Ocean resources fail to live up to predictions

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 38

Ocean resources fail to live up to predictions

NZPA-APSouth Kingston, Rhode Island

Scientists have sharply revised ambitious predictions of two decades ago that the oceans would provide vast new sources of food, minerals and energy, but they say the seas still might deliver much to mankind.

"My guess is that we are not very good at predicting,” Mr John Knauss, dean of the University of Rhode Island’s oceanography graduate school, told a gathering of experts called together to discuss the oceans’ future.

Widely held beliefs that considerable mineral wealth could be extracted from the deep have not proved realistic, panellists agreed. But the experts predicted that in less than four decades the oceans will be harnessed to generate electricity.

“Wave energy by 2020 will be a way to go,” said Mr John Gulland, a researcher at the Centre for Environment Technology, Imperial College, London.

Participants emphasised that a continuing concern would be striking the right balance between using and abusing ocean resources.

Industrialised countries have made progress in cleaning up coastal areas and rivers, but the experts said developing nations were facing a serious pollution threat.

“If you wait until oceans get bad, it would take lifetimes to rectify,” said Mr Knauss.

But he said that it might be far safer to dump wastes, even those radioactive, in the ocean than on land, where there is the risk of contaminating groundwater. "The ocean is a great place to dispose of wastes if you do it carefully,” he said. “There is no great ocean pollution today, although the public think there is.” Mr Robert Bendick, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, said after the symposium that many of its speakers “appeared to minimise the impact of pollution on

the world’s oceans, and to suggest that moderate levels of pollution may not be harmful.” Mr Willard Bascom, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California, and a former executive of a sea mining firm, said oncebright prospects for deep- sea mining of manganese nodules and other minerals were very poor. Prospecting, mining, shipping and processing costs made the minerals more expensive than obtained on land, he said. Mr Kenji Okamura, an adviser to the Japanese Government, said his country was making significant strides in fish farming. He cited a successful experiment in which sea bream were conditioned to eat when they sensed a loud noise.

After reaching a certain size, the baby sea bream were released into the ocean. When the same noise was emitted, even if only 5 per cent of the fish return for feeding — and were, netted instead — the results were good, he said.