A few weeks ago, we reported on Russ George’s “rogue” ocean fertilization experiment in the Pacific Ocean. In the days since the initial report from The Guardian, scientists and environmentalists have analyzed the science of his experiment and debated the legality of it.
The ETC Group, an environmental watchdog group, has determined that it did indeed violate international law, including the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the London convention on dumping waste at sea, or the London Protocol.
However, Edward Parson, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, explained that the CBD only discourages ocean fertilization so the decisions are advisory, not legally binding. And, while the London Protocol is legally binding, it only applies to materials dumped as waste.
Because the iron was dumped as part of an experiment and not as waste, Parsons explains that “there is no violation under international treaty.”
It is still unclear if the experiment violated any Canadian laws.
As for the science, it wasn’t very reliable. Satellite images from before and after the experiment do show an increase in phytoplankton, but it is almost impossible to place the blame entirely on George’s experiment because blooms happen naturally every summer. One oceanographer notes that the experimenters did not set up careful control studies, so no real scientific data will come from this test.
To learn more:
- ETC Group: World’s Largest Geoengineering Deployment Off Coast of Canada’s British Columbia
- The Guardian: Canadian government ‘knew of plans to dump iron into the Pacific’
- Study: Ocean fertilization for geoengineering: A review of effectiveness, environmental impacts and emerging governance
- Science Insider: Legal? Perhaps. But Controversial Fertilization Experiment May Produce Little Science
- Scientific American: Can Controversial Ocean Iron Fertilization Save Salmon?
Copyright © 2012 by Marine Science Today, a publication of Marine Science Today LLC.