Ocean Sciences an exciting new journey for South Africa SA’s first dedicated Fast-tracking Africa’s A big need Ocean Sciences Campus 8 blue economy 18 for new skills 29 SEPTEMBER 2017 ○ OCEAN SCIENCES 1 CONTENTS New oceanography and food security innovation bridge between SA and the UK 6 On the making of a new generation university 8 From space to earth to water: the composites revolution 10 Combating sea fisheries crime 11 Four fish or 15,000 fish – the choice is in our hands 12 Middle Stone Age people got smart Professor Derrick Swartz at the coast 14 ‘Extraordinary’ Eastern Cape rock pool systems 16 Sea law for Africa 18 This bold The complicated task of ocean zoning 20 new journey It’s about working together to fast-track SA’s blue economy 21 Nelson Mandela University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Derrick Swartz, has been the driving force behind its bold Bringing shipbuilding and new Ocean Sciences Strategy since around 2014. This strategy arises from his passionate belief that the university marine engineering to enjoys a number of competitive advantages enabling it to become the leading Ocean Sciences university on the 23 African continent –its geographical location on the eastern seaboard, in a major port city (Port Elizabeth) with Nelson Mandela Bay two major ports, over 40 years of ocean sciences expertise, its establishment of a dedicated new Ocean Sciences Campus, and the roll-out of an exciting generation of marine and maritime science academic programmes. He 40 years of coastal spoke to us about his vision and strategy in this regard. and marine research 25 ARTHUR C. Clarke once aptly reflected of the seabed still has to be mapped. Ocean Sciences growth on “how inappropriate to call this planet Only a small fraction of all its estimated hub for Port Elizabeth 26 Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean”. life forms - from large creatures to The ocean mass covers about 71% of millions of microbes - have so far been our planet’s surface and comprises 97% discovered and classified. Aquaponics yields of its water mass. It plays a crucial role We are also only beginning to fresh fish, produce - in earth’s climate system – regulating understand its complex, dynamic 27 its average temperatures and storing marine ecosystems, and a great deal and partnerships over two-thirds of earth’s active carbon more work is required to develop Future ocean dioxide. fine-scaled, time-sensitive modelling Our oceans are indispensable of how human activities impact on sciences students 28 to human life. Yet it is an irony that specific ocean regions - crucial for need to learn to swim many aspects of the world’s oceans marine spatial planning and ocean are understood in superficial and protection strategies. And the Southern This humpback whale Harnessing the fragmented ways - despite great (Antarctica) and Indian Oceans are least (Megaptera novaeangliae) photographed during a potential of our oceans scientific progress over the past explored compared to what we know research study in Algoa Bay in for a sustainable future 29 century. It is often remarked that we about the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 2009 reflects the challenges know more about the surface of the Perhaps apart from the interior of of maintaining a healthy ocean Exciting new career moon than the oceans on earth. the earth, our oceans remain to be the when facing the growing Barely 5% of the ocean mass has last great unknown to earth science. pressures of global change. opportunities Photograph: Stephanie Plön 30 been explored, and the vast majority What we do know is that water 2 OCEAN SCIENCES ○ SEPTEMBER 2017 SEPTEMBER 2017 ○ OCEAN SCIENCES 3 is key to DNA-based life forms. cultural value, its history and future key niche ocean sciences areas. And there is mounting evidence in a world under twin pressures of Nelson Mandela University has over suggesting that the earliest life human activity and climate change. 40 years of scientific expertise in forms may have started in Earth’s Towards this end, the university coastal and marine sciences that we primordial oceans (for example has adopted a bold new Ocean hope to build on into new directions hydrothermal vents) some 3.8 billion Sciences strategy to drive a new into the future. years ago. research, training and innovation The institution is the only We certainly know from written agenda to help finding better tools South African university bearing a records and oral traditions (songs, for managing the twin challenges of “comprehensive” knowledge and folklore) that human life, from human development and ecological skills profile with a prime location the dawn of time, has had a long sustainability. right at the coast. This profile brings connection to the sea - from Stone In this context, we have begun together basic, formative and Age hunter-gathers who survived to expand academic offerings in applied, professional knowledge in caves along the Southern African fields such as oceanography, marine competencies in Ocean Sciences in coastline some 200,000 years engineering, maritime economics novel ways. ago; the first Africans who left our and logistics, marine tourism, port This is a huge strategic advantage continent some 70,000 years ago, development and management, in that we can bring to bear to do and radiated across different parts marine spatial planning and the law both discovery research (exploring of the world, in the process taking of the sea, including fisheries law our oceans) and simultaneously also the world’s first African explorers enforcement. help to solve real world problems to new lands; to the sea-faring In the next few years, we hope arising from the imperatives of Phoenicians who first sailed the to recruit a new generation of human development needs and Mediterranean, and Polynesians who smart students, academic staff and ecological sustainability. discovered Australasia; the ancient researchers to get top-class training I am excited about the prospects Chinese and Nordic mariners of in critical fields. of Nelson Mandela University 11th centuries; 16th and 17th century Secondly, the university becoming the leading Ocean explorers and conquistadors who has recently begun with the Sciences University on the African colonised different parts of the establishment of a new and continent. We are hugely encouraged world; to the modern age, when a dedicated Ocean Sciences Campus by our growing portfolio of new era of seafaring emerged on the in Nelson Mandela Bay, to focus and international partnerships in ocean back of the industrial revolution and grow our capabilities in a selected sciences, including Universities of rise of global capitalism. number of areas. We have already Southampton and Plymouth (UK), Today, the sea is a vital part of invested R60m in the new campus, Agder and NTNU (Norway), Alto human economic and cultural life. In The Nelson Mandela Bay harbour, along with the and will be investing a further R75m (Finland) and Nairobi (Kenya) and the modern era, particularly after the nearby Coega deep-water harbour, will play a over the next three years in new Zanzibar. Second World War (1939-45), sea- key role in growing the country’s blue economy. infrastructure, labs, equipment and If the twin goals of modern based trade and economic activity Photograph: Rob Duker staff to facilitate this new growth science are to explain the world and had seen exponential growth, area. solve real life problems, we believe employing millions, generating huge Nelson Mandela University that the university’s Ocean Sciences revenues, and bringing consumer currently holds four NRF-funded future opens up a new horizon of goods within reach of nearly all the SARChI (South African Research exciting opportunities for students, earth’s populations. Chairs Initiative) Chairs in Marine scholars and other stakeholders of The global financial crisis of Spatial Planning; Ocean Science and “blue commons” to join hands with 2007/08 saw a marked decline in Marine Food Security, Shallow Water us in this bold new journey, which growth of the global ocean economy. Ecosystems; and Law of the Sea and is certainly one of the most exciting However, in recent years there has Development in Africa. developments in the history of the been a resurgence of interest by In 2016, we launched three university. states and investors in the ocean new research and training entities economy as a source of global - Centre for Marine and Coastal economic stimulus. Research (CMR), the FishFORCE Traditional sea-based industries At the same time, there has of ocean acidification. understanding of natural systems; neglected or narrowly developed – participation and inclusion – Academy, focused on fisheries were largely based on wild fishing, also been a dramatic population Together, these pressures our respect for biodiversity and for example marine spatial planning, particularly focused on marginalised protection (with a R50m Norwegian shipbuilding and shipping, port expansion of the world’s coastal have been affecting different ocean health; and importance of deep-sea oceanography, climate and poor communities. government grant), and Centre Ocean Sciences development, near-shore oil and cities and regions (over 1.4 billion parts of the world’s marine evidence-based policy-making and modeling, bioacoustics and long- Nelson Mandela University for Coastal Paleoscience doing gas, and logistics. In recent years, a people in 2012) and with this, new ecosystems – reduction of wild decision-making systems. range studies of the Indian and is committed to a research and discovery research on early human Campus Launch new generation of ocean economy pressures on, and risks to, the fish stocks; bleaching of coral If South Africa’s policy goal – as Southern Ocean systems. training agenda that brings questions origins along the southern coastlines The country’s first dedicated Ocean sectors has begun to emerge on the coastal and marine environments reefs in large parts of the world; expressed in Operation Phakisa Moreover, there is a real of social justice and equity into of South Africa.