• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Protecting Ocean Environment Key to Mitigate Impact of Katrina- Scale Disasters: UN Official

Posted on: Wednesday, 14 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

Protecting ocean environment key to mitigate impact of Katrina- scale disasters: UN official by Wang Fengfeng

NAIROBI, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- As the world recovers from the shock of a devastating hurricane in the United States, a high- level UN official said Tuesday in Kenyan capital Nairobi that protecting the ocean environment can go a long way to reduce the damage of such disasters.

Veerle Vandeweerd, director of a marine environment protection program under the UN Environment Program, said in an interview with Xinhua that human activities have polluted the planet so much that the climate is going to "much more extremes."

Admitting there's not much can be done to prevent disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Indian Ocean tsunami last year, Vandeweerd said protecting ocean environment can certainly reduce the impact of these disasters.

"If we would maintain our natural resources much better. If we would maintain our wetlands, if we would maintain our mangroves, if we would maintain our coral reefs, then instead of have such an impact, we would have had the damage much less than what we've seen now," Vandeweerd said.

From last yearend's Indian Ocean tsunami disaster to this year' s Hurricane Katrina, the ocean has left a trail of devastation from Sri Lanka to Louisiana, proving itself to be both friend and foe to the humanity.

Although no direct links have been established between environment degradation to specific catastrophes, more and more people are coming to think of environment protection and the scale of these disasters, as scientists say greenhouse gas trapped in the atmosphere heat up the earth and indirectly impact on the severeness of hurricanes.

European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas have even suggested it was time for major carbon dioxide emission countries such as the United States to rethink about their energy policy in the wake of Katrina.

"It (Katrina) was a great shock for the Americans," Dimas said Saturday in London.

"It will make people think ... not for climate change only, but about environment for sure. They should be more careful about the environment, about policies connected to the environment."

UN IN ACTION

The United Nations is doing its bid to ensure environmental- friendly policies at the national level. The program Vandeweerd's in charge of, the Global Program of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities, is to have its second intergovernmental meeting in Chinese capital Beijing in October 2006, eyeing to strengthen both the implementation of the program as well as national level policies related to ocean environment protection.

"It is in fact one of the very few global meetings in the intergovernmental level which deals with the ocean in the next couple of years," Vandeweerd said, noting she expects new partnerships to protect the coastal resources will be forged in the Beijing meeting.

Vandeweerd said as the host of the meeting, China is doing its bid to protect the ocean environment, especially in the Bohai sea. She acknowledged China's own share of problems in environment, but also said the country has much to share with other economies and with the United Nations.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

More News in this Category