The Asian Development Bank (ADB) launched a US$5 billion (160 billion baht) healthy oceans action plan for Asia-Pacific on May 2 at its 52nd annual board of governors meeting.
The Action Plan for Healthy Oceans and Sustainable Blue Economies will expand financing and technical assistance for ocean health and marine economy projects, both public and private, to $5 billion from 2019 to 2024.
"Climate change, unsustainable fishing, increasing uncontrollable coastal development and pollution are threatening not only our ocean but also our prosperity and sustainability of development in our region," said Bambang Susantono, the ADB's vice-president for knowledge management and sustainable development.
"There is no time to waste," he said. "We must restore and protect our ocean now. ADB has been tackling upstream-to-downstream problems, but we can and must do much, much more."
As part of the action plan, the lender will launch the Oceans Financing Initiative to create opportunities for the private sector to invest in bankable projects, such as sustainable tourism and fisheries.
The initiative will provide technical assistance grants and funding from the ADB and other donors to reduce the technical and financial risk of projects. This will be done through instruments such as risk guarantees and capital market "blue bonds", said Bruce Dunn, the ADB's director of sustainable development and climate change.
"One of the challenges we face is a chronic lack of sustainable investment in ocean economies," he said. "The Oceans Financing Initiative intends to crowd-finance from different sources, including ADB, and collaborate with the private sector so we can scale our investments."
The ADB has already invested $2 billion to combat pollution in the ocean across a wide range. The action plan aims to scale up the progress over the next six years, Mr Dunn said.
The ADB will be leveraging its existing cooperation programmes to enhance them, such as projects in wastewater treatment that have been funded heavily.
But solid waste, the circular economy and what Asia can do in recycling have not received enough attention, Mr Dunn said, and there is not enough demand from country partners for these schemes, so the ADB wants to stimulate demand by looking at new types of investments and technologies.
"Many countries claim to be committed to recycling and keeping oceans healthy, but in practice it is not happening," he said.
Mr Dunn said the initiative will utilise a whole range of innovative financing tools such as blue investment bonds, which provide credit lines to businesses or the public sector to more effectively invest in restoring or protecting the ocean. He said partners of the initiative will be announced later this week.
"Looking to the private sector, we will be exploring opportunities for equity investments, financial guarantees and blue bonds where we can raise capital from the market for investment," Mr Dunn said. "For the public sector, we will work with our developing member countries and talk with governments on how to best fit ADB's strategy with their priorities."
The bank is preparing a new regional technical assistance project to tackle marine plastics and debris, with a particular focus on Asean because "that is where many of the problems are", he said.
The initiative will focus on four areas: creating inclusive livelihoods and business opportunities in sustainable tourism and fisheries; protecting and restoring coastal and marine ecosystems and key rivers; reducing land-based sources of marine pollution such as plastics, wastewater and agriculture runoff; and improving sustainability in port and coastal infrastructure development.
Mr Dunn said these carrot approaches should help encourage public and private investment to protect the ocean, though stick tactics could also work to stop major polluters. But the latter must be done by governments via regulations and enforcement, not by the ADB, he said.
The ocean feeds 3 billion people worldwide and provides jobs for a billion. Each year it adds $2.3 trillion to the global economy.
Asia-Pacific is home to three-quarters of the world's coral reefs and half of its total biodiversity. The region accounts for the majority of world aquaculture and fisheries, about 80% and 60% respectively, while demand for seafood is expected to rise as the global population grows.
Asia-Pacific is projected to see the highest rise in tourism, especially in coastal areas, in the coming years, but the region is the epicentre of a major crisis in marine plastic pollution, with eight of the 10 rivers transporting 88-95% of plastics into the sea worldwide.
Unless immediate action is taken, 90% of Asia-Pacific's coral reefs will be dead by 2050 and all commercially exploitable fish stocks will disappear by then, the ADB said.