The Time Is Now to Save Our Oceans
The world faces an existential need to embrace a new era of ocean conservation.
By Sylvia Earle and Jason Patlis
June 8, 2017
[Note: This commentary appeared originally at US News & World Report]
THIS WEEK, THE OCEAN finally gets the attention it deserves — and desperately needs. Delegates from almost all of the United Nations’ 193 member states have gathered for the U.N. Ocean Conference, an unprecedented and historic special session of the General Assembly to push the world to better sustain the ocean and its resources for the future.
A healthy ocean is synonymous with the planet’s survival, and human history is intertwined with the ocean. From the dawn of humanity to the modern era, explorers and settlers have crossed the world by ocean. And yet the ocean remains vague, unknown, and unexplored with human attitudes towards the ocean vacillating among fear, ignorance, arrogance and apathy.
In contrast, it is with heroic certitude and vivid imagination that we have looked skyward and invested heavily in space exploration and research. The U.S. spends roughly 157 times more in space exploration than in ocean exploration. While NASA’s 2016 budget for exploration was $4.4 billion, the allocation to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for ocean exploration and research was a mere $28 million.
Yet Earth is the only planet on which we know life exists. It is Earth’s inner space, not outer space, on which our very survival depends. Half a century after we first determined to reach the moon, the time has arrived for a new ocean age.
The ocean occupies 71 percent of the earth’s surface and supplies 50 percent of the atmosphere’s oxygen. Taking depth into account, the ocean provides 99 percent of our planet’s living space and 97 percent of all water. Roughly 90 percent of global commerce traverses the ocean, and 40 percent of the world’s population lives within 60 miles of a coastline. For approximately one billion people, fish provide a main source of protein.
Too often, however, public policies and human activities have taken the ocean for granted. Today, 90 percent of “apex” predators — the creatures that eat creatures that eat other creatures — are gone, numerous commercial fisheries across the globe have collapsed due to overfishing and climate change has made itself felt increasingly.
Ocean acidification due to CO2 emissions absorbed by the sea is negatively affecting many species at the base of the food chain. Climate-related sea level rise is driving increased coastal flooding and warming ocean temperatures have led to growing numbers of deadly coral bleaching events. Some studies indicate 90 percent of all coral reefs will be dead within this century.
Even as we need to confront these chronic challenges, new threats present themselves all the time. Recently, for example, the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed to authorize multiple industrial seismic airgun surveys related to oil and gas exploration off the East Coast of the United States. This is a threat that has been revived under the Trump administration. The effects of these proposed seismic airgun activities would impact a wide range of species, from marine mammals to fish and small invertebrates. Of particular concern is the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most endangered great whales on the planet.
Land-based pollution likewise destroys the ocean’s most productive nearshore waters, which serve as the nurseries for fish like sharks, groupers and many commercially important species. Plastics, gear and garbage throughout the ocean, both close to shore and on the high seas, kill wildlife that ingests them or gets entangled by them.
Over years of diving, whether recreationally or in deep-sea submersibles, we have seen the all-too graphic and very real consequences of human activities destroying the ocean. On a personal level, it is heart-wrenching; on a societal level, it is unconscionable.
In sum, and not to overstate it, we are emptying the ocean of everything valuable and filling it with our waste.
Notwithstanding this dire situation, individual bright spots of conservation success are appearing across the globe. In the U.S., thanks to improvements in the national fisheries law in 2006, fisheries stocks have rebounded significantly. Individual states have led in nearshore ocean planning and protection.
Overseas, many nations have embraced large-scale marine protected areas to limit fishing and other harmful activities. A new generation of engaged ocean explorers and philanthropists is stepping in at a time when public funding is drying up.
Government leaders have embraced a new way of doing business: converting stodgy intergovernmental meetings into star-studded events convening government leaders, corporate heads, academics and conservationists to make shared commitments.
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry conceived of the “Our Oceans Conference,” now held annually, and which last year saw $1 billion in public and private dollars pledged for ocean conservation.
This week, the U.N. is seeking to unify these bright spots into one giant floodlight to bring attention to the plight of the ocean and the need for an ambitious global commitment to save it. Led by the president of the U.N. General Assembly, Fiji Ambassador Peter Thomson, the U.N. is seeking to ignite a broad range of partnerships between governments and other stakeholders to advance solutions and adopt an ambitious call for action.
The U.N. has established a ‘registry for voluntary commitments,’ and Ambassador Thomson has been urging governments and all other participants to submit pledges towards ocean conservation. In his words, this is an effort to “crowdsource” ocean conservation.
It is exactly what is needed, and exactly when it is needed. Now is the sweet spot in time, when we know what to do and have the ability to do it. Twenty years ago we did not know and did not have the technologies. Ten years from now it will be too late, with irreparable harm done to the ocean and its precious wildlife.
Just as the U.S. felt a dire urgency to race to the moon before the Soviets and succeeded within a decade, the world now faces a more existential need to embrace a new era of ocean conservation and commit “the right stuff” to saving our inner space.
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Sylvia Earle is the Founding President and Chair of Mission Blue and an Explorer in Residence with the National Geographic Society. Jason Patlis is Executive Director for Marine Conservation at WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society).
