“The ocean is the cornerstone of Earth’s support system. It shapes climate and weather. It holds the key to our future.” —Sylvia Earle, marine biologist and oceanographer
“We need to stop toxic chemical, plastic, and partially combusted carbon pollution now. Along with ocean acidification, nothing else really matters.” —GOES Foundation
To celebrate World Ocean Day on June 8, here are 13 wonderful photos that will entice you to care about protecting our ocean: https://tinyurl.com/13-photos
These images are an inspiration for people to do more for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), but in reality most of these areas are only protected on paper. The goal set out at the biodiversity COP15 in Montreal in 2022 and eventually agreed by 188 nations is to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030, but little progress has been made and indeed some of the larger areas deemed under protection are still subject to commercial fishing and proposed mining. https://tinyurl.com/marine-unprotected
The reduced protections in the US, which has abandoned MPAs under the Trump administration, have made the likelihood of achieving the goal even slimmer. https://therevelator.org/trump-marine-protection
Eighty percent of the planet’s biodiversity is found in the ocean. Scientists have so far identified 250,000 marine species but estimate that this covers only two-thirds of the life that exists there. More than half the oxygen production for Earth originates in the ocean. Yet humanity continues to orchestrate the ocean’s demise, even though 3 billion people depend on the ocean for their survival and livelihood.
The ocean is a huge carbon sink, but the constant rise in greenhouse gas emissions is acidifying the water and making it difficult to absorb and sequester all the carbon.
The ocean also soaks up about 90% of the excess heat generated by climate breakdown. The rise in temperature is already pushing the great coral reefs to their limit of tolerance and are threatening fish with extinction. Many fish are moving further north to escape this and lower oxygen levels. Predators don’t necessarily follow the migrating fish, and the fine balance that defines biodiversity is interrupted. And what happens to all the marine species who are unable to move to escape their drastically changing environment?
Every year 11 million tonnes of plastic find their way into the ocean and have now reached even the deepest trenches, polluting the seas from the Arctic to the Antarctic and every species of marine wildlife, and thus entering the food chain on which billions of humans depend. These plastics include lost and abandoned fishing lines and nets, which entangle creatures from seabirds to giant whales. https://tinyurl.com/ocean-planetary
The rapid melting of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is of critical concern as sea level rises threaten so many coastal communities. Small island states are now in jeopardy of disappearing entirely.
Furthermore, a warming ocean fuels stronger hurricanes that bring more heavy rainfall and higher storm surge when they make landfall.
The Copernicus Ocean State Report lays out the multi-level crises that now plague the global ocean. https://tinyurl.com/ocean-report
One of the greatest threats to the ocean is the prospect of deep-sea mining, something many countries, aware of the risks, have chosen not to pursue. A summit conference to discuss a moratorium on this vital issue will take place in July this year.
Flying in the face of this cautious approach, Donald Trump has issued an order to expedite permits to mine the ocean bed in international waters in order to exploit the minerals there.
This decision, says Jeff Watters of Ocean Conservancy, “runs counter to the way we as a global community have been cooperatively working on the high seas for decades now. Unilateral action to pursue deep-sea mining opens up a whole Pandora’s box of questions in terms of conflict on the high seas and conflict between nations… Do we want to experiment with the destruction of these environments before we even know what’s there?” https://tinyurl.com/deep-sea-mine
The International Seabed Authority was set up in 1994 by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. One hundred and sixty-nine nations are parties to the Law of the Sea treaty, but the US has not ratified it, just as it has failed to ratify climate or biodiversity treaties.
A rise in temperature is one of the factors causing the colour of the ocean to change from blue to green. The water is becoming darker, driving animals who depend on light to move closer to the surface to compete for food and making them more vulnerable to predation. https://tinyurl.com/ocean-darker
Pollution from countless different human-made chemicals, including those leaching from plastics, is poisoning the water and killing the plankton that sit at the bottom of the food chain. The GOES Foundation states ominously, “If we had not poisoned the oceans, we could have prevented climate change. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of marine plankton in the maintenance and now precarious balance of life on Earth. We can all see the loss of phytoplankton, the decrease in oxygen production, and the well-documented CO2 increase… Oils and surfactants produced by marine plankton form [a] surface micro layer, which regulates water evaporation.”
Earth’s ocean is at a crossroads.
An alarming and tragic situation, but there are still glimmers of hope. Canada has a new area of protection 150km west of Vancouver Island. At over 133km2 it is Canada’s largest MPA, rich in hydrothermal vents and undersea formations known as seamounts and providing a unique habitat for many species. The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council is happy that the MPA has been officially created within its territories: “With so many threats to our oceans, such as climate change and pollution, we must be vigilant in what we allow to happen in our waters. Joint management is key to reconciliation and living up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Using our ecological knowledge is essential to the future of our oceans.”
A huge UN ocean conference is set to take place in Nice, France from June 9 to 13, as part of Ocean Week, which brings the world together so that we can celebrate and educate ourselves about the critical importance of protecting the ocean. https://tinyurl.com/know-your-ocean
The purpose of the conference is to support the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” It will “build on existing instruments to form successful partnerships towards the swift conclusion and effective implementation of ongoing processes that contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean.” https://tinyurl.com/conference-ocean
World Ocean Day on June 8 marks year two in the multi-year action theme Catalyzing Action for Our Ocean & Climate. This is part of a movement for a more sustainable society and a healthy blue planet. Twelve separate months of actions have taken place or being planned for 2025. January: Ocean and Climate Literacy; February: Environmental Justice; March: Global Plastics Treaty; April: Earth Day Collaboration and Plastics; May: High Seas Treaty Ratification; June: World Ocean Day; July: Deep Sea Mining Moratorium; August: High Seas Treaty Ratification and 30×30; September and October: Antarctica and the Southern Ocean; November: 30×30 Implementation; December: Climate-Related Emotions & Wellbeing. https://tinyurl.com/twelve-months
Canada has many ocean celebrations in early June. Want to know what’s happening? https://tinyurl.com/ocean-quebec