The challenges facing the world’s oceans are well known: plastic pollution could crowd out fish by 2050, and the climate crisis could wipe out coral reefs by 2100.
But a new scientific review published in Nature Wednesday offered cause for hope. If governments work together to address the threats facing Earth’s marine ecosystems, they could recover in just 30 years.
“We have a narrow window of opportunity to deliver a healthy ocean to our grandchildren’s generation, and we have the knowledge and tools to do so,” study leader Carlos Duarte of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia said in a university press release published by Phys.org. “Failing to embrace this challengeand in so doing condemning our grandchildren to a broken ocean unable to support high-quality livelihoodsis not an option.”
The review drew on the expertise of marine scientists from 10 countries and 16 universities. Together, they found several “signs of hope” pointing to the growing success of conservation efforts and the ocean’s remarkable resilience, coauthor Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, told The Globe and Mail.
Those signs include:
1. The percentage of the world’s ocean under protection has grown from less than one percent in 2000 to almost eight percent today.
2. The percentage of fish stocks fished sustainably has risen from 60 percent in 2000 to 68 percent in 2012.
3. Key habitats like kelp forests, seagrass beds and mangroves are being restored.
4. Almost half of 124 marine mammal species are increasing.
All of this indicates that human action makes a difference, for good as well as ill.
“We see local efforts that lead to local improvements. We have global examples as well, species that are crossing international boundaries, that were close to extinction, that have rebounded in some cases, manyfold,” Worm said.