Staying silent, instead of taking concrete steps to keep the world’s oceans healthy, would bring destruction and degrade the coastal environment and oceans, according to a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) official.
Pepe Clarke, a spokesman for WWF International and oceans practice lead, said a series of risks to the future of healthy oceans have continued.
“It is clear that humanity’s relationship with the ocean has become fundamentally unsustainable and a business-as-usual scenario will see an ongoing depletion of wild fish populations in oceans, destruction and degradation of habitats both in the coastal environment and within the ocean itself,” he said.
Touching on “a vital role” that oceans play in mitigating climate change, Clarke stressed that water bodies serve as a major heat and carbon sink.
“It has borne the brunt of the climate change impacts we are seeing today. These include the rise in sea level, the changes in temperature, and the acidification of the ocean,” he said.
He said increasing pollution, not only plastic pollution but nutrient and pesticide pollution, as well as climate change, have profound effects on oceans and cause a collapse of marine ecosystems.
A warming ocean, caused by climate change, means more acid that affects marine life and ultimately human communities, said Clarke.
Mentioning the negative effects of unhealthy oceans on vulnerable communities, he said coral reefs, which protect coastal communities against storms, now are being pushed to extinction because of climate change, pollution, and overfishing.
“There is increasing evidence that we have now reached the tipping point, and it is crucial for us to act now,” he said.