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As the forlorn wreckage of our spring and summer calendars floats through our inboxes in the form of emails cancelling events, I take huge comfort from the rising tide of online activities, the release of pent-up energy by people working from home (or, like the Archbishop of Canterbury, from their place of worship) and discovering new skills on Zoom, Teams and other online conferencing platforms.  In our private lives and enterprises, people are getting round the need to travel to make essential decisions and to entertain each other. The world is changing.  Yet some parts of it are moving at a different pace.  While the individuals instinctively adapt and respond to challenges, in some official quarters there is a danger that the coronavirus is becoming an excuse to postpone important decisions about the health of our planet that could perfectly well take place online.

This, for example, was meant to be the “super year” for ocean conservation and climate change, culminating in a marriage of climate and ocean talks at the UN climate conference, COP 26, in Glasgow in November.  On the way, there was to be a new addition to the UN Law of the Sea, a law on the protection of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction to be agreed at a meeting in New York this month, now postponed.  There was to be another chance for this law to be finalised at a UN conference in Lisbon in June – postponed too, as the Olympic Games in Japan a month later almost certainly will be. June was also supposed to see the four-yearly IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseilles.  There are also the usual meetings of regional fisheries management organisations which are meant to manage our oceans.  At best, postponing all these discussions means a serious loss of momentum, at worst it means actual harm will be done.

Around our coasts the legitimate activities of inshore fishermen have been disrupted by the closure of international markets to their shellfish and the restrictions on the domestic restaurant trade.  One hope is that hungry consumers, who would happily learn to cook unfamiliar fish such as gurnard or ling, can be connected with fishermen and local outlets online, in a temporary reversal of globalisation.   Ports are facing restrictions, but the real worry is that while legitimate activities are winding down in our seas, illegality and plunder will be getting going.

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