Last week, on November 26, the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation held a webinar on the region’s maritime capacity building. The forum could not have come at a better time. The maritime challenges facing Southeast Asia–climate crisis and consequent ocean rising levels and acidification, migration of species to cooler climates, ecological imbalance, threats to living marine resources, maritime domain awareness and protection, to mention only a few — may seem formidable, but sustained cooperation can help in staving them off.
The challenges are detailed in a report released in September 2021 entitled “Oceans of Opportunity: Southeast Asia’s Shared Maritime Challenges” produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and authored by Danielle Fallin, Simon Tran Hudes, Amanda Ingram, and Gregory B. Poling. “With 9 out of 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries touching the sea,” the report began, “Southeast Asia is on the front lines of the world’s shared maritime challenges. Everything from climate change, plastic pollution, and fisheries management to legal frameworks and maritime domain awareness present transnational problems that the region must overcome.”
The report covers climate change and how it impacts oceans in Southeast Asia; mangroves and their role in safeguarding human, ecological, food, and climate security in maritime Southeast Asia; plastic and other kinds of pollution; threatened fisheries; maritime domain awareness; and preserving the law of the sea.
Read more:
https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/12/08/business/maritime/southeast-asias-shared-maritime-challenges/1825079