D e v e l o pme n t : E q u a l i t i e s a n d s u s t a i n a b i l i t y through knowledge management and exchange (5.5), and through strengthening the resilience of small vulnerable states (Pillar 6). For these states, this includes more responsive international policies, mechanisms and rules (6.1), enhanced participation in international decision-making processes (6.2) and improved climate financing networks (6.3). The opportunity now is to build on these developments, using the 2013 CHOGM in Sri Lanka to prepare a policy platform for ocean governance that can subsequently be tied to the issues of sustainable coastal livelihoods arising at the 2014 SIDS meeting in Samoa. The stage will then be set for a clear Commonwealth commitment to a comprehensive fisheries and oceans policy at the 2015 CHOGM in Mauritius, a fitting culmination to the series of three Indian Ocean CHOGMs: the ‘Commonwealth Indian Ocean Quinquennium’. Shared international challenges The concerns that the Commonwealth clearly expressed in 2009 about the state of the world’s oceans, and underlined in 2011 at Perth, are shared in many other international fora: the Rio process at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992; the Johannesburg World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002, reinforced again at Rio+20; the conferences of the parties (COPs) for the Climate Change and Biodiversity Conventions; and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Committee on Fisheries (COFI), which has recently held meetings focused explicitly on livelihoods in artisanal and subsistence fisheries (‘small-scale fisheries’ or SSFs). Furthermore, they are an integral part of the post- 2015 negotiation process. The Commonwealth also has a clear interest in the further development of indices of ocean health and benefits1 (see Table 1 for a ranking of Commonwealth countries on this index). The rankings are under development and only indicative at this stage, rather than reliable reflections of national policy performance or ecological sustainability. Table 1 does highlight, however, ten key dimensions of what the oceans contribute to human society: • Sustainably harvested seafood • Artisanal fishing opportunities, noting that SSFs account for more than half the global catch, usually for local consumption and vital for food security and social cohesion in coastal communities • Natural products for sale or export, such as farmed corals, shells, seaweeds, fish for the aquarium trade, sponges and fish oils; carbon storage, in coastal wetland ecosystems – mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass beds, which are better sinks than terrestrial forests Commonwealth Governance Handbook 2013/14 114 Coastal erosion in Grenada Nicholas Watts
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