Week 2: Why We Need Wild And Pristine Seas
Date: May 13th, 2009 9:49:32 pm - Subscribe
Mood: sneaky
It’s no secret: Our oceans are in danger. For years, overfishing and pollution have eliminated marine life and degraded ocean ecosystems. We are on the verge of losing the last of the pristine seas that we inherited from our ancestors.
But the story of our ocean isn’t all doom and gloom. Ocean Now is an expedition of hope, that aims to find, survey, and protect some of the last healthy, undisturbed places in the ocean.
WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Humanity’s impact on ocean life is global.
Scientists estimate that 90 percent of the ocean's large predatory fish have been removed by fishing, near-shore waters suffer harmful algal and jellyfish blooms, industrial fleets are harming deep seamounts that harbor unique and irreplaceable biodiversity, and a fifth of Earth's coral reefs are dead due to human-induced changes in the seas.
In particular, coral reefs have been hit hard by a combination of human activities, including overfishing, coastal development, pollution, and global warming.
A healthy coral reef is like a colorful tropical forest with rich diversity in crystal-clear waters, populated by large animals such as sharks, groupers, and sea turtles. A degraded reef is brown and ugly, most of its corals are dead and covered by seaweed, sharks and other large predators are gone, and the water is clouded with sediment and algae. In such places, the richness that Jacques Cousteau and Sylvia Earle first showed us decades ago is all but gone.
WHY WE NEED WILD PLACES
The decline of ocean life is accelerating; residual healthy marine ecosystems are dwindling. Modern science began long after humans started exploiting and degrading the seas; hence, we do not have rigorous baselines for understanding what the ocean was like before, what we have lost, and what options exist for the future. These rich submarine pockets of healthy marine life preserve unique species, many of them likely never yet seen and described.
The ocean’s few remaining wild places are needed, not just to instruct us and to preserve scarce species, but also to inspire people to care about marine life, and to create public demand for conservation. Pristine places are time machines, a window to the past and a blueprint for a better future.
Healthy oceans are the main engine—storing and cycling heat, stabilizing and renewing our atmosphere, engendering life—that makes our planet a wonderful place to live. And pristine places are rare gems that need to be protected from human disturbance as soon as possible.
WHY THIS EXPEDITION?
This project reflects the spirit of scientific exploration that has characterized National Geographic for more than a century.
In this expedition to the southern Line Islands, the Ocean Now team will identify and survey five of the last undisturbed coral reef ecosystems on the planet. By studying the pristine coral reef communities surrounding islands of different size, we will determine the minimum critical area that a marine reserve must encompass in order to protect an entire, viable ecosystem and ensure its resilience. Scientific data, photographs, and video gathered during the expedition will be shared with Kiribati policy makers, to inform them about their natural heritage, and to document the need to preserve this unique archipelago for future generations.
Beyond the islands, we hope the project will also encourage people everywhere to regard the ocean—despite its awesome immensity—as a finite and a threatened resource, something we all affect, for better or worse, by the choices we make about what we eat and how we live.
More Ocean Facts From NG.com:
* The ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth's surface and contains 97 percent of its water. That is why the Earth is often referred to as the “blue planet.”
* An estimated 80 percent of all life on Earth is found under the ocean’s surface, and our ocean contains 99 percent of the living space on the planet. Less than ten percent of the ocean’s volume has been explored by humans.
Ocean Destruction:
* Ten percent of the world's reefs have been completely destroyed. In the Philippines, where coral reef damage is extensive, more than 70 percent of native reef ecosystems have been destroyed and only 5 percent can be said to be in good condition.
* Already, the populations of nearly 30 percent of edible fish and seafood species have declined by 90 percent—the threshold at which fisheries are termed “collapsed” and potentially beyond recovery.
* In a study published in the journal Science, an international team of ecologists and economists predicted that by 2048, “the world's oceans will be empty of fish.... The cause: the disappearance of species due to overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change.”
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