Just 13% of the world’s oceans remain untouched by the damaging impacts of humanity. Outside the remotest areas of the Pacific and the poles, virtually no ocean is left harbouring naturally high levels of marine wildlife.
Huge fishing fleets, global shipping and pollution running off the land are combining with climate change to degrade the oceans, researchers found. Furthermore, just 5% of the remaining ocean wilderness is within existing marine protection areas. This means the vast majority of marine wilderness could be lost at any time, as improvements in technology allow us to fish deeper and ship farther than ever before.
Scientists warned in January that the oceans are suffocating, with huge dead zones quadrupling since 1950, and in February, new maps revealed half of world’s oceans are now industrially fished. “Oceans are under threat now as never before in human history,” said Sir David Attenborough at the conclusion of the BBC series Blue Planet 2 in December.
Kendall Jones, at the University of Queensland, Australia, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, who led the new research, explained, “The ocean is immense, covering over 70% of our planet, but we’ve managed to significantly impact almost all of this vast ecosystem.” He went on to say, the $4bn a year in government subsidies spent on high seas fishing must be cut. “Most fishing on the high seas would actually be unprofitable if it weren’t for big subsidies,” Jones said. Climate change is causing growing damage and Jones said Arctic wilderness areas protected by ice cover in the 1970s had now been lost after the ice melted and fishing boats were able to access them. It is increasingly a global problem, he said: “In future, as climate change gets worse, I think you can definitely say pretty much everywhere in the ocean is going to come under increasing level of threat.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/26/just-13-of-global-oceans-undamaged-by-humanity-research-reveals
Huge fishing fleets, global shipping and pollution running off the land are combining with climate change to degrade the oceans, researchers found. Furthermore, just 5% of the remaining ocean wilderness is within existing marine protection areas. This means the vast majority of marine wilderness could be lost at any time, as improvements in technology allow us to fish deeper and ship farther than ever before.
Scientists warned in January that the oceans are suffocating, with huge dead zones quadrupling since 1950, and in February, new maps revealed half of world’s oceans are now industrially fished. “Oceans are under threat now as never before in human history,” said Sir David Attenborough at the conclusion of the BBC series Blue Planet 2 in December.
Kendall Jones, at the University of Queensland, Australia, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, who led the new research, explained, “The ocean is immense, covering over 70% of our planet, but we’ve managed to significantly impact almost all of this vast ecosystem.” He went on to say, the $4bn a year in government subsidies spent on high seas fishing must be cut. “Most fishing on the high seas would actually be unprofitable if it weren’t for big subsidies,” Jones said. Climate change is causing growing damage and Jones said Arctic wilderness areas protected by ice cover in the 1970s had now been lost after the ice melted and fishing boats were able to access them. It is increasingly a global problem, he said: “In future, as climate change gets worse, I think you can definitely say pretty much everywhere in the ocean is going to come under increasing level of threat.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/26/just-13-of-global-oceans-undamaged-by-humanity-research-reveals
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