2015 GLOBAL SCORES
THE OCEAN HEALTH INDEX TEAM
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Conservation International
Introduction to Ocean Health Index ............................................................................................................. 1
Results for 2015 ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Country & Territory Scores ........................................................................................................................... 9
Appreciations ............................................................................................................................................. 23
Citation ...................................................................................................................................................... 23
UC Santa Barbara, National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis
INTRODUCTION TO THE OCEAN HEALTH INDEX
Important note: Scores in this report differ from scores originally posted on the Ocean Health Index website,
www.oceanhealthindex.org and shown in previous reports. Each year the Index improves methods and data where
possible. Some improvements change scores and rankings. When such changes occur, all earlier scores are recalculated
using the new methods so that any differences in scores between years is due to changes in the conditions evaluated,
not to changes in methods. This permits year-to-year comparison between all global-level Index results. Only the scores
most recently posted at www.oceanhealthindex.org should be compared, as scores posted or published in earlier
years will have changed.
What is the Ocean Health Index? The Ocean Health Index is the first assessment tool that
scientifically compares and combines key elements from all dimensions of the ocean’s health –
biological, physical, economic and social—to measure how sustainably people are using the ocean.
What is ‘ocean health’? The Ocean Health Index uses this definition: ‘A healthy ocean sustainably
delivers a range of benefits to people now and in the Future.’
How does the Index work? It tracks a portfolio of goals that people have for a healthy ocean and
scores how well coastal countries and their marine territories optimize their potential ocean benefits.
What’s the difference between a goal and a benefit? Each goal expresses a broad,
long-term purpose: optimizing a maximum sustainable flow of benefits to people. Benefits are the
specific and measurable goods (e.g. fish), services (e.g. coastal protection) or cultural values (e.g. sense
of place) that the ocean provides.
How were goals selected? For the global study, participating scientists, economists and
sociologists reviewed existing studies of what people want and expect from the ocean, then grouped
them into ten categories called ‘goals.’ Independent assessments at smaller scales could choose a
different number of goals.
What drives goal scores? Present Status makes up 50% of each goal score and its Trend for the
past 5 years makes up 67% of Likely Future Status. Thus 83% of a goal score reflects how sustainably a
goal’s benefits are actually being achieved now and in the recent past. Pressures and Resilience make up
the remaining 17% of the scores. Individual pressures are ranked for their importance to different goals.
Even though they only affect 8.5% of the score, Resilience actions are the only ways we can reduce
pressures and increase a score. Without effective Resilience, negative trends will continue. New resilience
measures improve scores gradually, because status trend must shed five years of pre-resilience values,
but each year should bring more rapid improvement.
How is a country’s score calculated? The score for a country or territory is the average of its
Are some goals more important than others? They may be for some countries, but at the
global level the Index weights all goals evenly. Nations could re-value goals as part of an independent
assessment.
goal scores. Goals not applicable to a region are not scored or averaged. Most goals are scored for a
country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), that is, waters out to 200 nautical miles (nm) from shore; but
several goals are scored for waters out to 3 nm. For a country with more than one EEZ, the score is the
area-weighted average of the several EEZ scores. Scores are calculated for 220 EEZs, representing all of
the world’s 151 coastal countries and their territorial holdings.
How is a goal scored? Each goal scores from 0 to 100. The amount of each benefit is compared
How is the overall score calculated? The overall score is the area-weighted average of scores
with a sustainable reference point. The most recent value, ‘present Status,’ forms half of the score. The
other half, ‘likely Future status’ is based on three things: the average rate of change for status (Trend)
during the most recent five years; the cumulative Pressures that will harm Future benefits; and the
cumulative Resilience actions (e.g. treaties, laws, enforcement, habitat protection) that can reduce
pressures and maintain or raise Future Status and benefits. The global Index uses more than 80 global
databases and strives to use the most current data available. It is updated and improved annually.
Detailed methods and data are at: www.oceanhealthindex.org/about/methods
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for all countries and territories. What does the score mean? All scores range from 0 to 100.
• 100’ means that the evaluated system has achieved its defined target (reference point), is
sustainably delivering all of the specified benefits that it can; and appears likely to be able to continue
doing so in the near Future.
• ‘0’ means that global data were available, but the region either did not achieve any of the potential
benefits or that the benefits it did obtain were not gained in a sustainable manner.
• Intermediate scores mean that the optimal benefit is not being obtained and/or is not being
obtained in a sustainable way. The higher the score, the closer a region is to obtaining the maximal
sustainable benefits possible with the given reference points.
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Is it possible to score 100? Scores of 100 are surely achievable for individual goals. Country
scores of 100 may be possible, but no country is close yet. Several remote territories have scored 90 or
more. Some countries may underuse ocean benefits like food or tourism to protect resources for the
Future, thereby producing a score less than 100 in the current calculation. Negative trade-offs between
goals (and perhaps between countries or territories) could occur. For example, development that
increased Tourism & Recreation could compromise coastal habitats, decreasing scores in Carbon
Storage, Coastal Protection, Clean Water, Biodiversity or Food Provision. Maximizing benefits from
extractive goals such as Food Provision or natural Products could decrease benefits from other goals.
Conversely, high scores for Clean Water, Biodiversity, Coastal Protection, Sense of Place and Carbon
Storage could improve the flow of benefits from other goals. Without detailed quantitative
understanding of such tradeoffs and interactions, it isn’t possible to say whether a country or global
score of 100 is theoretically possible, but we aren’t really close enough to worry about that yet.
How can I discover why a score is high or low? First, visit the Data Explorer, which displays
scores for the four ‘dimensions’ that comprise a score: Status, Trend, Pressures and Resilience.
Dimension scores will give a hint about where problems (or successes) reside.
Each dimension is derived from many databases, each of which measures one or more specific
factors, for example the sea level rise, the extent of marine and terrestrial protected areas, the number or
people employed in the tourism sector, the extent of coral reefs, the risk of extinction for marine species
or iconic species, or the annual amount of revenue provided by industries in the marine sector. Further
inquiry may show which of a dimension’s components is contributing to a high score or dragging the
score lower.
Information in the Ocean Health Index database helps to understand a score, but explaining its ultimate
cause(s) usually requires additional digging, as in these three examples:
1. Between 2012 and 2013, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands’ score for the Lasting Special Places subgoal increased by 95 points! Inspection of the Ocean Health Index database showed a
large increase in protected area. Backtracking to the data source, www.protectedplanet.org revealed
that a new 1 million km2 square had been designated in 2012, causing the 2013 score to rise sharply.
2. Several goals use species’ ‘risk of extinction’ categories (Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, etc.) from the IUCN’s (International Union for Conservation of ture) Red List, the Ocean Health Index
databases do not explain the basis for each species’ risk category. That information must be obtained
from the Red List Web site.
3. The Livelihoods & Economy goal tracks changes in the amount of revenue gained by a
country from its marine economic sectors, but cannot explain their cause. Explaining the changes would
require other sources of information about the country and the global economic background, such as:
Was there a global economic slowdown? Did environmental conditions affect the fisheries or tourism
industries? Was there political unrest? Did a hurricane or other natural disaster affect coastal industries?
Such information is beyond the scope of the Index.
Though the Index cannot provide all the answers desired, seeking them by digging deeper into its
underlying databases (available at www.ohi-science.org) and beyond will enrich anyone’s knowledge
about the ocean and the world.
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Are scores comparable place-to-place? All results of the Ocean Health Index’s global
assessments are comparable geographically (place-to-place), because all regions are assessed using
the same methods and data sources. The global assessment only employs data drawn from global-level
databases in which similar data have been taken in the same manner for all regions.
Are scores comparable year-to-year? Yes, but only by using scores available at
www.oceanhealthindex.org. The Ocean Health Index is relatively young and still evolving. Since its
launch in 2012, improvements have been incorporated each year. Some improvements, such as changes
in the methods, data layers or reference points used to evaluate goals, may cause substantial changes to
scores. When such changes occur, all earlier scores are recalculated using the new techniques so that
any differences in scores between years is due to changes in the conditions evaluated, not to changes in
methods. Therefore, all results of the Ocean Health Index’s global assessments are comparable year-toyear. Only the most recently posted scores should be used, as scores published in earlier years may have
changed. The Ocean Health Index website, www.oceanhealthindex.org, is the most up-to-date source
for scores.
What are independent assessments and how comparable are they? The Ocean Health
Index’s key strategy for driving ocean improvement is enlisting, encouraging and assisting countries to
carry out their own independent assessments. The rationale is that countries or sub-regions may have
finer-scale data available that cannot be used in global-level assessments because other countries do not
have equivalent information, but can be used to conduct their own assessments.
Independent assessments use the general framework of the Ocean Health Index, but modify it to fit
local conditions and values. Results of such studies should be able to describe regional conditions more
accurately and more usefully for local policy making, management and ocean health improvement than
the coarser results provided by the global assessment. By repeating such studies over time in the same
region, countries will be able to track the success of measures that they take to improve aspects of ocean
health.
Results from an independent assessment cannot be compared either with results from the global
assessment or with the results of independent assessments from other places, because there is no way to
gauge the extent to which differences in scores result from differences in methods or differences in
conditions of ocean health.
Independent assessments, which are branded as OHI+, have been completed or are at various stages of
discussion or development in: China, Colombia, Israel, Ecuador, Baltic Sea (Denmark, Estonia, the
European Union, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden), Canada, Spain, Peru,
Hawaii, New Caledonia, Brazil, Fiji, British Virgin Islands, South Korea, Japan, British Columbia, Pacific
Oceanscape, Mexico, Gabon, U.S. West Coast, Chile, Taiwan, Costa Rica, Panama, Western Indian
Ocean, Philippines, and Indonesia.
As more and more countries carry out their own OHI+ studies, their combined efforts should be visible as
an increase in global Ocean Health Index scores.
A website, www.ohi-science.org, has been developed to assist countries with their OHI+ assessments.
It provides all the instructions, methods, computational tools, maps and other information needed to
begin such a study. Links to results of several such studies are provided at www.oceanhealthindex.org
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OCEAN HEALTH INDEX RESULTS FOR 2015
This summary includes results for the coastlines and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of 221 countries and
territories that were also scored in 2012-2014. Assessments for the High Seas and the Antarctica region were done
in 2014 and will be repeated periodically, but were not done in 2015. The 2015 study used improved methods and
new data described at ohi-science.org.
In addition to many small improvements to data quality control and goal score calculations, important changes were
made to the Carbon Storage and Coastal Protection goal models. New scores were not produced for the Fisheries
subgoal of Food Provision; and for the Livelihoods & Economies goal. Explanations are included below with results
for those goals.
What is the Overall Score for EEZ regions in 2015? The overall score, 70 is unchanged
from 2014 and 2013, though improved by one point since 2012. It is not likely that a one point score
difference is statistically significant. Studies are underway to quantify the uncertainty associated with
scores. Though not as bad as it could be, the score of 70 remains far from 100, sending a strong
message that marine life would fare better and we would gain more benefits if we used the ocean in
more sustainable ways.
Is this score comparable with scores for previous years? Yes. Directly comparable
scores for countries and territories for the years 2012-2015 are shown below.
Fig. 1. Ocean Health Index scores (inside circle) and individual goal scores (colored petals) for global area-weighted
average of all 221 reporting areas under national jurisdiction. The outer ring is the maximum possible score for each
goal, and a goal’s score and weight (relative contribution) are represented by the petal’s length and width,
respectively. Note that for ‘food provision’ sub-goals are weighted by relative actual yield.
Source: NCEAS, 2015.
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SCORE
AVG
INDEX
70
43
FOOD PROVISION
58
1
59
27
1
0
100
68
42
100
0
100
Fisheries
Mariculture
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARTISANAL FISHING
2012-2015. An uptick in the score for Livelihoods & Economies between 2012 and 2013 may reflect the
beginning of marine sector economic recovery from the recession that began in 2008. Slight increases
also occurred for the Mariculture subgoal of Food Provision and for Tourism & Recreation. Rapid change
in year-to-year global level scores is not expected, since change in most conditions usually cannot take
place that quickly.
92
98
98
52
CARBON STORAGE
79
10
100
COASTAL PROTECTION
87
24
100
TOURISM & RECREATION
50
0
100
LIVELIHOODS & ECONOMIES
82
3
100
Livelihoods
77
Economies
88
0
100
0
100
59
0
100
Iconic Species
58
31
88
Lasting Special Places
60
0
100
74
20
100
88
69
97
Species
86
Habitats
77
97
91
54
100
CLEAN WATERS
BIODIVERSITY
Have any goal scores improved over the years? Most scores have not changed much from
HIGH
NATURAL PRODUCTS
SENSE OF PLACE
Table 1. Comparison of annual global level Index and goal scores computed as area-weighted averages of the
scores from all 221 coastal nations and territories, 2012-2015. Goals are labeled in upper case letters, subgoals in
lower case. All scores are comparable because they have been recalculated using the most current methods..
LOW
What is the range for goal scores in 2015? All Ocean Health Index scores are expressed on a
scale of 0 to 100. Global (EEZ )averages and ranges of scores for all goals are shown in the above table.
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COUNTRY & TERRITORY SCORES FOR 2015
Scores by goal and sub-goal
Global goal and sub-goal scores can provide individual countries with information on how their results
compare to those of neighboring countries. Scores may also indicate high priority areas for investment to
raise ocean health scores and provide more social, economic and environmental benefits.
FOOD PROVISION · overall score: 58 · range: 1-98
Target: Capture and raise the maximum sustainable amount of seafood.
This goal and its sub-goals are not based solely on the quantity of food produced, but instead on how
close each region is to the optimal sustainable production of the seafood available for it to potentially
catch or raise. The goal score is the yield-weighted average of scores for Wild Caught Fisheries and
Mariculture sub-goals, described below.
The low overall score, 50, indicates that the ocean’s potential for food is not being realized to full human
benefit now and that full benefit of its resources will not be available in the future without more effective
management and planning.
Highest scores were: Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea (all 98); Wallis and Futuna, Marshall
Islands, Palau and Nauru (all 96), Georgia (95), Howland Island and Baker Island (92), Vanuatu (91), New
Caledonia, Ukraine and Panama (all 89).
Table 1. Comparison of annual global level Index and goal scores computed as area-weighted averages of the scores
from all 221 coastal nations and territories, 2012-2015. Goals are labeled in upper case letters, subgoals in lower
case. All scores are comparable because they have been recalculated using the most current methods..
Overall scores: Overall scores ranged from 43 (Libya) to 92 (Prince Edward Islands). The only other
country to score 90 or above was Howland Island and Baker Island (90).
Highest scores: As in previous years, remote uninhabited islands scored highest, showing that
despite the Ocean Health Index’s emphasis on benefits to people, relatively pristine locations can still
score very high. Highest scores were for: Prince Edward Islands (92), Howland Island and Baker Island
(90), Macquarie Island (87), Heard and McDonald Islands (87) and Phoenix Group (86). Two French island
territories, Northern Saint-Martin (86) (population 38,000) and New Caledonia (85) (population 269,000),
scored highest for populated areas.
Lowest scores: Ten countries scored 50 or below: North Korea and Lebanon (both 50); Liberia and
Nicaragua (both 48); Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Democratic Republic of the Congo (all 47); Dominica
(46) and Libya (43). By comparison, 20 countries scored 50 or below in 2014. As in previous years when
some of these same countries were among the lowest scoring areas, all are poor and many have a recent
history of conflict, dictatorship or natural disasters. Such conditions deplete the capacity to institute
resilience actions that could reduce social and environmental pressures. Until those conditions are
overcome, rapid increase in scores of such regions is not likely. Fig. 3 shows the geographic distribution
of 2015.
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Lowest were eighteen (18) regions that scored 10 or below: British Virgin Islands (10), South Korea (9),
Cayman Islands and Vietnam (8), Wake Island, Suriname and Cambodia (7), Sint Maarten (6), Jordan and
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (5), Guadaloupe and Martinique and Bangladesh (4), Aruba, Anguilla,
Guyana and Jamaica (all 3), Myanmar (2) and Montserrat and Haiti (1).
Twelve (12) reporting areas, including both inhabited and nearly uninhabited islands did not have scores
for this goal. They are: Phoenix Group, Northern Saint-Martin, Glorioso Islands, Curacao, Saba, Bonaire,
Line Group, Sint Eustatius, Juan de Nova Island, Bassas da India, Ile Europa and Oecussi Ambeno.
Fisheries sub-goal · overall score: 59 · range: 1-98
Target: Capture the maximal sustainable amount of seafood.
Reference point: The population biomass (B, the live weight of fish in the ocean) of each landed stock is
compared to the biomass that can deliver the stock’s maximum sustainable yield (BMSY). MSY is the
largest amount that can be caught from the population year after year. The goal is for all stocks to have B
within 5% of the value that produces MSY (BMSY). Scores are penalized for overfishing (B > BMSY) and
underfishing (B < BMSY) with increasingly penalties for larger departures of B from BMSY. Underfishing is
penalized only half as much as overfishing.
Distant water catches are allocated to the regions where the fish were caught, so all scores reflect the
condition of fisheries in the region listed.
A score of 100 would indicate that a region’s marine fisheries are sustainably catching a total amount of
fish that is as large as it can be without jeopardizing future catches.
A low score indicates one of two things – that seafood is being caught in an unsustainable manner, or that
countries are not maximizing the potential to catch as much as sustainably possible within their marine
waters. Countries that reduce their catch below MSY level for conservation reasons lose points on this
sub-goal, but may gain points on conservation-related goals such as Biodiversity or Sense of Place.
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Fisheries sub-goal cont.
SPECIAL NOTE: New Fisheries scores could not be calculated for 2015. The Index had planned to use
new catch reconstruction data being produced by Sea Around Us. Sea Around Us experienced an
unexpected delay in updating the taxonomic classifications of some catches. Since accuracy of catch
identification is an important component of the Fisheries goal, scores for some countries would have been
unfairly penalized by use of those data before completion. The last-minute delay left no time to default to
recalculating 2015 scores using the 2014 method. Therefore, the 2014 scores are presented, altered only
slightly by small changes in other aspects of goal calculation used in 2015.
Highest were 13 countries that scored 90 or above: Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea (all 98),
New Caledonia (97), Wallis and Futuna, Marshall Islands, Palau and Nauru (all 96), Georgia (95), Panama
(94), Howland and Baker Island and Vanuatu (92) and Ukraine (90).
Forty seven (47) countries scored 0: Algeria, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bonaire, Cook Islands,
Curacao, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Eritrea, Estonia, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Gambia, Guadeloupe
and Martinique, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Micronesia, Morocco,
Mozambique, Nauru, Nigeria, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea,
Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands of the United States, Qatar, Reunion, Samoa, Senegal, Seychelles,
Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Tonga, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uruguay, Vanuatu and
Yemen.
Ninety-five (95) countries had no past or present Mariculture and were not scored.
Lowest were 19 countries that scored 10 or below: British Virgin Islands (10), Cayman Islands (8), Wake
Island, Suriname and Cambodia (all 7), Sint Maarten (6), Jordan and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (5),
Guadeloupe and Martinique (4), Aruba, Anguilla and Guyana (all 3), Bangladesh, South Korea and
Myanmar (all 2), and Montserrat and Haiti (both 1).
ARTISANAL FISHING OPPORTUNITIES · overall score: 68 · range: 42-100
Target: Opportunities for small-scale local fishing meet the estimated need to fish. Artisanal fishing refers
to fisheries involving households, cooperatives or small firms (as opposed to large, commercial
companies) that use relatively small amounts of capital and energy and small fishing vessels (if any), make
relatively short fishing trips, and use fish mainly for local consumption or trade. Reference Point:
Opportunities for Artisanal fishing meet the need, as expressed by per capita GDP corrected by
purchasing power parity (PPPpcGDP).
Fourteen (14) countries or territories had no fisheries landings and were not scored: Phoenix Group,
Northern Saint-Martin, Glorioso Islands, Curacao, Saba, Bonaire, Line Group, Sint Eustatius, Juan de
Nova Island, Bassas da India, Ile Europa, Jersey, Oecussi Ambeno, and Guernsey.
The overall score, 68, suggests that most countries may not be meeting the apparent economic need for
their citizen’s to be able to carry out small-scale fishing for subsistence, barter or commercial purposes
(mainly local markets).
Mariculture sub-goal · overall score: 27 · range: 0-100)
Target: Harvest the maximal sustainable amount of farm-raised seafood (tonnes) per coastal inhabitant
(i.e. within the 50 KM coastal strip), making the assumption that production depends on the presence of
coastal communities that can provide the labor force, coastal access, infrastructures and economic
demand to support the development of mariculture facilities. The score for each region indicates how
close its current yield is to the score for the most productive region in 2013, the latest data available from
FAO, which was Norway. Because regional status values were highly skewed, the reference point is set at
the 95th percentile region (Thailand) with all regions above that value set to a status score of 100.
Eleven (11) countries scored 89 or above: Qatar (100); Jarvis Island, Palmyra Atoll, Johnston Atoll and
Wake Island (all 93), Australia and Norway (90); and Macquarie Island, Norfolk Island, Denmark, and
Greenland.
A high score can mean that a region is sustainably harvesting as close to the maximum amount of farmed
seafood as possible based on its own potential. A low score can indicate one of two things – that seafood
is being farmed in an unsustainable manner or that a region is not maximizing its potential to farm fish and
other marine animals in its coastal territory.
The current score, 27, indicates that most countries are not sustainably producing the amounts of farmed
seafood that they potentially could.
Nine (9) countries scored 90 or above: Chile, China, Ecuador, Faeroe Islands, Iceland, New Zealand,
Norway and Norway (all 94); Belize (93) and Canada (90). China, which raises many species, exceeds all
other countries in production. Salmonids are the main species raised in the cold water regions listed.
The many low scores presented below suggest that large gains could be obtained by further development
or improved management of mariculture.
Qatar tops the list because it has the highest PPPpcGDP in the world, $146,177 for te period from
2010-2014 according to the World Bank, so theoretically it has little financial need for this kind of fishing
whether people do it or not. Four of the top scoring regions are small, remote oceanic islands, with either
no year-round population or small numbers of research personnel. With GDPs that are low (or zero) plus
unlimited access to the shore, those locations obviously score well. The high scoring industrialized
nations, Norway, Denmark and Australia, have reasonably high PPPpcGDP of about $44,000, $45,000 and
$65,000, respectively, as well as long coastlines that could accommodate what needs there are and
policies that guarantee good access to fishing opportunities.
Seventeen countries scored 45 or below: Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Micronesia, India and Ghana (45),
Solomon Islands and Sao Tome and Principe (44); Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoro Islands,
Cameroon, Benin, Somalia and Ivory Coast (all 43); Toga, Guinea and Liberia (all 42). All have very low
PPPpcGDP and high need for Artisanal fishing opportunities.
Seven essentially uninhabited islands were not scored for this goal: Prince Edward Islands, Heard and
McDonald Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Crozet Islands, Kerguelan Islands,
Bouvet Island and Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island.
Twenty-three (23) countries scored 5 or less: Portugal, Brunei, Venezuela, Montenegro and Myanmar (all
5); Brazil and Sweden (4), Tunisia, Colombia and Albania (3); Palau, Cuba and Singapore (2); and United
Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates, Mayotte, South Africa, Mauritius, Ukraine, Madagascar, Israel,
Suriname, Bosnia and Herzegovina and El Salvador (all 1).
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NATURAL PRODUCTS · overall score: 52 · range: 0-100
Target: Harvest maximum sustainable amount of non-food products
Reference point: Global data were available for metric tonnes of exports of six products: ornamental
fish for aquariums, fish oil, seaweeds, shells, sponges and coral products. The reference point for each
product is 35% below the maximum value (2008 USD) ever exported from that region. The 35% buffer
protects against the possibility that the maximum value resulted from overharvesting. The goal score is
the weighted average of scores for any of the six values available in the region.
No additional years of data were available, but methods for processing and gap filling data were
improved. A new approach was employed to estimate exposure values, i.e. the amount of harvest relative
to the extent of habitats available for their harvest relevant habitat extents. Exposure is used to estimate
harvest sustainability. In previous years, data were rescaled with reference to the maximum harvest value
ever reported in a country. Because there is a good chance that the maximum reported extraction rate
might not be sustainable, data are now rescaled with reference to an amount 35% less than the maximum
value. The buffer may also help to account for regional differences in harvest rates.
The low overall score, 52, indicates that most countries are not gaining all the benefits they could from
sustainable harvest of any of the six scored resources present in their location, either because of
unsustainable harvesting methods or under-harvesting of potential resources.
Highest were 15 countries that scored 90 or above: New Caledonia, Bahamas, Samoa, Iran, Republique
de Congo and Eritrea (all 100); French Polynesia and Kiribati (99), Maldives and Bangladesh (94), Italy and
Tunisia (92), Madagascar 91, Mozambique and Indonesia (90).
Lowers were 12 countries that scored between 1 and 10: Georgia (10), Turks and Caicos Islands and
Barbados (9), Suriname (6), Tonga and Faeroe Islands (5), Panama and Jamaica (4), Ivory Coast (3), Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines and Libya (2), Singapore (1).
Ten (10) countries scored zero (0) because they had some Natural Products trade in the recent past, but
not in the most recent available data: Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Cyprus, Dominica, Greenland, Montenegro,
Sao Tome and Principe, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Eighty-seven (87) countries had no scores for this goal because they had no reported exports of natural
products.
CARBON STORAGE · overall score: 79 · range: 10-100
Target: Reduce global warming by conserving coastal habitats that sequester carbon for long periods.
Reference point: Maintain or restore the extent and condition of coastal carbon-storing habitats
(mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt marshes) to their ~1980 values.
In 2015 important changes were made to the goal model. The model now incorporates coefficients
(weights) to account for the different amounts of carbon that different habitats sequester, using new data
from (Laffoley & Grimsditch 2009). Weighting factors for relative carbon sequestration rates for habitats
used in the carbon storage goal are: Saltmarsh (210), Mangroves (139) and Seagrass (83). Also, a new
global data layer (Hamilton and Casey 2014) for mangroves replaced data previously used, providing
much higher spatial and temporal resolution. The new data estimate mangrove cover at 30 m raster cell
resolution.
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High scoring countries have conserved their mangrove forests, seagrass beds and salt marshes to the
extent and condition prevailing in about 1980. The overall score, 79, indicates that the condition of those
habitats has declined in most countries since that time.
The 24 reporting areas that scored 100 include both developed and developing regions. Alphabetically
they are: Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Cuba, Denmark, Estonia,
French Guiana, Germany, Ghana, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Morocco, Netherlands, Northern
Saint-Martin, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands of the United States, Russia, Saba, Seychelles, Sint
Eustatius, Sint Maarten, South Africa and Suriname. Eleven (11) of the regions are in the general
Caribbean area, five (six counting Russia) are in Europe.
Ten countries scored 35 or below: Liberia (35), Senegal (34), Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast (33),
Democratic Republic of the Congo (31), Guinea Bissau (30), Barbados (27), Dominica (26) and Nicaragua
(10).
Seventy-five (72) regions were not scored because the habitats evaluated for carbon storage do not exist
there.
COASTAL PROTECTION · overall score: 87 · range: 24-100
Target: Maintain or restore extent and condition of coastal habitats that protect against storm waves and
flooding (coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt marshes, sea ice) to their ~1980 values.
Reference points: The extent and condition of five of the protective biological habitats (tropical coral
reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt marshes) is compared to their values in about 1980. At the
recommendation of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (Cavalieri et al. 2014) the reference point for
sea ice was changed to be from the start of the data (1979) until the year 2000 (rather than until the
current year).
In 2015 important changes were made to the Coastal Protection goal model to avoid penalizing
countries with healthy habitats that do not provide high coastal protection, such as seagrass. Status is
now based on the relative health of the habitats that provide shoreline protection and weighted by their
area and protectiveness rank. Rank weights for the protective ability of each habitat come from previous
work by INVEST that ranks mangroves, corals and sea ice as 4, salt marshes as 3, and seagrasses as 1
(higher values are better). The area of each habitat type is multiplied by its protective rank and the ratio
of its current extent to its reference extent. Those products are summed for all habitats present. That
sum is divided by the sum of the product of the area of each type of habitat multiplied by its protective
rank yields the Coastal Protection score:
C is the condition at current (c) and reference (r) time points, w is the rank weight of the habitat’s
protective ability, and A is the area within a region for each k habitat type.
The same new database was used for mangrove habitat as was described for the Carbon Storage goal.
For all coastal countries, maintenance or improvement of extent and condition of biological habitats can
add many years of protection from ocean incursion, but it cannot fully protect low-lying areas if
long-term sea level rise is severe.
Countries can independently take action that will maintain or increase protective biological habitats, but
not sea ice. The only resilience measure that will maintain sea ice and its benefits will be the combined
actions of many countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A region acting alone would generally
not be able to act at a scale that could markedly increase sea ice extent.
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CARBON STORAGE cont.
High scoring countries have conserved their tropical coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds and
salt marshes to the extent and condition prevailing in about 1980.
Twenty-four (24) countries scored 100: Aruba, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bonaire, British Indian Ocean
Territory, Curacao, Denmark, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Ghana, Howland Island and Baker Island,
Japan, Line Group, Netherlands, Phoenix Group, Pitcairn, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, South Africa, Suriname, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna. Kiribati and Oman scored 99.
Thirteen (13) countries scored 46 or below: Pakistan (46), Iceland (44), Lithuania (36), Liberia (35), Ivory
Coast (33), Sierra Leone (32), Senegal, Guinea and Democratic Republic of the Congo
Senegal (all 31), Guinea Bissau and Nicaragua (30), Dominica (26) and Belize (24).
Thirty-seven (37) countries scored 100: Albania, Algeria, Aruba, Bangladesh, Belize, Cape Verde,
Cayman Islands, Chile, Ecuador, Gambia, Georgia, Greenland, Guatemala, Israel, Kuwait, Liberia,
Mayotte, Morocco, Mozambique, New Zealand, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome and
Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sweden, Syria, Tanzania,
Tonga, Turkey, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Vanuatu.
Fifty (50) countries were not scored because the habitats providing coastal protection did not exist there.
Twenty-two (22) other countries scored between 95 and 99.
COASTAL LIVELIHOODS & ECONOMIES · overall score: 82 · range: 3-100
Target: This goal aims to maintain the economic health of the marine workforce and coastal communities
by maintaining coastal and ocean-dependent livelihoods (indicated by jobs), livelihood quality (indicated
by relative wages) and productive coastal economies (indicated by revenues). Reference point: The goal
is for a region to have no net loss of jobs, wages or revenue in its marine sector. Jobs and revenue use
a temporal reference point. Jobs must keep pace with growth in employment rates or sustain losses
no greater than national increases in unemployment rates; and revenue must keep pace with growth in
the region’s GDP or suffer losses no greater than the national declines in GDP. The reference point for a
region’s wages uses a spatial reference point—that is, regional wages are compared to those in all other
regions-- but always adjusted to the wages in non-marine sectors and to purchasing power of the local
currency.
The reason for a ‘no net loss’ reference point is that we have no way on knowing whether it would be
desirable for marine jobs, wages and revenues to increase faster than for other sectors. In an
independent assessment a region or territory could set its own reference point based on faster marine
sector growth, but that would not be appropriate for global assessment of all countries.
SPECIAL NOTE: This goal could not be updated in 2015 so scores are essentially the same as in 2014.
The Livelihoods component of this goal is based on job and wage data. The International Labor
Organization’s central statistical database (ILOSTAT) no longer provides wage data at the resolution
required for the model, so this subgoal now needs a new model based on different data; we have not yet
been able to develop it. Furthermore, of the five job sectors evaluated for Livelihoods (tourism, commercial
fishing, mariculture, wave and tidal energy, marine mammal watching), new jobs data were only available
for tourism, greatly limiting the value of updating the jobs component of the sub-goal. Data were available
to update most aspects of the Economies component of this goal, but we elected to wait until the entire
general model is revised in 2016.
Nine (9) marine sectors are evaluated, including: Aquarium fishing, Commercial fishing, Mariculture,
Marine mammal watching, Ports and harbors, Ship and boat building, Tourism, Transportation and
shipping, Wave and tidal energy. Mineral extraction, including gas, oil, mining and others is not included
as it cannot be sustainable, by definition, since even if carefully done, material is extracted faster than it
can be replenished naturally.
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The overall score, 82, suggests that marine sectors are not keeping up with the overall economy in terms
of jobs, wages and livelihoods. Several factors could be involved, including more rapid expansion of
jobs and wages in non-marine industries including technology as well as lack of global data on marine
sectors beyond the six evaluated in this study. In addition to an improved model, future evaluation of
this goal will benefit from improved data, including global data on wages and development of global
databases for other marine employment sectors.
The ten lowest scoring countries were French Guiana and Cook Islands (47), Philippines (45),
Saint Helena (44), Samoa (43), Falkland Islands (40), East Timor and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
(27), Equatorial Guinea (13) and Eritrea (3).
Sixteen (16) essentially uninhabited islands were not for either subgoal of this goal because they did not
have jobs, wages or revenue. They were: Prince Edward Islands, Howland Island and Baker Island,
Macquarie Island, Heard and McDonald Islands, Jarvis Island, Palmyra Atoll, South Georgia and the
South Sandwich Islands, Johnston Atoll, Crozet Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Ile Tromelin, Clipperton
Island, Bassas da India, Ile Europa, Bouvet Island, and Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island.
Livelihoods sub-goal · overall score: 77 · range: 0-100
Target: The goal is to maintain the number and quality of jobs in marine sectors.
Reference point: Livelihoods includes two equally important sub-components, the number of jobs and
the average annual wages, each with its own reference point. The reference point for jobs—which is a
proxy for livelihood quantity- is a moving target temporal comparison such that the number of jobs in
a region’s marine sectors should keep up with the number of jobs in all economic sectors, adjusted for
unemployment. The reference point for wages—which is a proxy for livelihood quality-- is a spatial
comparison in which a region’s marine sector wages are compared with the highest value observed
across all reporting regions. Wages are purchasing power parity (ppp) corrected and expressed in
constant year US$.
Countries where employees of marine sectors are poorer than the rest of the labor force and where the
number of jobs in marine sectors has been decreasing can be expected to score less on livelihoods.
Highest were 54 countries that scored 100. They were broadly distributed geographically as well as by
per-capita income and level of development. They are: Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba,
Bangladesh, Belize, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Chile, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador,
French Polynesia, Gambia, Gibraltar, Greenland, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait,
Liberia, Maldives, Mayotte, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, New Caledonia, New Zealand,
Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi
Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sweden, Syria, Tanzania, Togo,
Tonga, Turkey, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vanuatu and Yemen.
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Livelihoods sub-goal cont.
Twenty-seven (27) others scored 90 or above: American Samoa, Georgia, Guadeloupe and Martinique,
Kenya, Cuba, Northern Saint-Martin, Egypt, Montserrat, Sint Maarten, Mauritania, Suriname, Guinea
Bissau, Western Sahara, Turks and Caicos Islands, Glorioso Islands, Norfolk Island, Cocos Islands,
Christmas Island, Djibouti, Juan de Nova Island, China, Comoro Islands, Singapore, Somalia, North
Korea, Australia, South Korea,
Twelve countries scored 40 or below: Guyana (40), Gabon (39), India and Anguilla (38), Cook Islands (36),
Saint Kitts and Nevis (35), Libya (35), Benin (33), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (32), Equatorial Guinea
(7), Samoa (3) and Eritrea (0).
Economies sub-goal · overall score: 88 · range: 0-100
Target: The goal is to maintain economically productive coastal communities.
Reference point: The reference point is a moving temporal comparison for revenue such that revenue
from marine sectors within a region should keep up with revenue from all economic sectors year over
year. A region should have no net loss of revenue from its marine sector over time and revenue must
keep pace with growth in the region’s GDP or sustain losses no greater than the national declines in GDP.
Updated revenue data were used for the tourism sector, aquarium fish trade, and mariculture.
Highest were 90 countries that scored 100; and 41 that scored between 90 and 99. All of these nations
suffered little or no loss of marine-related revenue compared to revenue from all economic sectors. They
are listed at www.oceanhealthindex.org. The large number of high scoring regions indicates that marine
related revenue in most regions has kept up with the revenue from all sectors.
The low overall score for Tourism and Recreation, 50, suggests that many regions could obtain
substantially more benefits. The score could be an underestimate if data on employment in the travel
and tourism sector do not capture all such workers. However, a likely reason underlying the low overall
score, as well as a number of national scores, is that a number of the low-scoring regions have suffered
from poverty, political turmoil, natural disasters, civil strife, war, dictatorship or other volatile conditions
that make tourism unhealthy, unsafe or unappealing and also make it difficult to provide infrastructure
that might support increased tourism. U.S. State Department warnings to travelers are factored into
scores, as are indicators of the overall quality of governance that contributes to countries’ ability to
support a vibrant tourism industry.
Highest were 20 regions that scored 100: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados,
Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cape Verde, Croatia, Malta, Mauritius, New Caledonia, Saba,
Saint Lucia, Seychelles, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands and Vanuatu.
They were followed by 16 nations that scored above 90: Northern Saint-Martin, Greece and Belize (all
99), Curacao, Maldives and Fiji (all 98), Montserrat (97), Germany (96), Gibraltar (95); Madeira, Palau,
Azores, Canary Islands and Cayman Islands (all 92), Cambodia and Cyprus (both 91).
The lowest scoring regions were: Canary Islands and Micronesia (49), Northern Mariana Islands and
Guam (48), North Korea (48), Philippines (47), French Polynesia (46), Peru (45), Iceland (43), Marshall
Islands (42), Maldives (41), Niue (33), French Guiana (32), Guadeloupe and Martinique (32), Saint Helena
(26), Guinea Bissau (26), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (22), Equatorial Guinea (18), Falkland Islands
(18), Eritrea (7) and East Timor (0).
Lowest were 17 countries that scored between 3 and 10: Iran and Bangladesh (both 10), Angola and
Algeria (9), Myanmar and Guinea (both 8), Suriname and Philippines (both 7), Papua New Guinea,
Cameroon and Liberia (all 6), Gabon (5), Iraq, Pakistan, and Democratic Republic of the Congo (all 4),
Nigeria and Sierra Leone (3) and six countries that scored zero (0): Lebanon, Libya, North Korea,
Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
Sixteen uninhabited islands were not scored.
Sixteen essentially uninhabited islands had no score for Tourism & Recreation: Amsterdam Island and
Saint Paul Island, Bassas da India, Bouvet Island, Clipperton Island, Crozet Islands, Heard and
McDonald Islands, Howland Island and Baker Island, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin, Jarvis Island, Johnston
Atoll, Kerguelen Islands, Macquarie Island, Palmyra Atoll, Prince Edward Islands, South Georgia and the
South Sandwich Islands.
TOURISM & RECREATION · overall score: 50 · range 0-100
Target: Tourism and recreation are important parts of a vibrant coastal economy, so the goal is to attract
the maximal sustainable number of tourists to coastal areas.
Reference point: The goal measures the proportion of the total labor force engaged in the coastal tourism
and travel sector, factoring in unemployment and sustainability. This method attempts to capture both
international and domestic tourism. All countries where tourism and travel employment made up 9.5% or
more of the total labor force received a perfect score. This value was set by rank-ordering the countries
and giving all countries above the 90th percentile a score of 100. Long-term sustainability of tourism was
estimated by the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index.
For the 2015 analysis, data layers estimating the number of people employed in a region’s tourism and
recreation sector (hotels, airports, airlines, travel agents and leisure and services that deal directly with
tourists) and the total labor force both came from the World Travel and Tourism Council (http://www.wttc.
org/research/economic-data-search-tool/).
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Also, a better way to incorporate travel advisory information into the goal model was developed for the
2015 assessment. Travel advisories were categorized by urgency of warning (‘risk’, ‘avoid unnecessary
travel’, and ‘avoid all travel’) and were weighted differently (penalties of 25%, 75%, and 100%
respectively). Penalties for region-specific warnings (within a country) were assessed at half the weight.
Finally, we included updated Global Competitive Index data.
SENSE OF PLACE · overall score: 59 · range: 0-100
Target: Preserve features of coastal marine areas with special cultural, spiritual or aesthetic significance
for inhabitants, visitors or others. This goal uses the status of Iconic Species and Lasting Special Places
sub-goals to evaluate the importance given to Sense of Place and the potential benefits it provides. To
score highly on this goal, populations of a region’s iconic species had to be at low risk of extinction and
the proportion of its near shore coastline (inland to 1 km) and waters (seaward to 3 nm) in protection had
to be near 30%.
The mediocre overall goal score, 59, indicates that most countries are not valuing or protecting the
Sense of Place that could enrich the cultural, spiritual and aesthetic lives of their citizens and visitors.
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SENSE OF PLACE cont.
Highest scoring countries (above 90) were an interesting mix of remote and largely uninhabited or
sparsely inhabited island territories and four developed European nations. Scoring 100 were Estonia,
Glorioso Islands, Latvia, Lithuania, Macquarie Island, Phoenix Group, Poland and Prince Edward Islands.
The other scores above 90 were Canary Islands and Finland (97) and Norfolk Island (94).
Lowest were 13 countries that scored 25 or below: Eritrea, Iraq, Sao Tome and Principe (all 25); Crozet
Islands, Kerguelan Islands, Qatar, and Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island (all 24); Syria and Libya
(23); Bouvet Island and Bahrain (22); and Andaman and Nicobar (21).
Seven areas scored zero (0): Bassas da India, Clipperton Island, Guernsey, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin and
Juan de Nova Island.
Iconic Species sub-goal · overall score: 58 · range: 31-88
Target: Maintain abundant populations of all marine iconic species in the region.
Reference point: All iconic species present should be at minimal risk of extinction (‘least concern’ in IUCN
Red List).
Highest scoring regions were: Norfolk Island (88), Reunion (81), Aruba (79), South Georgia and the South
Sandwich Islands, Anguilla, and Faeroe Islands (all 77), Falkland Islands (76), Dominica (75), Australia (74),
Gambia (73), Denmark (72), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (72) and Pitcairn (71).
Fourteen (14) regions scored 46 or below: Germany, Mayotte, Israel, Syria and Lebanon (all 46); Heard
and McDonald Islands (45); British Indian Ocean Territory (45), Bouvet Island and Algeria (both 44);
Bahrain (43), Malta and Cambodia (41); Kuwait (39) and Monaco (31).
Twenty-two countries or territories were not scored for this goal, because there were no data for the
species evaluated: Andaman and Nicobar, Azores, Bassas da India, Canary Islands, Clipperton Island,
Estonia, Finland, Glorioso Islands, Guernsey, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin, Jersey, Juan de Nova Island, Latvia,
Line Group, Lithuania, Macquarie Island, Madeira, Oecussi Ambeno, Phoenix Group, Poland, and Prince
Edward Islands.
Lasting Special Places sub-goal · overall score: 60 · range: 0-100
Target: Protect aspects of the coast that are important to cultural, spiritual and aesthetic appreciation.
Reference point: Few countries have official lists of places (if any) protected for their cultural and spiritual
importance, especially for various subcultures or ethnic groups. Therefore the Index uses places
protected for other purposes to represent them, including coastal terrestrial protected areas, marine
protected areas, UNESCO World Heritage marine sites, national parks and cultural reserves and the
United Nations list of protected places. The proxy reference for lasting special places is for 30% of the
coastline from 3 nm seaward to 1 km landward to be in protected status.
Improved global data more specifically tailored to this goal would add value to its assessment. If countries
have such goal, they could be used in an independent assessment.
Highest scoring were 57 countries that scored 100. The list includes uninhabited, developing and
developed areas. They are: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Belize, Brazil, British Indian Ocean Territory,
Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, France, French Guiana,
Germany, Gibraltar, Glorioso Islands, Greenland, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Guinea Bissau, Heard and
McDonald slands, Honduras, Howland Island and Baker Island, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Jan Mayen, Jarvis
Island,
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Johnston Atoll, Latvia, Lithuania, Macquarie Island, Mauritania, Mayotte, Mexico, Namibia, Netherlands,
Nicaragua, Norfolk Island, Northern Saint-Martin, Palau, Palmyra Atoll, Phoenix Group, Poland, Portugal,
Prince Edward Islands, Romania, Senegal, Slovenia, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands,
Suriname, Tanzania, Tristan da Cunha, United Kingdom, Vietnam, and Wake Island.
Another 16 regions scored 90 or above. They are: Republique du Congo (99), New Caledonia, Malta and
Sweden (all 98); Canary Islands, Finland and Guatemala (all 97); Norway, South Africa and Spain (96);
Chile, Egypt and Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands of the United States (all 94); Mozambique (93), United
Arab Emirates (91) and Japan (90).
Lowest were 15 countries that scored between 5 and 1, including: Micronesia and British Virgin Islands
(both 5), Haiti (4), Bahamas, Maldives, Tonga, and Sierra Leone (all 3), Ghana (2) and Vanuatu, Samoa,
Tunisia, Singapore, Montenegro, Barbados and Dominica (all 1).
Forty-one (41) countries scored zero (0). They are: Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island, Anguilla,
Aruba, Bahrain, Bassas da India, Benin, Bouvet Island, Cape Verde, Clipperton Island, Cocos
Islands, Comoro Islands, Cook Islands, Crozet Islands, Djibouti, Eritrea, Falkland Islands, French
Polynesia, Grenada, Guernsey, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin, Iraq, Jordan, Juan de Nova Island,
Kerguelen Islands, Kiribati, Liberia, Libya, Line Group, Montserrat, Nauru, Niue, North Korea, Qatar,
Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sao Tome and Principe, Sint Eustatius, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tokelau,
and Wallis and Futuna.
Though many countries scored very well, the large number that did not shows how much work needs to
be done globally to achieve the maximal benefits that this subgoal should provide.
CLEAN WATERS · overall score: 74 · range: 20-100
Target: Eliminate pollution by chemicals, nutrients, pathogens and trash.
Reference point: the reference point is to have zero pollution from excess nutrients, chemicals,
pathogens and trash. Since global data do not exist for some of these pressures, modeled or proxy data
were used.
For the 2015 assessment a new global marine plastic dataset (Eriksen et al. 2014) replaced the coastal
beach trash clean up data used previously to measure trash pollution, providing much higher resolution
and richer information on the kind of debris in all parts of the ocean, not just the coastline. Small
improvements to computing chemical pollution were also developed.
The overall Clean Water score, 74, may be higher than the public would expect given recent media
attention to pollution from sources such as the Deep Horizon oil spill and Fukushima tsunami and
nuclear disaster. However, the harmful effects of those regional events have not spread to all oceans
and countries, so they are not captured in global data. Where available, such information would greatly
influence the scores of independent assessments that used regional data.
Highest scoring were 17 regions that scored 100: Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island, Bassas da
India, Bouvet Island, Clipperton Island, Crozet Islands, Heard and McDonald Islands, Howland Island
and Baker Island, Ile Europa, Ile Tromelin, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kerguelen Islands, Macquarie
Island, Palmyra Atoll, Prince Edward Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. All are
small, remote island territories that are either uninhabited or have very low populations and are located
at high latitudes in the South Atlantic, Southern Ocean or southern Indian Ocean. Other regions that
scored above 90 were: United Kingdom, Canada and Quatar (all 92); Norway (91) and Greenland (90).
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CLEAN WATERS cont.
Highest scoring were 23 regions that scored 90 or above. The only region to score 100 was Heard and
McDonald Islands, followed by South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Kerguelen Islands,
Falkland Islands and Bouvet Island (all 99); Macquarie Island, Jarvis Island, and Crozet Islands (all 98);
Howland Island and Baker Island (97), Phoenix Group (96), Canada (96), Greenland and Chile (both 94),
Tokelau (93), Cocos Islands and Cook Islands (92), Palmyra Atoll, Line Group, Russia and Amsterdam
Island and Saint Paul Island (all 91); and British Indian Ocean Territory, French Polynesia, Saint Helena,
and Ile Europa (all 90).
Highest were 46 countries that scored 90 or above, led by Cyprus (97), Israel (96), Montserrat and
Monaco (94), Northern Saint-Martin, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sint Maarten
and Saint Lucia (all 93); Heard and McDonald Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Saba, Canada, Sint Eustatius,
Japan, Sweden, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Lebanon (all 92);
Macquarie Island, Malta, Bahamas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Crozet Islands,
Aruba, Finland, Cayman Islands, Mexico, Belize, Georgia, Bouvet Island, and Turkey (all 91); and
Australia, Italy, Bonaire, Turks and Caicos Islands, Brazil, Panama, Slovenia, Poland, Lithuania, Grenada
and Syria (all 90).
Lowest scores were for 10 nations that scored between 33 and 20. They are: Belgium and Guatemala
(33), India (32), Israel (31), Togo, Slovenia and Lebanon (all 29), Benin (28), Monaco (25) and Gibraltar (20).
Lowest were 18 countries that scored below 80: Yemen, Equatorial Guinea, Faeroe Islands, Iraq, and
Guinea Bissau (all 79); Argentina, Eritrea, Singapore, East Timor, Oecussi Ambeno, Uruguay, Myanmar,
Nigeria, Guinea and North Korea (all 78); and Western Sahara, Sudan and Somalia (all 77).
BIODIVERSITY · overall score: 88 · range: 69-97
Target: Conserve species and habitats that form the rich variety of marine life
Reference points: A region’s marine species, as assessed by the IUCN or GMAS (Global Marine Species
Assessment) are at minimal risk of extinction; and the extent and condition of assessed marine habitats
has not decreased greatly since about 1980.
Habitats sub-goal · overall score: 91 · range: 54-100
Reference point: The extent and condition of Habitats that support large numbers of species and for
which global data are available should at least be equal to their values in about 1980. Six habitats had
sufficient global data to permit evaluation: tropical coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, salt
marshes, subtidal soft-bottom habitats and sea ice edge. Regions are only scored for habitats that
normally exist within their EEZ.
The overall score, 88, might seem unexpectedly high given media coverage and public attention to the
plight of endangered species and the likelihood that population growth, land use changes, climate change
and other human-caused pressures are causing what has been termed “Earth’s 6th great mass
extinction.” Remember, however, that Habitats are compared to their reference values in ~1980 (19792000 for sea ice), so changes seen have occurred in only about three decades. Similarly, criteria for IUCN
estimates of extinction risk include population changes over 10 years or three generations (whichever is
longer), so changes seen usually also represent short time periods. With those considerations in mind, a
score of 88 is not as comforting as it might seem.
Region scores for Biodiversity ranged from 65 to 98.
Lowest scores were for Jan Mayen and Nigeria (both 70), Somalia (69), Liberia (69), Pakistan (68), Ivory
Coast (68), Republique du Congo (67), Democratic Republic of the Congo (67), Guinea Bissau (66) Senegal (66), Gabon (66) and Sierra Leone (65)
Highest scores for Biodiversity were: Cyprus
(97), Heard and McDonald Islands, Kerguelen Islands,
Saba, Belgium, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, and Georgia (all 96), Macquarie Island, Northern Saint Martin,
Finland and Israel (all 95).
Twenty-six areas scored 100. They are: Albania, Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island, Bangladesh,
British Indian Ocean Territory, Bulgaria, Clipperton Island, French Guiana, Georgia, Gibraltar, Heard and
McDonald Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Libya, Macquarie Island, Norfolk Island, North Korea, Pitcairn,
Romania, Russia, Saba, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Sao Tome and Principe, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten,
Suriname, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna. Seventy-five (75) other regions scored 95 or above.
Lowest scoring areas were: Pakistan and Liberia (69), Guinea Bissau, Nicaragua and Ivory Coast (all 68),
Poland, Gabon and Grenada (all 67), Nigeria (66), Colombia and Democratic Republic of the Congo (both
65), Belize (62), Senegal (61), Sierra Leone and Dominica (both 60), Iceland(58) and Jan Mayen (54).
Low scores for the extent and condition of habitats would likely depress species scores, accelerating the
decline in future scores for the Biodiversity goal.
The Crozet Islands, Monaco and Bouvet Island were not scored because none of the evaluated habitats
exist there.
Lowest scores were: Liberia, Ivory Coast and Dominica (all 75), Gabon, Pakistan and Guinea Bissau (all
74), Nigeria, Senegal and Democratic Republic of the Congo (all 72), Iceland and Sierra Leone (both 71)
and Jan Mayen69.
Species sub-goal · overall score: 86 · range: 77-97
Reference Point: All Species present should be at minimal risk of extinction (‘least concern’ status in the
IUCN “Red List”). The 2015 analysis was able to use updated IUCN and GMSA data for 5,606 species,
including information for some subpopulations, thereby increasing the resolution of measurement for this
subgoal.
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WITH APPRECIATION
“ effective management of our oceans is critically important to
help sustain the economies and people dependent on them ”
James T. Morris, Chairman
EXPLORE MORE
• Further information at www.oceanhealthindex.org, includes an interactive Data Explore that shows
how scores are constructed and allows users to test ‘what if’ scenarios.
• Data, scientific publications, and detailed scientific information are at www.ohi-science.org, including
tools for developing an independent assessment.
• A color-coded table of scores for all regions is at https://rawgit.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/draft/
global2015/Reporting/data/scores_eez2015.html)
• A color-coded carpet plot showing overall and goal scores for all regions from 2012-2015 is at https://
github.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/blob/draft/global2015/Reporting/figures/carpetPlot.png
• Flower plots of goal scores for every region are at: https://github.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/tree/
draft/global2015/Reporting/figures/FlowerPlots
• A table of status Trends from 2012-2015 is at: https://rawgit.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/draft/global2015/Reporting/data/trends.html
Thanks to generous support from the Pacific Life Foundation, the Ocean Health Index’s Founding
Presenting Sponsor, Jayne and Hans Hufschmid, and Dan Sten Olsson, Chairman and CEO of Stena
AB, the Ocean Health Index is informing global planning efforts and guiding more than 21 countries
towards a sustainably managed ocean.
Building ocean health is neither quick nor easy, but thanks to our very generous supporters, the
process is solidly underway.
• An interactive Google plot where you can explore correlations between goals, look at change over
time, compare country scores, etc. is at https://rawgit.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/draft/global2015/
Reporting/figures/GoogleVisScores.html
Citation
You may cite this document as: Ocean Health Index 2015: Summary of results for countries and territories. Prepared September 25, 2015. Available online at http://www.oceanhealthindex.org and http://
www.ohi-science.org.
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© Trond Larsen