Artificial Islands in South China Sea

Artificial islands located in the South China Sea are being constructed by dredging material and piling it up on reefs, destroying corals and important natural habitat in the process. The oceans reefs are already under stress due to climate change and warming sea temperatures, this destruction is only adding to their overall decline. Furthermore, these artificial islands only permit a safety zone to be established around them up to 500m, and artificial islands do not have the same status as natural islands and do not have territorial sea of their own. This means attempts to exert control over otherwise international waters on the basis that they are territorial waters surrounding artificial islands is in violation of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China is a signatory to. Attempts to monopolize economic control over those waters is also in breach of the same treaty because exclusive economic zones extend only from territorial waters, which are not present around wholly artificial islands. The results are both environmentally destructive and in direct violation of international agreements, understandably causing considerable tension in the area. The provocative placement and militarized nature of these artificial installations may eventually have a human as well as environmental cost. Additionally, the tensions have resulted in an almost lawlessness to exist in the island chain, which has resulted in extensive unregulated fishing. However, there is hope to preserve and restore natural habitat. Understanding the causes of the environmental degradation in the area, what can be done to increase preservation and restoration of marine life in the area?

Over 971 acres of reefs have been destroyed and replaced with land, just in the case of these 5 artificial islands controlled by china. This was determined of summing the total area of these new artificial islands. At least double the amount of the sum is expected to have been damaged in order to construct the islands in the first place.

Many political disputes have been brought up between neighboring countries such as Vietnam, China, Taiwan, and Malaysia on territory and occupation islands for their oils deposits, fishing grounds, and strategic grounds for military purposes. With surrounding countries rapidly developing around the Spratly islands, high traffic shipping lanes has disastrous impact on the near islands ecosystem in many different ways. Over exploitation on natural resources on these islands has also caused many physical disruptions such as pollution due to its center location of Asia's industrial revolution.

The Spratly islands is home to many sea birds and turtles along with other marine animals residing on the islands in the South China sea. The hawksbill turtle is one of the marine species that nests on these islands despite the islands inhabited by humans for military usages. These numbers are depleting over time as development on the islands increase. Introduced animals to the islands such as dogs has also caused disruption for the turtles to return to the islands for nesting and even killed when on the island for food sources at an alarming rate.

Little information is known on the seabirds on these islands due to the access and ability to study the biodiversity but some species of seabirds that are known to also nest on the islands are streaked shearwater, brown booby, red-footed booby, great crested tern, and white tern. It is likely that these birds normally reside on the much smaller neighboring islands in the South China Sea. It is known that seabirds that reside on the main occupied islands are shot at and have their nests raided.

Commercial fishing from these countries also caused a consequential toll on marine life and corals in the area by its fishing style. Over 50% of the world's fishing vessels operate in the South China Sea (Ocean Security Project, 2019). Aside from using explosives for fishing, trawling is one of the most damaging methods used by fisherman's which uses ships connected to a large net that drags a net mid water or on the ocean floor and collects anything in its path. Usually, when trawling, many coral reefs are damaged/break from being caught within the nets and killed. Not only are the reefs damaged during this process, but this fishing method also leads to over fishing and unnecessary by catch. There was also over 200kg of KCn solutions were also confiscated during a regular routine patrol which is used for fishing poisoning. This method not only kills fish for harvesting but chemically reacts to the coral reefs in the area which kills or affects its lifespan.

Two organizations which are the United Nations Environmental Program and the Global Environmental Facility have come together to address the overfishing in the area. Managing these fisheries have been divided into three sections. These sections are ecosystem, research and education, and politics.

The ecosystem practice is based on combating the overfishing in the area and finding ways to reduce the amount of marine life being taken out of the ocean and preserving the organisms in the ocean. By reducing the disruption in the area, this will increase marine organism population which is what this group specializes in.

Research and education is the next practice that is used to direct the attention to the fisheries and locals themselves to educate them on what they are doing to the environment and the importance on preserving the environment as much as possible. This group is called the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Council (SEAFDEC).

The last portion in managing fisheries is the politics side. I find this very important to discuss because of where the fishing boats harvest their resources from are close to other countries. China has the most rights in harvesting resources in the south china sea but since the area is also along the perimeter of other countries, there are many disputes on territory among 10 other countries.

Currently, there are many different types of harmful fishing methods that can be harmful for the environment that is used within the Spratly islands. By enforcing better regulations and rules, this will further protect the possibility of overfishing in the area but also protect the life of the reefs. First off, the only types of fishing that should be allow are purse seine, gillnets, long lining, and pole and line. These methods to harvest fish are considered sustainable because the of the avoidance of damaging the reefs unlike trawling. Enforcing these rules can be controlled by government officials from different countries that have mutual understandings of the importance on preserving the reef and want to protect them. Groups similar to the coast guard could patrol areas in the Spratly islands ensuring that other harmful methods of fishing aren't being used from commercial fisheries.

The only issue with apply this solution is the lack of funding and cooperation with countries and fisheries. Getting financial aid with regulations like these are complicated because there aren't much countries that would want to cause any decrease to economy. Since fisheries provide an income to countries economy, they are not supported as much as they should be. This factor is also implemented into cooperation with other countries as well. There are some countries that have regulations with fishing but are avoided due to the lack of policy's that aren't corrupt or countries that won't accept bribery and avoidance of police.

Another possible solution for government officials to act upon is to grant permission for organizations to plant coral seeds in the area to make up for the losses from the artificial islands. By doing so, this would compensate for the damages that the countries has caused to the environment in the area. To further protect the new coral that would be planted, planting the corals in waters that aren't in high traffic areas of boats and ships would be ideal so that there are no accidental collisions or fishing disturbances. Along side this method, there should be marine protected areas (MPA) to further enforce regulations to protect the area. Having these areas protected is important to restrict boats and vessels from being in the area and causing any disruption. MPA's have shown to be successful is most cases such as the MPA that was created in California. In this study, scientists compared data in the area before and after the MPA's implication and found that life within the perimeter of the MPA has been beneficial for the environment.

The final suggestion to address this issue is to expand the land needed for the artificial islands around the reef. By constructing larger land mass around the reef with sand and environmental safe debris, it would create more opportunity for countries to utilize these parts of the land instead of building physically on top of the reef its self. Doing this will cause less damage to the reef itself and provide a better chance for the reef to avoid disturbance. This option is better than having the actual island built on top the reef itself and can be pursued by using the perimeter of the reef as a base to build up sand to create the extension to the existing area of land.

Despite the conflicts between neighboring countries on the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a much larger issue must be addressed. The environment is being disrupted due to the disturbances that we are doing to the area. From the construction of the artificial islands to the fisheries over harvesting and damaging the ecosystems in the area, the environment is one thing that countries around the Spratly Islands should have mutual terms for. Preserving the ecosystem is important to focus on especially since an extreme amount of damage was already done to the reef and marine life. All parties have an economic interest in maintaining sustainable fishing in these waters. By implementing these suggestions of different fishing methods, coast regulators, replanting reefs, creating large marine protected areas (MPA's), and an expansion of land over seafloors instead of expanding on top of reefs, it will give more opportunity for the environment and marine life to recover and thrive. Although implementing these solutions may be difficult due to the Spratly islands being in international waters and countries having territorial disputes, doing this may benefit the environment for the greater good and help restore what was damaged.

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