Sustainability Issues Of Somali Coastal Current Large Marine Ecosystem

Since ancient times, Pirate stories and legends have taken an important place in coastal nations’ culture. The myth says that piracy is related to treasure quests and to finding places to hide the loot. Pirates have traveled around the globe from Europe up to the south-east part of Asia and conquered all the oceans for that purpose which have led to labelling some parts of the world as piracy niche like the Caribbean areas. In today’s world, maritime piracy is real and has not died yet; Somali pirates are among the dangerous ever known all along the horn of Africa as robbers in the waters of Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya defined in other words as the Somali coastal current.

Somali Coastal Current LME spreads over 844 524 km2 going from the top of the Horn of Africa, being bordered in the west by Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania, limited by Comoro Islands in the West and framed by the northern tip of Madagascar in its south. This LME’s particularity covers its unique bathymetry from the tectonic aspects of the Indian Ocean as well as its content of about 0. 98% of the world’s coral reefs and 0. 01% of the world’s sea mounts.

According to the US NOAA, more than 4/5 of the ocean remains unrevealed and yet unknown which may trigger to think about the existence of a hidden treasure that best attracts pirates in the Somali coastal current LME. Actually, oceans are involved directly or indirectly to the living of every alive creature, including humans and all living beings, on the Earth. In other terms, it is assumed that oceans are vital to life on the planet, but LMEs are more concerned about that vital function as they produce more for living than high seas.

In contrast, researchers state that human activities, mainly pollution, have serious impacts that mostly oceans have to bear (TER HALLE Alexandra, PEREZ Emile, 2018). Apart from pollution, other human bad practices also harm LMEs which, according to the long term projection, will destroy that natural treasure we are granted.

The purpose of this report is to determine whether the benefits in terms of goods and services provided by the Somali coastal current LME could cope with the threats from humans in a long term scale.

Somali Coastal Current goods and services

Basic needs: goods

Human being, from its first appearance on Earth has traveled, undertaken researches, observed, etc. to fulfill basic needs. Maslow, a great thinker has set a model to classify hierarchically those needs and found out that the first level need that has to be satisfied is the physical survival need including the need for shelter, sleep, food, drink and oxygen. Ocean has an important role to play in fulfilling those most basic needs as it contributes in producing more than half of the oxygen in the atmosphere, it plays host to the underwater fauna and flora with complex interdependent food networks, and takes part in water cycle.

a) Oxygen

Somali Coastal current LME is among the areas with high average of primary production levels if we refer to the estimates of Chlorophyll-A concentration in Phytoplankton: more than 300g/ cm2 per year. Since Phytoplankton is known to produce up to 50 to 85% of the oxygen in the Earth atmosphere, it can be assumed that LME #31 is highly involved in oxygen production.

b) Food security: Fisheries and aquaculture

Approximately valued at USD 50-60 million, fisheries in the Somali Coastal current support about 15 million of the nearby population. As it is reported that fisheries in that area are mainly dominated by foreign fleets from Europe and South-east Asia, there is not enough data about the native species. However, studies showed that the zone is hosts habitat to varieties like tuna, sharks, mackerels, snappers, perch, groupers, dolphin, wahoo, and barracuda. Apart from that, aquaculture in the zone developed by farming of seaweeds, red algae and prawns.

c) Water supply

Located near the equator, the region hosting the Somali coastal current LME fames for having two main seasons: the rainy seasons and the dry one. Lately, precipitations are lessened, and the area is known to have undergone several droughts. To address that, desalination companies have been consulted.

Well-being: services

a) Safety: Coastal protection

Mangroves: 0. 15% of the Somali coastal current, nearly 1266. 786 km2 is covered by mangrove. The mangrove site is particularly great in diversity as it serves as habitat to migratory birds, sea turtles, shrimps, dugong, stint, Nile crocodiles, crab plover, Sykes monkey and otter

Coral reefs: Thanks to Marine Protected Area, corals around the coast of Somalia are less harmed.

b) Climate and Weather

Cold ocean currents are known to be linked to the location of large coastal deserts. Our area of study, the Somali coastal current is part of those deserts. Wind and current or in other terms ocean and atmosphere are tightly bounded in the Somali Coastal current. In winter, Monsoon blows towards the South-East bringing all current on the South East side of Somalia. And during summer, Monsoon blows towards the north east leading to a coastal upwelling. This regular phenomenon has made that rainy seasons occur two times from March to May and from October to December in that zone.

c) Support to the evolution of technology

Communication: The 21st century is famed for its rapid evolution of information technology. Ocean has important role in that field as it holds communication cable network. The figure below shows us more of that network.

Pharmaceuticals: Even if the Earth’s ocean is not entirely explored, researches prove that it is the new pharmaceutical field of the twenty first century. Many medicines derived from sea vegetation, though waiting for the FDA approval, have been proven effective cure to fatal diseases like cancer and AIDS. Eleutherobin is part of those anticancer agents sourced from soft corals. Somaliensis originating from Somali coasts is part of those soft corals.