Narration: This is not kitchen rubbish being chucked overboard. This is radioactive waste being illegally dumped into the Northwest Pacific ocean.

Serious pollution from this and other sources is forcing the countries surrounding the Northwest Pacific to confront a common enemy to protect 'The Sea'.

This is a region that for much of the twentieth century has been divided by conflict. Sharp political and military confrontations have often prevented the neighbouring nations from co-operating to solve environmental problems.

For the people who live along the coasts, the sea is a way of life and a livelihood. Surrounding the Northwest Pacific, some of the world's largest cities exist side by side with some of the Earth's most precious and beautiful habitat.

Concerned by increasing levels of pollution and growing ecological disruption. Once hostile neighbours are beginning to work together for the common good.

This week's Earth Report takes you to the Northwest Pacific where Russia, Korea, Japan and China are now striving to create and implement a United Nations Environment Programme Sponsored Regional Seas agreement that will ensure all the countries bordering the Northwest Pacific will work together to protect and conserve their common sea.

Quotation: "This is quite an important initiative right now because at the moment there is no framework for co-operation in the marine environment and the coastal environment of this region. Therefore we try to establish the very first in the framework of regional co-operation in the field of the marine environment."

HISTORY OF THE REGIONAL SEAS

Narration: A generation ago the idea of co-operating to protect common resources was born. In 1974 the Mediterranean Sea was in terrible ecological condition. In this politically charged part of the world it took just one year for the many countries bordering the sea to agree to clean it up.

It worked. Formerly bitter enemies came together and created the first ever UNEP Regional Seas agreement. This precedent setting agreement has led to 13 other Regional Seas agreements over the last 25 years.

Quotation: "It's sometimes a nightmare trying to get neighbouring countries together to protect a common sea but it's got to be done. And sometimes the most urgent cases take the longest time."

Narration: There are still vast areas of the ocean where agreements are badly needed and one of these is the Northwest Pacific.

QUICK POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE REGION

Narration: The Northwest Pacific, like the Mediterranean, is a region that has a recent history of bloody conflicts and deep seated mistrust.

All of the countries, Japan, China, Russia and Korea have at one time or another confronted each other. Japan conquered and colonised Korea and attacked the others. Russia, China and Korea ferociously retaliated. Korea has been divided North and South since the end of WWII and remains a last outpost of the cold war. The Russians and the Chinese fell out in the 60's and remained at odds for decades. All this conflict meant little trade, less pollution and no Northwest Pacific regional seas agreement.

Narration: Over the last two decades the situation has completely changed. China reformed its economy, opened its society and joined Japan and Korea to provide the engine for Asia's economic rise. A part of the world that 50 years ago was the definition of abject poverty has transformed itself into a vibrant and thriving region. The Soviet Union collapsed, ending the cold war and made trading partners of old adversaries. But with peace and the new affluence has come increased levels of pollution.

NATURE

Narration: Sakhalin Island at the Northern rim of the Northwest Pacific echoes with sounds unchanged for millennia. Forests and rivers, Seabirds and mammals flourish amid small human settlements.

Narration: The remoteness of this island and the rarity of the habitat here have not prevented massive exploitation of its resources. This has alarmed conservationists and is stimulating a systematic study of the fragile resources. Several expeditions in recent years to study the flora and fauna on Sakhalin Island have been led by Dr Zykov giving this Russian wildlife biologist a unique perspective on the subject.

Quotation: "When I look at those endangered species, the idea that I might be the last man on the earth to see them enters my mind. If five years ago we could find a number of those species, this year it was very difficult to find any. Though this thought comes to me, still, nature can be preserved and we should do everything possible to protect nature."

Narration: Dr Zykov is not alone in his love for the beauty of Sakhalin. Natalya, head of the Sakhalin Environment Committee, has lived in Sakhalin for 25 years and is passionate about the beauty of the Island.

Quotation: "Our island is like a fish. This picture is on our map. And like a fish, it needs our stewardship and environmental protection. This nature. We have very much forests and very much rivers, with very much red fish (salmon). We have not beautiful climate but if our climate is not very good, our nature is very good all the time."

Narration: Increasingly rare in the wild in other parts of the world, salmon are symbolic of the pristine and beautiful nature of Sakhalin. Salmon are also the main catch for the island's fishermen.

Here the people's lives are woven closely with their island and this fish. During the short summer months Fishing camps like this one buzz with activity.

Fish provides approximately 30 per cent of the protein in the diets of the people who live around the Northwest Pacific. This is a huge percentage compared to most of the rest of the world.

And commercial fishermen are ready to meet this demand sometimes by roaming the seas in factory ships capable of emptying the sea of fish. But overfishing is not the only threat. There's a lot more to the story.

POLLUTION

Narration: New offshore oil platforms and increasing tanker traffic are posing increasing threats to both the pristine nature in Sakhalin and the densely populated urban areas around the common sea 40 per cent of the world's petroleum that travels on the sea in tankers passes through the Northwest Pacific. The every present danger of oil spills is alarming to conservationists who wish to conserve their local environment.

Quotation: "The migratory routes of the salmon are very close to those of the tankers. And this could be a considerable danger, especially because a lot of boats from different countries fish for the salmon. The salmon will be poisoned and it will go everywhere to different countries."

Narration: This is not speculation, its already happened. Every year there are spills of varying degrees of seriousness. In 1997, off the Japanese Coast, the Russian Tanker Nakhodha ran aground with catastrophic consequences.

As bad as oil spills can be they represent only one of the many pollution problems affecting 'The Sea'.

Here in the Bohai Gulf - off the coast of China - the sea is red. Nitrogen-rich sewage from huge cities pumped untreated into the sea and agricultural runoff can cause several forms of algae to grow unchecked, like a cancer. All around the Northwest Pacific red tides algae blooms depriving the sea of oxygen turn large patches into the ocean's equivalent of a desert.

Pumping untreated human excrement directly into the ocean is causing large areas of 'The Sea' to die. If this happens from dumping human waste we can only guess at what will be the consequences when people indiscriminately dump radioactive waste?

In 1993, Grigory Pasko, a military reporter working for Boyevaya Vakhta, or 'Battle Watch', filmed Russian sailors illegally dumping radioactive waste into the Northwest Pacific. For courageously exposing this environmental crime, Pasko was arrested, tried and jailed ultimately spending 20 months in solitary confinement.

Pollution is not the only problem some human activities like cutting down the old growth forests on Sakhalin Island and elsewhere are fundamentally altering the way nature works. The destroyed forests retains less water and the rivers dry up.

Quotation: "When I was young my father took me fishing here, the forest was big and the river was rushing, there were many fish."

Narration: Fundamentally altering the ecology of a region will have devastating consequences. If the Salmon cannot get to their spawning grounds the entire natural life cycle of the Salmon will be disrupted and the traditional lifestyle of the people of the island will wither away.

Around the Northwest Pacific rim mega-cities of hundreds of millions of people are increasingly being built on so-called reclaimed land. In South Korea fully 40 per cent of the coastline is scheduled to be altered. For the land hungry urban masses this represents one of the few ways they can get more land.

But for 'The Sea' it's a different story. These cities are being built on the Mudflats which are the nurseries, the breeding grounds for countless aquatic species in the North Pacific. Ecologists are terrified. No nurseries, no babies, no future.

NOWPAP REGIONAL SEAS AGREEMENT

Narration: It is easy to see why a regional seas agreement is needed to protect the shared resources of the Northwest Pacific but it is quite another thing to get all the stake holders together and hammer out an agreement.

Supported by the United Nations Environment Programme, China, Russia, Japan and Korea have been meeting since the early 1990s to try to write a legally binding agreement to protect the shared marine resources of the Northwest Pacific. Called the Northwest Pacific Action Plan or NOWPAP, the work is moving forward but it has been a slow process. It took two years just to determine what to name the area, called the Sea of Japan on most maps. After numerous meetings it was agreed to call the area 'The Sea'.

And the name of course is just the beginning. The countries have drafted agreements to produce and maintain sensitivity maps showing the most vulnerable habitat and threatened species, to create shared computer databases of information relating to the ecology of 'The Sea' and to jointly respond in the event of catastrophic pollution such as oil spills.

The issue of oil spills is an important one because the technology used in combating these man-made disasters is expensive and complex. It is important that the best equipment and most well trained professionals are available to contain an oil spill regardless of what country they are from. The NOWPAP agreement is specifically striving to put in place an agreement that would obligate all the nations to jointly assist each other in the event of an oil spill. In the past even when a neighbouring country has been ready to assist the customs and immigrations formalities have delayed their entry to the point that containment at sea was no longer possible and the more difficult and damaging coastal cleanup was required.

When such a catastrophe takes place it is the people of the area who lose the most and who must pitch in and clean up.

This is showing that Governments alone are not the only organisations involved. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Non-government citizens groups have a responsibility and a role to play in protecting the Sea.

Quotation: "Citizen participation is a kind of security for the success of NOWPAP. If there is transparency and accountability in the process and if local NGO's and the public can take part in this process, it will considerably increase the success of the NOWPAP progress."

Narration: And enterprises certainly have a responsibility for the impact that they have on the environment. A Regional Seas agreement can make guidelines for transnational industry, helping them to understand and accept the responsibility for the pollution they create or better yet to ensure that enlightened industrial leaders eliminate pollution from their business practices.

Quotation: "The Oil industry is a business. Business must make a profit. We all use the environmental area we live in, we all use the energy we produce. So there has to be a co-operation between the public, the government and the public industry to be effective."

Narration: With so many people concentrated around the common sea - depending on it for health and life - the stakes are high in the negotiations for an agreement.

Quotation: "With the purpose of intensifying co-operation, the Korean Government insisted to other member states to cooperate with a binding, legal binding document. But we did not succeed in this meeting. But we will try to make a legal document in the next meeting."

Narration: 'The Sea' is a global commons and its protection is everyone's responsibility and the hope for our shared future. In the Northwest Pacific a regional seas agreement can be part of a process helping to create a zone of peace where the divisions that divided countries and even led to war are recent memories.

Quotation: "A regional agreement about this is possible and desirable it could lead to closer co-operation in other fields and that is good for peace, prosperity and stability in the region and the world."

Narration: The Children of Sakhalin Island every year celebrate fisherman's day. The Sea is part of the folk customs and the culture of the people. It has been a bountiful provider for all time.

But in the last 100 years people have become capable of destroying even so enormous a resource as the sea and the Northwest Pacific is in great need of protection.

Although a time consuming and painstaking task those working on the creation of a regional seas agreement for the Northwest Pacific are the best hope that the Children of Sakhalin and people all around the common sea will continue to enjoy the bounty of the sea for generations to come.