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John Virdin, director of the Ocean and Coastal Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, will speak on the panel "Steering Africa’s Blue Economy: The Role of International Law and Lessons for Other Maritime Regions" at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law April 1.
Africa is surrounded by three of the world’s five oceans, with a coastline spanning 26,000 nautical miles. Historically, non-African nations have been the greatest beneficiaries of the waters off African coasts and the resources within them. The vast majority of fish caught in African waters is caught by foreign commercial fishing fleets and is shipped away to Asian and European countries. Much of this fishing is illegal and the key driver of over-exploitation of marine resources. In addition to overfishing, exploitation of newly discovered energy resources, degradation of the marine environment, climate change, and transnational organized crime such as piracy and drug trafficking increasingly threaten African waters.
Virdin and others will address these topics as well as discuss whether the lessons of regional cooperation and competition in Africa can provide lessons for harnessing the blue economies of the Caribbean, the Pacific, and other maritime regions.
For more information, visit the event website.
