South Africa and Norway took another big step forward in advancing their strong cooperation in developing South Africa’s “blue economy”, the sustainable exploitation of its oceans, on Monday, with the launch of the first South Africa-Norway Science Week in Pretoria.
The theme is Value Creation in Ocean Space; New Opportunities in the Blue Economy.
Launching the event, which is driven by the Research Council of Norway, the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education and Innovation Norway, South Africa’s Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said South Africa had much to learn from Norway, with its wealth of experience in the ocean economy and the global respect it enjoyed as an expert on marine and maritime matters.
South Africa could, in particular, draw on Norway’s experience in developing the Arctic to help South Africa develop the Antarctic, she said.
“The South African coastal and marine environment is one our most important assets. It plays the major role in regulating our climate, has tremendous natural biodiversity and supports numerous communities through fisheries, tourism and mining,” Pandor said.
“Yet the marine environment is the most threatened of all on earth at this point in time. Marine resources are under increasing stress and pressures from a wide range of human activities, including offshore drilling and oil spills. And global warming is affecting the marine environment with sometimes devastating consequences for people.”
Science and innovation had to be harnessed to ensure sustainable development of the oceans, she said..
Officially launching the event, Norway’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tone Skogen said that the ocean was the key to food security, to economic growth and to job creation.
Norway, had for generations harnessed and exploited its seas to grow its economy and today the Norwegian blue economy employed more than 250,000 people and created value of about 850 billion Norwegian kroner, or R1.6 trillion rand, annually.
“We are here to share our experience, to learn from each other and to develop new partnerships. Research is vital to all we want to achieve.”
She added that South Africa has seized the moment with a fast track delivery on the ocean economy through Operation Phakisa.
“Your ambitions are inspiring,” she said.
Skogen noted that South Africa and Norway had an existing portfolio of science and technology partnerships to advance the blue economy. Both are members of the new international “Martera” platform, which would support collaboration in maritime and marine technologies.
The two nations were also members of the EU Horizon 2020 project “Ecopotential”, where South Africa and Norway were leading the work to leverage Earth observation to improve marine ecosystem services to society.
They are also partners in the “Atlantos” project seeking to develop an integrated Atlantic Ocean Observing System.
The Blue Ocean is one of several initiatives under South Africa’s Operation Phakisa development programme and includes plans to develop shipping, fishing, aquaculture, servicing of the oil and gas industry off Africa’s coast and several others.
Skogen said much of the potential of the oceans had not yet been exploited. For instance mankind was now getting only 17 percent of its protein from the oceans and this could be increased vastly.
“The world needs to tap the oceans if we are feed the increasing population,” she said, and the challenge which science and scientific cooperation had to meet was to get the balance right between sustainability and economic development.
She was asked, in an interview whether extracting more protein from the oceans, would not inevitably aggravate the already extensive over-fishing of the world’s seas.
“That’s where you need international cooperation,” she said, “to have the necessary regulations in place. You need to ensure you get your sustainable development of the ocean potential. And what we have seen in many places is unlimited fishing and pollution.”
“So we really need cooperation to clean that up but also to harvest what the oceans can provide.”
She said that’s why Norway was delighted that the world agreed last year on Goal 14, the sustainable development of the oceans, as one of the Sustainable Development Goals adopted at the United Nations.
Skogen said it remained to be seen whether the envisaged cooperation between South Africa’ and Norway to develop an oil and gas servicing industry off the African coast.
Norway, which has one of the world’s most advanced offshore oil and gas industries, was providing expertise to South Africa to develop this industry. But the slump in the oil price has affected these plans.
However Skogen noted that the Norwegian oil company Statoil had recently acquired 35 percent of the Tugela South oil exploration block off the KwaZulu-Natal coast. If it struck oil there, that could boost cooperation between the two countries in developing South Africa’s oil and gas industry, including servicing.
She also commented on Pandor’s remark that she was a bit disappointed that the number of joint science and technology projects between Norway and South Africa had dropped from about 200 a few years ago to about 80 today.
Skogen said Pandor should explain that further. But she added: “It’s not so much the number of projects, what matters is the quality and how any of them end up producing results.”
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