other regions that McDonald slands, Honduras, Howland Island and Baker Island, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Jan Mayen, Jarvis scored above 90 were: United Kingdom, Canada and Quatar (all 92); Norway (91) and Greenland (90). Island,

19 20 CLEAN WATERS cont. Highest were 46 countries that scored 90 or above, led by Cyprus (97), Israel (96), Montserrat and Highest scoring were 23 regions that scored 90 or above. The only region to score 100 was Heard and Monaco (94), Northern Saint-Martin, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sint Maarten McDonald Islands, followed by South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Kerguelen Islands, and Saint Lucia (all 93); Heard and McDonald Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Saba, Canada, Sint Eustatius, Falkland Islands and Bouvet Island (all 99); Macquarie Island, Jarvis Island, and Crozet Islands (all 98); Japan, Sweden, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Lebanon (all 92); Howland Island and Baker Island (97), Phoenix Group (96), Canada (96), Greenland and Chile (both 94), Macquarie Island, Malta, Bahamas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Crozet Islands, Tokelau (93), Cocos Islands and Cook Islands (92), Palmyra Atoll, Line Group, Russia and Amsterdam Aruba, Finland, Cayman Islands, Mexico, Belize, Georgia, Bouvet Island, and Turkey (all 91); and Island and Saint Paul Island (all 91); and British Indian Ocean Territory, French Polynesia, Saint Helena, Australia, Italy, Bonaire, Turks and Caicos Islands, Brazil, Panama, Slovenia, Poland, Lithuania, Grenada and Ile Europa (all 90). and Syria (all 90).

Lowest scores were for 10 nations that scored between 33 and 20. They are: Belgium and Guatemala Lowest were 18 countries that scored below 80: Yemen, Equatorial Guinea, Faeroe Islands, Iraq, and (33), India (32), Israel (31), Togo, Slovenia and Lebanon (all 29), Benin (28), Monaco (25) and Gibraltar (20). Guinea Bissau (all 79); Argentina, Eritrea, Singapore, East Timor, Oecussi Ambeno, Uruguay, Myanmar, Nigeria, Guinea and North Korea (all 78); and Western Sahara, Sudan and Somalia (all 77).

BIODIVERSITY · overall score: 88 · range: 69-97 Habitats sub-goal · overall score: 91 · range: 54-100 Target: Conserve species and habitats that form the rich variety of marine life Reference point: The extent and condition of Habitats that support large numbers of species and for Reference points: A region’s marine species, as assessed by the IUCN or GMAS (Global Marine Species which global data are available should at least be equal to their values in about 1980. Six habitats had Assessment) are at minimal risk of extinction; and the extent and condition of assessed marine habitats sufficient global data to permit evaluation: tropical coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt has not decreased greatly since about 1980. marshes, subtidal soft-bottom habitats and sea ice edge. Regions are only scored for habitats that normally exist within their EEZ. The overall score, 88, might seem unexpectedly high given media coverage and public attention to the plight of endangered species and the likelihood that population growth, land use changes, climate change Twenty-six areas scored 100. They are: Albania, Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island, Bangladesh, and other human-caused pressures are causing what has been termed “Earth’s 6th great mass British Indian Ocean Territory, Bulgaria, Clipperton Island, French Guiana, Georgia, Gibraltar, Heard and extinction.” Remember, however, that Habitats are compared to their reference values in ~1980 (1979- McDonald Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Libya, Macquarie Island, Norfolk Island, North Korea, Pitcairn, 2000 for sea ice), so changes seen have occurred in only about three decades. Similarly, criteria for IUCN Romania, Russia, Saba, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Sao Tome and Principe, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, estimates of extinction risk include population changes over 10 years or three generations (whichever is Suriname, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna. Seventy-five (75) other regions scored 95 or above. longer), so changes seen usually also represent short time periods. With those considerations in mind, a score of 88 is not as comforting as it might seem. Lowest scoring areas were: Pakistan and Liberia (69), Guinea Bissau, Nicaragua and Ivory Coast (all 68), Poland, Gabon and Grenada (all 67), Nigeria (66), Colombia and Democratic Republic of the Congo (both Region scores for Biodiversity ranged from 65 to 98. 65), Belize (62), Senegal (61), Sierra Leone and Dominica (both 60), Iceland(58) and Jan Mayen (54).

Lowest scores were for Jan Mayen and Nigeria (both 70), Somalia (69), Liberia (69), Pakistan (68), Ivory Low scores for the extent and condition of habitats would likely depress species scores, accelerating the Coast (68), Republique du Congo (67), Democratic Republic of the Congo (67), Guinea Bissau (66) Sen- decline in future scores for the Biodiversity goal. egal (66), Gabon (66) and Sierra Leone (65) The Crozet Islands, Monaco and Bouvet Island were not scored because none of the evaluated habitats Highest scores for Biodiversity were: Cyprus (97), Heard and McDonald Islands, Kerguelen Islands, exist there. Saba, Belgium, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, and Georgia (all 96), Macquarie Island, Northern Saint Martin, Finland and Israel (all 95).

Lowest scores were: Liberia, Ivory Coast and Dominica (all 75), Gabon, Pakistan and Guinea Bissau (all 74), Nigeria, Senegal and Democratic Republic of the Congo (all 72), Iceland and Sierra Leone (both 71) and Jan Mayen 69.

Species sub-goal · overall score: 86 · range: 77-97 Reference Point: All Species present should be at minimal risk of extinction (‘least concern’ status in the IUCN “Red List”). The 2015 analysis was able to use updated IUCN and GMSA data for 5,606 species, including information for some subpopulations, thereby increasing the resolution of measurement for this subgoal.

21 22 WITH APPRECIATION

EXPLORE MORE effective management of our oceans is critically important to “ • Further information at www.oceanhealthindex.org, includes an interactive Data Explore that shows help sustain the economies and people dependent on them ” how scores are constructed and allows users to test ‘what if’ scenarios. James T. Morris, Chairman • Data, scientific publications, and detailed scientific information ear at www.ohi-science.org, including tools for developing an independent assessment.

• A color-coded table of scores for all regions is at https://rawgit.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/draft/ global2015/Reporting/data/scores_eez2015.html)

• A color-coded carpet plot showing overall and goal scores for all regions from 2012-2015 is at https:// github.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/blob/draft/global2015/Reporting/figures/carpetPlot.png

• Flower plots of goal scores for every region are at: https://github.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/tree/ draft/global2015/Reporting/figures/FlowerPlots

• A table of status Trends from 2012-2015 is at: https://rawgit.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/draft/glob- al2015/Reporting/data/trends.html

• An interactive Google plot where you can explore correlations between goals, look at change over Thanks to generous support from the Pacific Life Foundation, the Ocean Health Index’s Founding time, compare country scores, etc. is at https://rawgit.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/draft/global2015/ Presenting Sponsor, Jayne and Hans Hufschmid, and Dan Sten Olsson, Chairman and CEO of Stena Reporting/figures/GoogleVisScores.html AB, the Ocean Health Index is informing global planning efforts and guiding more than 21 countries towards a sustainably managed ocean.

Building ocean health is neither quick nor easy, but thanks to our very generous supporters, the process is solidly underway. Citation

You may cite this document as: Ocean Health Index 2015: Summary of results for countries and territories. Prepared September 25, 2015. Available online at http://www.oceanhealthindex.org and http:// www.ohi-science.org.