Text and Photos by Jims Vincent T. Capuno
“The world’s oceans are in danger, and the enormity of the challenge is bigger than one country or organization,” said World Bank president Robert Zoellick during the World Oceans Summit held in Singapore recently.
“We need coordinated global action to restore our oceans to health. Together we’ll build on the excellent work already being done to address the threats to oceans, identify workable solutions, and scale them up,” he added.
The World Bank head proposed a coalition of governments, global organizations and other groups to protect the oceans. The coalition – which he called Global Partnership for Oceans – “will bring together countries, scientific centers, non-government organizations, international organizations, foundations and the private sector to pool knowledge, experience, expertise, and investment around a set of agreed upon goals.”
Ninety-seven percent of the world’s water is ocean. It also comprises over two-thirds of the planet’s surface.
“From afar, aliens might see the obvious: the sea is Earth’s life-support system,” wrote marine biologist Sylvia A. Earle, former chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. “The services provided are so fundamental that most of us who live here tend to take them for granted.”
“The earth’s great sea is the heart of the hydrological cycle – nature’s solar-driven water pump,” explains Don Hinrichsen, an award-winning environmental journalist and author of Coastal Waters of the World.
About 430,000 cubic kilometers of water evaporate from the oceans every year. “Of this amount, around 110,000 cubic kilometers fall as freshwater precipitation over land, replenishing surface and ground waters and eventually completing the cycle by returning to the sea,” Hinrichsen reports.
The ocean is also the engine that drives the world’s climate, storing huge quantities of solar energy in the process. “The ocean absorbs and stores carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” says Hinrichsen. “Since this invisible gas is one of the main agents of climate change, the ocean is an important sink that helps to modify human impacts on global climate.”
Ocean currents, the blue planet’s super highways, transfer enormous quantities of water and nutrients from one place to another. The Gulf Stream, for instance, pushes more water from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean across the Atlantic into northern Europe, than is carried by all the rivers on earth.
“Once thought to be so vast and resilient that no level of human insult could damage them, the oceans are now crying out for attention,” noted a report released by the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute. “While the public eye is periodically turned to large disasters, it is routine assaults that most threaten the marine environment.”
Burgeoning human numbers and growing consumption per capita are putting intense pressure on ocean coastal areas, over-consuming ocean resources, and undermining the health of the oceans themselves. “The world’s oceans are in danger,” Zoellick deplored. “Send out the S-O-S: We need to Save Our Seas.”
Human populations have a tremendous impact on the quality of coastal and oceanic environments. A full two-thirds of the world’s population live within 400 kilometers of a seacoast. Just over half the world’s population occupy a coastal strip 200 kilometers wide, representing only 10 per cent of the earth’s land surface.
This is true in the case of the Philippines, which has about 7, 107 islands. “Every Filipino lives within 45 miles of the coast, and every day, more than 4,500 new residents are born,” wrote Joan Castro and Leona D’Agnes in a report circulated by the Washington, D.C.-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Rapid population growth and the increasing human pressure on coastal resources have resulted in the massive degradation of the coral reefs, touted to be the tropical rainforest of the sea.
Robert Ginsburg, a specialist on coral reefs working with the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, said human beings have a lot to do with the rapid destruction of reefs. “In areas where people are using the reefs or where there is a large population, there are significant declines in coral reefs,” he pointed out.
Dr. Edgardo D. Gomez, director of the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines at Diliman, agrees. “If asked what the major problem of coral reefs is, my reply would be ‘The pressure of human populations’,” he asserted.
A visit to any fishing village near a reef will quickly confirm this, he pointed out. “There are just too many fishermen. They overfish the reefs, and even if the use non-destructive fishing gear, they still stress the coral reef ecosystem,” Dr. Gomez deplored.
In the Philippines, an estimated 10-15 per cent of the total fisheries come from coral reefs. Fish provides more than half of the protein requirement of most Filipinos. “Unless we look for other sources of protein, the food intake of Filipinos will be greatly affected,” says an official of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, a line agency of the Department of Agriculture.
Daily chemical and biological pollution – again caused by human activities – is likewise damaging the oceans at a frightening rate, while ongoing coastal development – driven by tourism and economic boom – hamper their ability to recuperate.
“Accidents at sea such as oil spills, chemical spills or operational discharges from ships are only a small percentage, and affect only limited areas,” noted marine biologist Stjepan Keckes. “They are far less serious than slow insidious pollution which people get used to because it is progressive. In warm waters, oil evaporates or degrades and is broken up very quickly by bacteria to harmless substances – carbon dioxide and water.”
In recent years, growing amounts of litter have been found in the marine environment. Natural materials disintegrate quickly, but plastics are relatively non-biodegradable. “Plastics persist for up to 50 years and, because they are usually buoyant, they are widely distributed by ocean currents and wind,” reports the World Resources Institute.
Gone with pristine waters are futurists’ dreams of a world fed by the sea’s abundance. In their place is the reality of stagnant oceans; shrinking wetlands, coral reefs and mangroves; and falling fish catches that jeopardize a key source of protein for the world’s poor.
According to Zoellick, one billion people – mostly from developing countries – depend on fish and seafood for their primary source of protein and over half a billion rely on fishing as a means of livelihood.
“Unless we act soon, reversing the worsening conditions of our oceans will only become more difficult,” warns Nicholas Lenssen, author of the Worldwatch report.
