Businesses should play a bigger role in helping to save depleted fish stocks as part of efforts to prevent irreversible damage to the oceans, a World-Bank backed report said on Wednesday.

 

The study, by 21 experts including government ministers, academics, conservationists and company leaders, said policies for protecting the oceans from over-fishing, pollution and climate change were often ineffective and fragmented.

 

It recommended more public-private partnerships involving companies, governments, local communities and others to protect ecosystems that are the main source of protein for a billion people, mainly in the developing world.

 

The panel, set up by the World Bank, is one of several groups trying to find ways to deal with threats to the oceans. A separate Global 0cean Commission, for instance, is looking at how to safeguard the high seas, outside national jurisdictions.

 

There have been many failures despite past calls for action; a U.N. summit in Johannesburg in 2002, for instance, set a goal, set to be missed, of restoring world fisheries to health by 2015.

 

The 29-page report provides an outline for action for a group of 140 nations who have signed up to seek solutions to the problems.

 

Last week, an international report by a group of scientists also warned the oceans were suffering a "deadly trio" of threats from global warming, declining oxygen levels and acidificiation.

 

And a report by the U.N.'s panel on climate change said last month that land and ocean surface temperatures had warmed by about 0.9 degree Celsius (1.6 F) since the late 19th century, almost half way to a 2 C (3.6 F) ceiling set by almost 200 governments to prevent dangerous change.