1.
Oceans cover 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface.
2.
More than 90 per cent of the planet’s living biomass
is found in the oceans.
3.
Eighty per cent of all pollution in seas and oceans
comes from land-based activities.
4.
Forty per cent of the world’s population lives within
60 kilometres of a coast.
5.
Three-quarters of the world’s megacities are by the
sea.
6.
By 2010, 80 per cent of people will live within 100
kilometres of the coast.
7.
Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters
costs the global economy US$12.8 billion a year. The
annual economic impact of hepatitis from tainted
seafood alone is US$7.2 billion.
8.
Plastic waste kills up to 1 million sea birds, 100,000
sea mammals and countless fish each year.
9.
Sea creatures killed by plastic decompose, the plastic
does not. Plastic remains in the ecosystem to kill
again and again.
10. Harmful algal blooms, caused by an excess of
nutrients — mainly nitrogen from agricultural
fertilizers have created nearly 150 coastal
deoxygenated ‘dead zones’ worldwide, ranging from 1 to
70,000 square kilometres.
11. An estimated 21 million barrels of oil run into
the oceans each year from street run-off, effluent
from factories, and from ships flushing their tanks.
12. Over the past decade, an average of 600,000
barrels of oil a year has been accidentally spilled
from ships, the equivalent of 12 disasters the size of
the sinking of the oil tanker Prestige in 2002.
13. Oil tankers, transport 60 per cent (approximately
2,000 million tons) of oil consumed in the world.
14. More than 90 per cent of goods traded between
countries are transported by sea.
15. Each year 10 billion tons of ballast water is
transferred around the globe and released into foreign
waters.
16. Ballast water often contains species — such as
the zebra mussel and comb jellyfish – that can
colonize their new environment to the detriment of
native species and local economies.
17. Pollution, exotic species and alteration of
coastal habitats are a growing threat to important
marine ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass beds and
coral reefs.
18. Tropical coral reefs border the shores of 109
countries, the majority of which are among the world’s
least developed. Significant reef degradation has
occurred in 93 countries.
19. Although coral reefs comprise less than 0.5 per
cent of the ocean floor, it is estimated that more
than 90 per cent of marine species are directly or
indirectly dependent on them.
20. There are about 4,000 coral reef fish species
worldwide, accounting for approximately a quarter of
all marine fish species.
21. The Great Barrier Reef, measuring 2,000 kilometres
in length, is the largest living structure on Earth.
It can be seen from the Moon.
22. Reefs protect human populations along coastlines
from wave and storm damage by serving as buffers
between oceans and near-shore communities.
23. Nearly 60 per cent of the world’s remaining reefs
are at significant risk of being lost in the next
three decades.
24. The major causes of coral reef decline are coastal
development, sedimentation, destructive fishing
practices, pollution, tourism and global warming.
25. Climate change threatens to destroy the majority
of the world’s coral reefs, as well as wreak havoc on
the fragile economies of Small Island Developing
States.
26. Average sea level has risen between 10 and 25
centimetres in the past 100 years. If all the world’s
ice melted, the oceans would rise by 66 metres.
27. Sixty per cent of the Pacific shoreline and 35 per
cent of the Atlantic shoreline are receding at a rate
of one metre a year.
28.
The phenomenon of coral bleaching is a major threat to
coral health. In 1998, 75 per cent of the world’s reefs
were affected by coral bleaching. Sixteen per cent
died.
29.
The Plan of Implementation adopted at the World Summit
on Sustainable Development (WSSD) calls for a global
marine assessment by 2004 and the development of a
global network of marine protected areas by 2012.
30.
Less than one half a per cent of marine habitats are
protected — compared with 11.5 per cent of global land
area.
31.
The High Seas — areas of the ocean beyond national
jurisdiction — cover almost 50 per cent of the Earth’s
surface. They are the least protected part of the
world.
32.
Although there are some treaties that protect
ocean-going species such as whales, as well as some
fisheries agreements, there are no protected areas in
the High Seas.
33.
Studies show that protecting critical marine habitats —
such as warm- and cold-water coral reefs, seagrass beds
and mangroves — can dramatically increase fish size and
quantity, benefiting both artisanal and commercial
fisheries.
34.
Ninety per cent of the world’s fishermen and women
operate at the small-scale local level, accounting for
over half the global fish catch.
35.
Ninety-five per cent of world fish catch (80 million
tons) is from near-shore waters.
36.
More than 3.5 billion people depend on the ocean for
their primary source of food. In 20 years, this number
could double to 7 billion.
37.
Artisanal fishing communities, who harvest half the
world’s fish catch, are seeing their livelihoods
increasingly threatened by illegal, unregulated or
subsidized commercial fleets.
38.
More than 70 per cent of the world’s marine fisheries
are now fished up to or beyond their sustainable limit.
39.
Populations of commercially attractive large fish, such
as tuna, cod, swordfish and marlin, have declined by as
much as 90 per cent in the past century.
40.
Governments at WSSD agreed, on an urgent basis and where
possible by 2015, to maintain or restore depleted fish
stocks to levels that can produce the maximum
sustainable yield.
41.
The WSSD Plan of Implementation calls for the
elimination of destructive fishing practices and
subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and
unregulated fishing.
42.
Government subsidies — estimated at US$15 to US$20
billion per year — account for nearly 20 per cent of
revenues to the fishing industry worldwide, promoting
excess fishing capacity and encouraging over-fishing.
43.
Destructive fishing practices are killing hundreds of
thousands of marine species each year and helping to
destroy important undersea habitats.
44.
Each year, illegal longline fishing, which involves
lines up to 80 miles long, with thousands of baited
hooks, kills over 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000
albatrosses.
45.
As many as 100 million sharks are killed each year for
their meat and fins, which are used for shark fin soup.
Hunters typically catch the sharks, de-fin them while
alive and throw them back into the ocean where they
either drown or bleed to death.
46.
Global by-catch — unintended destruction caused by the
use of non-selective fishing gear, such as trawl nets,
longlines and gillnets — amounts to 20 million tons a
year.
47.
The annual global by-catch mortality of small whales,
dolphins and porpoises alone is estimated to be more
than 300,000 individuals.
48.
Fishing for wild shrimp represents 2 per cent of global
seafood but one-third of total by-catch. The ratio of
by-catch from shrimp fishing ranges from 5:1 in
temperate zones to 10:1 and more in the tropics.
49.
Shrimp farming, too, is highly destructive. It causes
chemical and fertilizer pollution of water and has been
largely responsible for the destruction of nearly a
quarter of the world’s mangroves. 50. Mangroves provide
nurseries for 85 per cent of commercial fish species in
the tropics.
