The German Education Program on Ocean Mining Environmental Concerns and Sampling Approaches for Young Third World Scientists
Authors: Schriever Gerd 
Published: October 2008

Introduction

A German educational program on sustainable uses of ocean resources is offered by the Carl-Duisberg Gesellschaft e.V. (CDG) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The CDG is a nonprofit organization established to promote advanced vocational training and qualification of professionals and was founded in 1949. The target group of the CDG programs are experts and executives from Germany and other industrialized nations, from developing countries, and from countries of central and eastern Europe. So far, more than 200,000 individuals have participated in various CDG programs.

The ocean resource courses are offered within the follow up framework of the UN Environmental Conference of Rio de Janeiro in 1992, based on Agenda 21, one of the documents agreed upon, outlining global strategies for protecting the environment and encouraging sustainable development. All CDG courses emphasize economic and technological methods and innovative processes, thereby making a contribution to achieving an ecologically sustainable, economically efficient and socially just world. Depending on a number of different criteria, the students are invited by the German BMZ and the full scholarship covers flight costs from and to the home country, a monthly living allowance, lodging, health insurance and financial support to buy relevant scientific literature.

A course entitled "Protection and Utilization of Oceans" was held in the English language from 1996 to 1998 at the University of Hamburg and was coordinated by BIOLAB Forschungsinstitut Dr. Gerd Schriever of Hohenwestedt. The main goal of this offering was to increase knowledge about the deep-sea environment and possible impacts of anthropogenic uses of the deep sea. Running in parallel to this course, a second course was offered through the CDG at the University of Bremen dealing with "Integrated Coastal Zone Management" and was conducted in German. In this course, the main focus was placed on training in the use of coastal resources and in the management of the cooperation of the different stakeholders as well as information about existing legislative regulations in Germany, as an example. It is not the intention to merely transfer German models to other countries, but rather to become acquainted with innovative approaches in an industrial country (Germany) and to learn to access their applicability to situations in developing countries.

Outline of the course

The participants, arriving with backgrounds from different areas of the sciences, receive an overview of the world ocean ecosystems. They acquire insight into the main functions of the oceans, into the various kinds of utilization by man, and into global and local consequences of these uses. The possibilities of environmental monitoring and risk assessment are demonstrated and information is imparted on existing programs for the protection of the oceans, on the drawing up of environmental impact assessment studies such as the German DISCOL (DISturbance and ReCOLonization)-Project (Ref. 1) and ATESEPP (Effects of Technical Interventions into the Ecosystem of the Deep Sea in the Southeast Pacific Ocean, Ref. 2), as well as the different Benthic Impact Experiments (BIE), of the USA and Russia (Ref.3), Japan, (Ref 4), India (Ref.5), and the consortia IOM (Ref. 6).