One of the world's foremost coral reef experts has called on Bermuda to lead by example.

John Ogden, Director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography, said the Island was a shining example of stewardship of the oceans in an age where management of the marine environment is critical.

Speaking at a public lecture at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute this week, Dr. Ogden said that careful governance of marine ecosystems by coastal nations was essential in an era of increasing intrusion. He listed aquaculture, growing pipelines and cables, mining and dredging, ocean fertilisation and CO2 sequestration as examples.

Dr. Ogden, who is visiting the Island to research the state of our coral reefs for next week's International Coral Reef Symposium in Florida, said Bermuda could provide an example to the rest of the world in its management of the ocean.

He said that in the 132 years since the first deep sea exploration by HMS Challenger - which made Bermuda its second stop on its round-the-world voyage from 1872-76, humanity had gone from learning life actually existed in the deep ocean to slowly destroying it.

The human impact on marine ecosystems ranged from overfishing and land-based pollution, to global climate change. Dr. Ogden said cod was almost fished to extinction, whales had been hunted to destruction, and the coral reefs were dying.

"In that 132-year interval we've gone from making fundamental discoveries to a point now where everyone in this room can say the oceans are in trouble," he said.

Dr. Ogden called for more marine protected areas and no fishing zones, with satellite tracking of fishing vessels to track ships travelling at less than 3.5 knots ie. trawling.

"We need to get the message out that 'fish are wildlife' and that we need to take them out of the ocean without consequences," he said.

"And also that what we do on the land affects the ocean."

Referring to the Island's protected marine areas, Dr. Ogden said: "I think Bermuda can offer things to the world in how we deal with these problems.

"Bermuda's agencies have done an excellent job of applying the management schemes in front of them to create a situation where it looks like things are holding for now, but we need to look to the future, we need to anticipate."

He said: "I think examples of good stewardship get attention, and the world is looking for examples."

Calling for more integrated management of the oceans by nations and information-sharing, Dr. Ogden said: "In towns we have planning officers who have tools to tell them a lot about the areas of land. Why don't we have these for the oceans?

"We know a lot about the oceans, we just haven't assembled the information in any coherent way, and that is what we have to do.

"It's a big blue planet and it's all we've got, so we ought to be paying more attention to it."

Dr. Ogden added: "Global climate change is one of the things we, as a global society, have to get together and manage. But we aren't doing very well at that at the moment.

"For 20 years the coral reefs were the canaries in the coal mine. But by 1997/1998 there was no doubt that the canary had fallen off the perch. Yet we have still gone about our energy business since then," he said.