THE UNIVERSITY OF BENIN, Benin city, Nigeria
33/34 th Convocation and Founders’ Day Lecture
Biography
Professor Mike Elliott, FIBiol, CBiol, PhD, BSc is the Chair of Estuarine and Coastal
Sciences in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Hull, UK, and the Director of the University’s Institute of Estuarine and Coastal Studies (IECS). In the Department he is an educator at undergraduate and postgraduate level and coordinates a Taught MSc degree in Aquatic Resources Management as well as teaching on an MSc degree in Global Biodiversity: conservation and management .
The Institute carries out pure and applied research and offers advice and consultancy to government agencies, industries and other bodies within the fields of estuarine, coastal and marine sciences and management throughout Europe.
Professor Elliott is the current President of the international Estuarine & Coastal
Sciences Association (ECSA), a learned society with a worldwide membership. He is the author/editor of 8 books and edited proceedings and more than 130 scientific papers and in his research has collaborated with individuals worldwide. He has advised governmental bodies, industry and research programmes in many countries worldwide and taught and led workshops to students and practitioners around the world, for example in China, Iran, Russia, South Africa and Europe. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Biology and has been a member of research and teaching review panels for assessing universities in many European countries.
Professor Elliott has supervised many research students for their PhD, MPhil and
MSc degrees and has examined students in countries worldwide. Prior to becoming an academic, he was the Senior Marine Biologist for the forerunner of the Scottish
Environmental Protection Agency in Edinburgh; consequently he has 35 years of experience in tackling marine and estuarine environmental issues. His research fields encompass the understanding of the biology of estuarine and marine organisms, their interaction with the physico-chemical environment, the effects of human activities and the mechanisms of managing adverse effects, and policy and governance for management.
Throughout his activities he is supported by his wife of 34 years, Jan, and he is tolerated by his 3 sons. For his sins, he is a long-standing (and perhaps longsuffering) supporter of the football team Sheffield Wednesday, and a lover of jazz and rock music.
Education for Sustainable Development - aiming for wins for society, economy and ecology.
My thanks to the Vice -Chancellor, Professor Nwanze, and the University of Benin for inviting me to give the 33/34 th Convocation and Founders’ Day Lecture of the university. I can see that I am following an illustrious group of previous speakers and so I am greatly honoured to accept the invitation. The invitation arose through a visit by the Vice-Chancellor to my university, the University of Hull in the United Kingdom in September 2008. I am delighted to be making my first visit to Nigeria although I know of the country from postgraduate students and fellow Nigerians living and
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working in the UK. Hull has a large number of Nigerian undergraduate, MSc, MBA and PhD students as well as Nigerians on the staff - indeed, one of my close colleagues Dr Alex Ibhadon is a graduate of the University of Benin. Of course, as a football fan, I know of the Nigerian national team and its players playing in the African
Nations Cup and in Europe!
I bring greetings from the Vice Chancellor of Hull, Professor David Drewry - we note that our universities have many things in common especially in that we aim for excellence in teaching and research and that both our universities and our graduates aim to play a large role in society. I can see that both of our universities take the view that universities should not just be ivory towers in which excellent research is carried out for its own sake but that our raison d’être should be to inform society and produce well-qualified and active members of that society. We both aim to ensure that our graduates are prepared for a valuable role in society and that they can enhance the quality of life, assist with the creation of wealth and further knowledge.
In this lecture, I aim to discuss the environmental problems faced by all countries, and especially developing countries, the lessons that can be learned between countries and the role of education in achieving a sustainable future for our countries.
In particular I want to emphasise the role of educators and universities in helping to achieve that sustainable development through their teaching, research and reach-out into the wider society. I want to emphasise that sustainable development is embedded into education so that the present generation does not leave a legacy of a degraded environment for future generations. I see that previous lectures have included aspects of economic development and education - in this lecture I want to link these together with a need for environmental management.
Since the industrial revolution in most developed countries, environmental degradation has been the cost for economic prosperity. From the 1700s to the mid
1900s, the first world countries made the mistake of not thinking about or looking after the environment while aiming for economic growth. Hence waste materials were released into the waters, the air and on to the land usually with consequences for the natural fauna and flora and often with consequences for human health. The polluted lands, air and waters became accepted as the price to be paid for economic development and prosperity. Because of this, I want to caution that the mistakes made by the developed countries throughout the past 3 centuries should not now be made by developing countries as they strive for economic and social prosperity.
My role is not to lecture Nigeria in what it should do but rather to indicate what it can do to ensure a sustainable and successful management of its environment. I can see that your vast country, as with others, faces many environmental challenges - from the management of waste especially domestic waste, air pollution especially in the major cities due to vehicle emissions, the use and disposal of consumer goods, and the degradation by pollution of your natural areas such as the vast and internationally renowned Niger Delta.
I wish to take as a starting point the Ecosystem Approach as provided by the
Convention for Biological Diversity - of which Nigeria is a signatory, and I want to focus on how we turn the goals and aspirations for our environment into actions for the benefit of society, the economy and the natural and human environment. I hope
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to show that we need to build on the Rio 1992 and Jo’burg 2002 UN Conventions for
Environment and Development, and realise that we cannot do any better than summarise our approach as the 1992 summit’s Agenda 21 which exhorted us to
‘ think global, act local
’. In particular, I wish to emphasise that this thinking has to be embedded throughout our educational systems and especially in our graduates as a vehicle for getting it embedded into and accepted by society.
I will emphasise that we need to take a holistic view in managing and understanding our natural and human environment and that we need to adopt The Ecosystem
Approach which aims to achieve the protection and enhancement of ecological goods and services while at the same time delivering socio-economic goods and services for the benefit of the population. I will further emphasise that we need to fulfil a set of tenets, i.e. fundamental rules, in order to get a successful and sustainable environment (both natural and human). In these, we need our actions to be environmentally and ecologically sustainable, economically viable, technologically feasible, socially desirable or at least tolerable, legally permissible, administratively achievable and politically expedient -
I’ll return to these later and indicate why and how we can embed these in our teaching and research. Hence we need to produce graduates through our courses which incorporate good natural environmental science, such as biology and chemistry, environmental engineering, environmental economics and governance.
‘The Ecosystem Approach’
The definition and use of the principles of the Ecosystem Approach were endorsed under the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) as the primary framework for promoting the management, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.
It is of note that most countries, including Nigeria, are now embedding these aspects in its environmental thinking.
At its most comprehensive, the concept of the Ecosystem Approach has been further defined and expanded by the CBD Diversity as:
‘ a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. The application of the Ecosystem Approach will help to reach a balance of the three objectives of the
Convention: conservation, sustainable use and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources
’.
As such, the Ecosystem Approach requires an understanding of the way in which society manages the adverse effects of its activities, including mitigation and/or compensation and especially the adverse effects of human activities on natural resources in general, genetic or otherwise. In order to achieve that sustainable management, the CBD indicates that the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach should be based upon 12 guiding principles (see Box 1). It is of especial note that those principles emphasise that of course we should protect the natural system but also that Man is an integral component of the system. Indeed, I take the view that
Man brings the problems to the environment but also is the root of the solutions!
(Note that I am using the term Man to denote all of humanity - I am not suggesting that only men are the cause of environmental problems - although perhaps this should be the topic of a further lecture!)
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Box 1: Twelve principles of the Ecosystem Approach (CBD, 2000)
1. The objectives of management of land, water and living resources are a matter of societal choices.
2. Management should be decentralised to the lowest appropriate level.
3. Ecosystem managers should consider the effects (actual or potential) of their activities on adjacent and other ecosystems.
4. Recognising potential gains from management, there is usually a need to understand and manage the ecosystem in an economic context. Any such ecosystem-management programme should: a) Reduce those market distortions that adversely affect biological diversity; b) Align incentives to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable use; c) Internalise costs and benefits in the given ecosystem to the extent feasible.
5. Conservation of ecosystem structure and functioning, in order to maintain ecosystem services, should be a priority target of the ecosystem approach.
6. Ecosystem must be managed within the limits of their functioning.
7. The ecosystem approach should be undertaken at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales.
8. Recognising the varying temporal scales and lag-effects that characterize ecosystem processes, objectives for ecosystem management should be set for the long term.
9. Management must recognise that change is inevitable.
10. The ecosystem approach should seek the appropriate balance between, and integration of, conservation and use of biological diversity.
11. The ecosystem approach should consider all forms of relevant information, including scientific and indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices.
12. The ecosystem approach should involve all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines.
There are several policy drivers which focus attention on the need to target protection measures on the ecosystem processes that support biodiversity and, as a result, the
Ecosystem Approach r equires that ‘ conservation of ecosystem structure and functioning, in order to maintain ecosystem services, should be a priority target ’. For example, we recommend to governments that environmental protection should not just be site-specific and based on special species and habitats, but be taken forward to encompass a more holistic, functionally-based approach. It is of note that in many countries, both developed and developing, biodiversity protection is a key government priority although biodiversity research may often be under-developed.
We need to ensure that government and environmental protection agencies emphasise the need to take the ecosystem approach and thus a wide and holistic view of the environment, its features and threats all of which should be underpinned by good and adequate science. In this, we also have to acknowledge the importance of working with all statutory bodies and stakeholders.
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The environmental problems in Nigeria, as in many countries, are many and varied. I aim to show that the problems faced by Nigeria in achieving a sustainable environment are no different from all countries - the problems may originate from inside or outside the country but they are to be faced collectively. The internallygenerated problems concern the production of waste and its disposal, the burgeoning population with its increased demands for goods, energy and a higher standard of living, the resulting use of natural resources. The externally-generated problems include, for example, the effects of global change, increased desertification, sea level rise and climate change, the movement of plants and animals, some of which may affect the local balance of nature.
Hence we need educate our students and graduates into a mind-frame where they are equipped to help tackle these problems and, in particular, we need to ensure that they have the ability to look at problems widely. In the jargon, we need to get them to think ‘ out of the box ’ - of course we need them to be good scientists, in being thorough in studying and managing environmental problems. We need to ensure that they have a rigorous approach as scientists and are trained in hypothesis generation and testing. At the same time we need them to embrace all aspects of environmental thinking and to take ideas from wherever is suitable. As an example of this, and again forgive the jargon, we can make use of the DPSIR approach as a philosophy to study, understand, predict and control the excesses of human actions. The DPSIR approach has been used as a framework in order to assess the causes, consequences and responses to change. This identifies ‘ Drivers ’ of change leading to individual ‘
Pressures
’ causing ‘
State change ' in the system. In turn, these lead to
‘ Impacts ’ on the human system which then require a ‘ Response ’ under which the problems or potential problems are addressed.
For example, a driver is that society wants energy and so each type of energy production, including fossil fuel extraction and use, causes a suite of problems, what we may regard as pressures on the system. In turn, these will result in state changes to the natural environment, as witnessed by oil pollution in the Niger Delta, in which the fauna and flora have been degraded, habitats greatly affected, foods polluted and contaminated, and the other uses and users of the area affected. Thus these state changes, if not unchecked, will result in impacts to the human system. For example, the degraded and oil polluted landscape of the Niger Delta will no longer produce fish and shellfish fit for human consumption, there may not even be sufficient food produced and the land and waters may be unfit to use, either in production or recreation. Each of these impacts then requires a response by society, through its law, administrative bodies such as the Federal Environmental protection Agency and economic instruments to control the worst excesses of industry.
Box 2: The DPSIR approach
Driving forces:
(human activities and economic sectors responsible for the pressures) e.g. urban developments;
Pressures :
(particular stressors on the environment in the form of direct pressures such as emissions) e.g. sewage discharges, increased organic inputs;
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State change :
(changes in environmental variables (geo/physical/chemical/biological) which describe the characteristics and conditions of the coastal zone); these changes occur in both structural components and functioning processes, e.g. reduced oxygen levels, increased water turbidity, degraded communities;
Impact :
(changes in the ecosystem resources affecting human uses and health) e.g. loss of amenity areas, fisheries populations, eutrophication, reduced biodiversity;
Response :
(measurement of different policy options as a response to the environmental problems) e.g. economic and legislative instruments, the actions following the use of indicators.
The Millennium Assessment ( http://millenniumassessment.org/en/index.htm
) recently summarised the way in which human activities disrupt natural processes and thus emphasised the need for legislation and policy drivers to control those adverse effects. That legislation and policy forms the dominant part of the Response in the
DPSIR framework which in turn should control the Drivers and Pressures which cause environmental change (the State Change and Impact of the approach). As a result of considerable international and national policies aimed at delivering improved protection for the environment, there are currently several policy drivers which require the application of the Ecosystem Approach to the management of the environment.
Within these examples, I aim to show that if we can get our management of our environment right then there will be
‘triple wins’ for a sustainable future - for the society, economy and ecology. The greatest challenge, however, is to get the stakeholders in society to embrace the problem and thus be a part of the solution. Of course, it may be difficult for scientists bring about the required change but they have a fundamental role in advising and informing society in order to effect solutions. We can put over the message but realise that often in order bring ‘hearts and minds’ on board then we need not just to talk to scientists but, if we want to have an impact, then academics and scientists have to engage with the policy makers and implementers. As such we may have to concentrate on the aspect that politicians see as most important - the economy - especially in these financially troubled times. As
President Clinton replied, when asked what he thought was the most important topic,
‘ it’s the economy, stupid ’! Perhaps another way of expressing this is that if we grab people by their wallets and purses then their hearts and minds follow!
Ecosystem Goods and Services
Perhaps 15 years ago, if I was trying to get industrialists and politicians to bring about environmental improvements then I would firstly emphasise the ecology whereas now I will start with the economy. If we can get environmental management good for the economy while at the same time protecting and enhancing the ecology then that management will deliver wider benefits and will be sustainable.
Can I emphasise that it is paramount that we think in terms of Ecosystem goods and services in order for society to realise the value of our environment. In this, I am
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not just thinking of the ‘tree-huggers’, those well-meaning individuals who want to protect nature because of its intrinsic value - the ‘cute and cuddly’ approach to looking after the great apes, the charismatic megafauna such as sea mammals and birds. I want to emphasise that of course it is noble to protect the wildlife for its own value but we should not underestimate the value of protecting biodiversity for its wider benefits to society. Indeed, this may even help to bring on board society and politicians.
Although my work, and indeed a lot of our research and teaching effort at the
University of Hull is on the aquatic environment and especially the estuarine and coastal environment, all of my messages follow equally well for all environments - land, air and water. The terrestrial, freshwater, marine and estuarine ecosystems and their biological diversity deliver a set of goods and services which remain essential to
Man’s economic prosperity and other aspects of our welfare. Importantly, the concept of ecosystem goods and services is of value to environmental managers and policy makers as it allows the linkages between human and ecological systems to be understood by non-scientists, stakeholders and other interested parties.
Ecosystem services can be defined as ‘ the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfil human life
’. For example, in the aquatic environment ecosystem, services include maintaining hydrological cycles, regulating climate, contaminant purification, and storing and cycling essential nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. In contrast, ecosystem goods
‘ represent the materials produced that are obtained from natural systems for human use ’. Examples in the marine environment include biological and non-biological materials such as food (such as fish, shellfish, seaweeds), building materials (such as sand and gravels), and medicinal products from marine plants, microbes and animals. The definition can be expanded to include recent uses and resources from the marine environment such as marine renewable energy, e.g. from tidal power and offshore wind and wave power. These examples demonstrate that ecosystem services occur at different scales, for example climate regulation and carbon sequestration occur at a global level, whereas waste treatment occurs at a local or regional scale.
Ecosystem goods and services are particularly abundant in coastal systems as a country such as Nigeria, with its abundance of natural resources and unique habitats, is acutely aware. For example, the Niger Delta is one of the pre-eminent mangrove areas in the world and requires protection if its goods and services are to continue to be delivered. These goods and services, and the natural capital stocks that produce them, are critical to the functioning of the earth’s life-support systems. Recently, there have been many studies on the valuation of goods and services provided by coastal systems although references to valuing goods and services within the literature date from the mid-1960s and early 1970s. Ecosystem goods and services contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total global economic value.
Human-Induced Problems and Changes in Ecosystems
I can only give a few examples of humaninduced problems and so I’ll concentrate on waste disposal and pollution and energy and climate change.
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For many years, pollution was a major problem in the developed countries and it may be argued that their industrialisation was built on degrading the environment.
Unfortunately, these problems now occur in the developing countries. For example, in Europe we had rivers and estuaries that were so polluted that fish were killed and even the Thames estuary in London which runs past the Houses of Parliament smelled so bad that tea on the terrace was not possible - this, above all, caused the politicians to act!
Such pollution is no longer a problem in western countries and has been tackled by improved legislation, governance and technology. We have the suite of laws and agreements, we can design industry and purification plants, and we have society’s acceptance to pay for these improvements such that the pollution has been solved.
However, pollution is now a major problem in the developing countries, as witnessed along the urban waterways in Nigeria, the Niger Delta and coastal areas. Hence the challenge for these countries is to achieve economic development without it being at the expense of the environment. Indeed, if industrial development only comes at the price of a long-term degradation of the land, sea and air such that recreation, fisheries, food production and human health is affected then this may be a price too high to pay.
In addition to pollution from urban areas, industries and the land, in most of our countries, many of the problems result directly or indirectly from our energy needs.
This applies all the way from environmental problems due to exploring for and exploiting oil and gas reserves, to waste such as greenhouse gases and radioactive waste and heated water produced by thermal power plants. Of course, countries aim to be sustainable in energy - not just exploiting natural reserves, of which Nigeria has an abundance, but for those countries to take a role in helping others to diversify - there needs to be the movement to renewable and green energy while also protecting security of supply, jobs and standards of living. We need to aim to create a sustainable energy future by planning for the future for when the oil in all our countries runs out, which of course it will, but also to cope with the adverse environmental effects of producing energy now. It is necessary to consider those adverse effects - from the deliberate and accidental releases of oil, through the impacts of fossil fuel power stations, to the effects of renewal sources. We have the techniques and technologies to minimise those adverse impacts - the only question is whether we are willing to act to control the environmental effects.
It is widely accepted that the end point of human energy use is climate change.
G lobal change may be regarded, and forgive the jargon, as an ‘ exogenic unmanaged pressure
’, that is it originates from outside the region on which it is having an impact.
As such it can only be controlled by global action and to a much lesser extent countries acting on their own but not at all by a region acting alone. It is a pressure which will lead to change but one where a country or region has to respond to the consequences perhaps more than the causes.
While of course only countries acting together can tackle this, each area may regard climate change as an external force against which we have to respond to the consequences. These consequences may be changed climate patterns, global warming, sea-level rise, increased deforestation, loss of wetlands such as the
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mangroves in the Niger Delta. These changes are requiring us to regard habitats as both an intrinsic value but also a practical value. In the northern hemisphere we have shown that by recreating wetlands which were lost 250 years ago, we can create areas for water storage in the event of flooding, areas for better ecology and areas to increase the safety for human settlements. At the time of the tsunami in SE Asia, we all saw the consequences of removing mangroves which in turn removed protection against tidal surges and resulted in much greater damage.
Our prevailing philosophy, and one which can be learned from the west, is that we should be working with nature not against it - there are many example of Man trying to stop nature - we now know that one an area has been managed then you have to keep managing it otherwise it reverts to normal. There is a saying that if you ‘ push mother nature out of the door with a broomstick, she will come back in through the window with a pitchfork
’ - hence there is the need to look for imaginative solutions.
Similarly, even energy rich countries such as Nigeria are required to have an energy policy that guarantees sustainable energy. Perhaps whilst a country has an abundance of fossil fuel this could remove the internal impetus to look for and develop renewable energies. However, if a country thinks globally then it should come to the conclusion that renewable energy is needed to remove greenhouse gases. Nigeria fully sees the effects of climate change through the increased desertification of its northern areas and the resulting social problems. It is encouraging to see the northern African countries now looking at imaginative solutions to tackle climate change such as the solar potential of Saharan and Sub-
Saharan Africa. With political courage and imagination this could become a power house for other areas with imaginative solutions such as massive solar energy farms to transport energy to Europe. Of course, this requires the need to overcome political divides but, as has been emphasised many times, global problems need global solutions.
As introduced above, the DPSIR framework gives a philosophy for describing and determining the causes of ecosystem state change and the resultant impacts on the human uses of the system. Human-induced change in marine ecosystems derives ultimately from a set of main Drivers, such as the need for navigation, land for infrastructure or agriculture or for food from fisheries and shellfisheries. Each of these Drivers then leads to a set of Pressures such as, respectively from the above examples, dredging and dredged material disposal, land-claim and the loss of wetlands, and fishing effects and organic enrichment from fish farms. At its most basic, and again as an indication of the need to simplify the problems, the causes of human-induced change can be reduced to two categories:

biological or non-biological substances/materials/objects placed in the environment as the result of human activities, such as hazardous chemicals, organic matter /sewage, diffuse pollution, infrastructure (e.g. bridges, barriers), and non-indigenous species;

biological or non-biological substances/materials/objects removed by Man from the system such as aggregates, oil and gas, habitat (as loss and land claim), renewable energy, fisheries.
These inputs and extracts from the system may be small or large entities and can be categorised as biological, physical and chemical materials. Hence the nature of
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human impacts in the environment will be related to the fate and effects of these inputs and the effects of removing living and non-living materials from the system.
Furthermore it is necessary to make a distinction between materials which may be introduced without causing a deterioration to the ecosystem health and those which cause a deterioration. For example, a material introduced without harm is termed a contaminant whereas that which causes biological damage is termed a pollutant.
Similarly, a species moved by human activities but which does not displace others or cause a harmful response, at any level of biological organisation is termed an alien or introduced species whereas one causing actual or potential damage is termed an invasive species.
The overall adverse influence of any particular activity on the natural system can be termed its ecological footprint . In general terms, this relates to the area per capita required to produce food, to be occupied by infrastructure and to provide energy or at least to absorb the results of providing energy (e.g. carbon dioxide sequestration). It is also the area defined during an Environmental Impact Assessment for any single activity such as trawling or building a port. While the ecological footprints of some activities may be relatively small, e.g. building localised infrastructure, others may be large, e.g. the global production and transport of food. The quantification of the ecological footprint is most widely developed for terrestrial systems, the land required for food production, the energy requirements by Man and the area required to sequester CO
2
. The concept, however, is poorly developed for marine systems and especially dynamic systems whereby an impact may be at a distance from the site of the stressor. For example, shrimp trawling has an ecological footprint away from its area because of the bycatch of juvenile fishes ultimately affecting the adult stocks.
I am not arguing that we should not use the land and waters and their resources but that we should aim for a wise and sustainable use of resources. It is better to put methods for the control of human-problems into action now rather than correct the mistakes later which is always more expensive in the long run. For example, we should stop pollution at source, by minimising waste and treating that which cannot be stopped. We used to take the view that the ‘solution to pollution is dilution’, i.e. as long as we push our waste into streams and rivers to be carried away or we dispose of it through high chimneys or long pipelines, then we will not see the effects. Of course, we now know that all we are doing in making our problems become someone else’s. Furthermore, as suggested by the architect and philosopher, Buckminster
Fuller, pollution is merely ‘the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time’ - it is indeed true that one person’s pollution is another’s raw materials!
In tackling pollution, I want to argue for the responsibility of all companies, both small and multinational, in exploring and exploiting natural resources - that they need to cultivate an environmental awareness and create environmental management systems. There are many examples where such companies may be more environmentally aware in countries with strong environmental protection than in other countries - hence leading to fears that pollution may be exported from developed to developing countries. Hence they need to ensure that they are as good in the developing world and in the developed world - the former can learn from the environmental governance adopted by other countries. We need to ensure sufficient resources (both funding and suitably qualified staff) for enforcement and not allow
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countries to export pollution by getting away with poor environmental practices in some countries that would not be allowed in others.
Accordingly, all of this requires a well-trained, expert staff who know the problems and how to deal with them, who can think widely and bring imagination to dealing with environmental problems.
Ecosystem Condition (Health)
It is valuable to think of the health of our environment in the same way as we think about human health.
The terms ‘health’ and ‘damage’ relate to the well-being of a system and its ability to carry out a set of functions and, in the present context, relate to biological well-being, whether that biology relates to the natural system or to Man.
Can I emphasise to the scientists that it is of utmost importance to be able to communicate your ideas to a wide audience but to use terms known by that audience. As such, we can think about a damaged environment in the same way as a damaged body - the terms will be the same. This also indicates to students that they should not stay within boundaries in using ideas , again ‘ thinking out of the box ’ - this may be needed to get across your message and thus make a valuable contribution to the debate. For example, if an idea can be taken for the human health sciences to use in the environmental health assessment then it should be used.
At its most basic, we should think of a system, whether a body, an ecosystem or a planet, in terms of its fitness-for-survival hence incorporating both acute and chronic degradation but also relating to a fitness-for-purpose (once the purpose of the system has been defined). This therefore illustrates the importance of defining and where possible quantifying ecosystem goods and services which by definition are impaired in an unhealthy or degraded ecosystem. As human activities are responsible for that degradation then society chooses de facto to impair the ecosystem and thus has control over its recovery. For example, society can decide whether sewage should be discharged into the sea and whether the cost of treatment and remediation should be spent.
A healthy ecosystem will be a system that encompasses all necessary functions and has the components consistent with the prevailing physico-chemical regime. It has the capability to resist, or recover from, disturbance and is thus regarded as being resilient. It will have all the expected components of the ecosystem and the expected linkages between such components. Similarly, an unhealthy or degraded ecosystem is lacking in one or more of these features. In determining the health and well-being of the environment, in addressing the causes of any deterioration in ecosystem health and in re-creating healthy systems, parallels can be drawn with the terminology used by the medical fields (Box 3). An assessment of change from a perceived normal situation can be followed by a prediction of the direction in which ecosystem change progresses if human influences are not removed, thus allowing causes of change to be mediated, mitigated or compensated. Of course, actions to prevent adverse change are the most important aspect of environmental management.
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Box 3: Comparison of the health of medical and environmental systems (*2 using an extension of symptoms for the diagnosis of ecosystem pathology)
Determination of unhealthy systems
Medical
Diagnosis
Prognosis
Treatment
=
=
=
Environmental
Assessment (*2)
Prediction
Remediation / Creation
Recovery = Recovery / Restoration
Prevention = Prevention
There are a few well-defined categories of changes to ecosystems as the result of human activities which, again following the medical analogy, in general can be reduced to a set of symptoms of ecosystem pathology , i.e. adverse changes to the system. These may include the loss of biodiversity, increased disease in organisms, and overstimulation of the natural system to produce excess organic matter. A deviation in any of those symptoms, from an optimum that would be regarded as necessary for the healthy functioning of an ecosystem, indicates a reduction in health of a system. As a management and monitoring tool, any of these symptoms can be regarded as an indicator of adverse change. Some of these features relate to the ecosystem functioning whereas others modify biodiversity.
Mechanisms of Governance and International Agreements
All countries, if they are to achieve a sustainable environment, require a well-founded system of governance - this is the suite of laws and agreements and a system of administrative bodies with the powers and staff to enforce these. Nigeria has started on the road to an environmental awareness and realises that the protection of its environment has economic and social as well as ecological benefits. It has started to embrace international conventions such as:
1971 Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention)

This intergovernmental provides the framework for national action and international co-operation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

It establishes specific guidelines on wetland restoration which were approved by all member governments in 1999.
 It also provides for ‘compensation’ measures, which may include elements of restoration, to be taken if any designated Ramsar site is adversely affected by activities considered to be in the ‘urgent national interest’.
1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (Biodiversity Convention)

Requires contracting parties to develop National Biodiversity Strategies and
Action Plans, including restoration targets for habitats and species.
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
Establishes three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of genetic resources.
 Article 8(f) states that each member state shall ‘rehabilitate and restore degraded ecosystems and promote the recovery of threatened species, inter alia , through the development and implementation of plans or other management strategies’.
 Article 9(c) states that each member state shall ‘adopt measures for the recovery and rehabilitation of threatened species and for their reintroduction into their natural habitats under appropriate conditions’.
Nigeria now needs to further develop its environmental protection abilities, again using a well-trained and broadly educated workforce, to rehabilitate degraded areas, prevent further degradation and respond to emerging threats such as climate change and its attendant problems. Before long it will catch up with the developed countries, as long as it can learn from the successes and failures of those countries, and improve habitats, reverse adverse changes, improve compensation and mitigation measures, and ensure action to prevent environmental damage while at the same time allowing economic development. I emphasise that your country should not spend time and effort ‘ reinventing the wheel ’ but merely embrace the best practices from elsewhere while trying to avoid making the mistakes.
In protecting and enhancing biodiversity while at the same time allowing economic development, we c an think in terms of ‘ Carrying capacity ’, and again forgive the scientific jargon. While previously this had an ecological meaning, such as how many fish could an area support, it can also be used to indicate societal aspects such as the ability of an area to support (and thus absorb) a given human activity. For example, a well-mixed, high energy area may have a high carrying capacity to absorb organic wastes without adverse effects being produced. As such, the latter can also be described as the system's assimilative capacity , a term often used to indicate the ability of an area to receive (as in disperse, degrade and assimilate) polluting discharges. But we can take these concepts further and consider the term carrying capacity to have a range of definitions in addition to ecological: physical, social and economic carrying capacity . Physical carrying capacity refers to space limitations, i.e. the number of activities an area can withstand before there is some change to quality, for example number of quays in a port. Social carrying capacity refers to the human population densities an area can sustain before numbers start to decline because of actual or perceptions of amenity decline, a feature related to tourism on the coast. Economic carrying capacity refers to the extent to which an area can become changed before the economic goods and services are adversely affected, for example coastal development for tourism becoming so intensive that the attractiveness of the area declines.
We need to educate our students to think in terms of defining goals for the environment and planning actions - there is the need for the well-accepted sequence from objectives, to indicators, to monitoring, to management. I can see that Nigeria has started on the path followed by other countries towards a hierarchical structure giving a logical framework leading from guiding principles for sustainable development and a vision for the environment, to quantitative indicators and their
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limit/target reference points. There is a say ing that ‘ if you don’t know where you are going then any road will take you there ’ and so all levels of environmental management need to set the ultimate goal, for example in the UK it is ‘ to have safe, productive and biologically diverse seas
’. We then need scientists to create indicators by which this goal can be measured and then to carry out monitoring to determine when we have met that goal and to advise what we should do if the goal has not been met. Hence there is a need for a set of high level environmental objectives and also for the development of social and economic objectives for the environment.
Such high level objectives need to be more quantitative before they can be used in an operational manner, i.e. unless they are quantitative and fully defined then it is not possible to determine whether they have been met, nor what monitoring is required prior to management if they are not met. Business managers will tell you that in order to manage the system then its features have to be measured hence the need for monitoring, under both spatial and temporal scales thus respectively giving the extent and duration of the perceived change. Using this analogy for the environment, objectives set against which monitoring is carried out should be SMART ( specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bounded ).
Such quantitative objectives can therefore be regarded as indicators of change and due to their fundamental use in determining and managing change there has recently been a large amount of research on the development of environmental indicators.
Indicators have variously been termed action levels, triggers for action, thresholds and reference levels but the important point is that monitoring is subsequently required to determine if and when the indicators of change have been exceeded and thus when management measures will be required. As such, and again forgive the jargon, this philosophy and approach is similar to the adoption by environmental protection bodies of Environmental Quality Objectives (EQO) and Environmental
Quality Standards (EQS). EQO are statements which describe the demands of an area, for example the ability for fish to migrate through the Niger delta at all states of the tide. The accompanying EQS are numerical thresholds which should be achieved to ensure that the EQO is met, e.g. that the water column dissolved oxygen should not fall below 5 mg l -1 otherwise a water quality barrier is created. This approach relies on a good scientific underpinning of the links between the EQO and EQS, i.e. fish will not migrate under sufficiently low oxygen levels. Accordingly our environmental scientists require to be taught about all of these aspects.
Such ecosystem objectives have now been produced for many areas and ecosystems; for example those produced by UNEP for ocean management areas
(see Box 4) and these are now being put into actions by many countries.
Box 4: Examples of Ecosystem Objectives for Ocean Management Areas
(OMAs)
Objectives
Maintenance of ecosystem diversity
Maintenance of species diversity
Maintenance of genetic variability within species
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Maintenance of directly impacted species
Maintenance of ecologically dependent species
Maintenance of ecosystem structure and function
Management Frameworks Linking Environmental, Policy and Socio-Economic
Aspects
Socio-economic considerations are becoming increasingly important in effecting environmental management in getting acceptance by society and a higher prioritisation by politicians, policy makers and environmental managers. There are techniques for determining the economic costs and benefits of environmental degradation and thus improvements although these are more well-established for estuarine and coastal areas. The Contingent Valuation methodology and willingness-to-pay techniques allow a value to be placed on the actual and perceived damage to the environment. This then allows the cost of damage prevention and ecosystem restoration to be justified.
The political links to ecology in achieving sustainable management which is accepted by society has recently been defined as 'political ecology'. This discipline aims to combine the fields of ecology and political economy, which together represent a constantly changing interaction between natural and anthropogenic change, and which is influenced by many stakeholders and from local to international scales.
Hence, there is the need to integrate the scales at which ecosystems operate with the scales at which society operates and thus which can be used to manage systems. For example, where the Niger Delta has an importance for fish and shellfish then their management has to accord with the scale of their biology, i.e. it has to encompass catchment, estuary, coastal and open sea domains.
Finally, we should mention the public, societal role in environmental restoration and management. I note that as in many countries, Nigeria has a difficulty in getting the general public to be engaged in environmental protection and recovery. Based on many years experience elsewhere , ‘ citizen-orientated restoration ’, such as pollution control programmes, has had a major impact on the recovery of wetland systems.
This also reinforces the point that some wetlands habitats, such as the Niger Delta, are amenable to restoration whereas open systems are not. Hence, the effort is required in preventing or controlling damaging activities and allowing natural recovery processes to occur.
Despite this, there are administrative and legislative changes required to produce an improved framework allowing restoration and greater environmental management to occur. In this, developing countries such as Nigeria can learn from the successes and failures of other countries. It can learn the lessons to give:

better administrative links allowing stakeholders (government and statutory bodies, landowners for the coastal hinterland and the community) to work together to achieve ecological restoration by sharing responsibility;
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
the development of policy, guidelines, objectives and ecological standards, land and seabed use codes of practice, and indicators of the ecological limits of habitat use;

mechanisms to allow sustainable ecological restoration to be achieved through a combination of statutory mechanisms and agreements, incentives for restoration and compensation, and the implementation of good scientific advice;

control of unsustainable land/seabed use practices and better enforcement of existing controls;

the integration of conservation and management objectives of natural resources;

the better definition of biodiversity and ecological objectives and the better protection of their features;

a better geographic perspective to ecological restoration including development of national, regional, and local biogeographic plans, including zonation schemes and spatial planning.
Hence Nigeria and its Federal Environmental protection Agency are well-placed to build on a well-defined sequence for environmental monitoring and management.
The sequence can be summarised:
(1) The definition of objectives for sustainable uses and users;
(2) The use of a spatial planning framework which sets the objectives into a spatial and temporal context;
(3) The derivation of quantitative indicators which, if met, act as surrogates for the wider health of the environment, as shown by the objectives;
(4) The determination of monitoring strategies to determine compliance with those indicators;
(5) The definition, prior to this sequence, of actions which will be taken in the case of non-compliance;
(6) Ensuring that there is the legislative and administrative support for the management;
(7) Ensuring the societal and economic justification and acceptance of management.
As indicated throughout this lecture, the successful management of ecosystems requires an holistic approach which has to take account of all aspects covering the natural environmental and human cultural aspects - the environmental, socioeconomic, administrative and legal as well as having the techniques and technologies to effect that management. These features can be regarded as a set of seven tenets , each of which requires to be fulfilled by the sum of management actions for sustainable management to be achieved (Box 5). The actions to ensure the protection of all levels of biological organisation (from the cell to the ecosystem) are embedded in the first tenet, environmentally sustainable, but management of the environment cannot operate away from the human cultural aspects.
Again, using philosophies taken from the business community (and again to encourage graduates in their thinking to steal ideas from whatever fields are
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appropriate!), the use of the 7-tenet approach has features of the PEST analysis in which the environment of an organisation or business has to be analysed against a background of its Political, Economical, Social and Technological constraints. We can easily modify this to show that the organisation (and control) of the business of the environment also has to include these aspects. These features are important in not only preventing the deterioration in ecosystem health described above, but also in restoring and allowing a degraded ecosystem to recover.
Box 5: The seven tenets of environmental management
Tenet Explanation
Environmentally/ ecologically sustainable
Technologically feasible
Socially
Economically viable desirable/tolerable
That the measures will ensure that the ecosystem features are safeguarded
That the methods and equipment for ecosystem protection are available
That a cost-benefit assessment of the environmental management indicates sustainability
That the environmental management measures are as required or at least are understood by society as being required
Legally permissible That there are regional, national, European or international agreements and/or statutes which will enable the management measures to be performed
Administratively achievable
That the statutory bodies such as governmental departments, environmental protection and conservation bodies are in place and functional to enable the successful and sustainable management
Politically expedient
That the management approaches and philosophies are consistent with the prevailing political climate
The ecological and societal links listed above have to be embedded within the prevailing governance which operates at regional, national and international scales.
Accordingly they have to be embedded in our teaching and education. Governments are required to develop a range of policies and non-statutory measures for the conservation of environments and biodiversity. Some of these are a response to global obligations, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as well as regional and national agendas. Statutory designations to protect some or all of the identified features may require specific actions to be taken ranging from restrictions on damaging activities, control through the planning system, and active conservation management. In addition, there will be over-riding economic repercussions to the use of the environment.
I’ll now try to bring together many of the ideas briefly mentioned here - as indicated earlier the Ecosystem Approach to the sustainable use of the marine environment is based on the adoption of the 12 principles laid down by the CBD. These principles also cover the environmental and human cultural aspects and, as such, the concepts
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presented here can be summarised and then combined under the unifying framework of the Ecosystem Approach and its guiding principles to ensure sustainable ecological management (Figure 1). Firstly, the causes and consequences of change due to human activities in the environment can be summarised as the DPSIR approach, with an understanding of the fate and cause and effect relationships of human impacts. Secondly, the study and quantification of the causes and impacts of change require a robust scientific method in order for their assessment to be defendable. Hence, there is the need to derive the aims and objectives for the differing habitats and then set the hypotheses of change which can be tested using field survey and field experimentation if suitable. Thirdly, management requires the measurement of causes and consequences of change and an indication of when change is so large that action has to be taken. This quantification requires the development of quantitative, numerical indicators and those indicators require to be
SMART in order to know if and when they have been met. Finally, for sustainable responses and sustainable, successful, and defendable environmental management to occur, the 12 principles of the CBD Ecosystem Approach have to be integrated with the 7 tenets (described above) and a PEST analysis.
12 Principles
Drivers
Response
Pressures
Impacts
Indicators
State
Change
Symptoms of
Ecosystem
Pathology
Indicators
Indicators
7 Tenets
PEST
Aims Objectives
Hypotheses
SMART
Figure 1: A conceptual model illustrating the basis of the Ecosystem Approach in which, (i) the human uses of the ecosystems, their effects and societal responses are given by the DPSIR philosophy, (ii) the determination of causes of change and responses by the natural and human system requires quantitative indicators linked to monitoring and management, (iii) that the process requires good science based on the stating of objectives for the marine system and testing of hypotheses, and (iv) the overall responses to achieve a sustainable marine system requires the integration of environmental, technological and societal (administrative, political, economical and legislative) aspects as shown by the principles of the Ecosystem Approach and the
PEST and 7-Tenet philosophies.
Concluding Messages
This analysis has shown that in order to achieve a wise and sustainable use of our environment we need graduates with skills taken from all natural and social sciences.
They should be equipped with the philosophies and ability to think widely and they should be taught to be not scared of thinking across disciplines. We need natural
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science graduates who feel comfortable in discussing environmental management with social scientists, policy makers and indeed politicians. We also need social scientists who can embrace the natural sciences. We need scientifically literate politicians and those with an ability to take informed decisions.
Our teaching, our modules and our degrees have to be geared towards this and we continually have to reassess these to make sure that they are delivering the needs of society. We realise that if we are to have education for sustainable development then it should occur not just at school and university, but also throughout life and employment with continued professional development. In our research, in order to achieve a sustainable and valuable environment, we of course need to ensure that our studies do create further knowledge but also we need to emphasise that the research is for wealth creation and to increase the quality of life.
I have seen that the University of Benin has all of this as its ethos and that it knows that education is the answer to most if not all of the problems faced not only by
Nigeria but by all countries. I am sure that the graduates of the University don’t need to be told that their education is not now finishing but is merely starting.
I thank you for your attention.
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