Veronika Wild

  -Image courtesy of the UN World Oceans Day Media Toolkit It was also World Ocean Day this week and the oceans have also enjoyed a major victory this year with the passage of the High Seas Treaty in which 200 countries have committed to protecting 30% of our land, waters and oceans by 2030. The ocean covers 70% of the earth's surface and is home to 80% of the world's biodiversity . Unfortunately, 10% of its 2 million known species are already at risk of extinction and 90% of it's large fish are already depleted, so this agreement is long overdue, especially when other risks to our oceans are taken into account. The Agreement itself is only a beginning. At least 60 countries must now ratify it and pass legislation within their own countries for it to become binding. The previous agreement about the high seas - the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea agreed in 1982, was all about ensuring the freedom of shipping to go where it pleased beyond each country's EEZ -...

“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.” ― Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us   Today is World Ocean Day, but I’m not going to write much about this. You know the problems – plastics, warming, bleaching reefs, chemical, fertiliser and sewage pollution, oil spills, rising sea levels already threatening small islands but in the longer term also threatening many of the world’s most populous cities, unsustainable fishing practices and acidification . The last named may need a little more clarification. So far the ocean has generously absorbed the vast majority of the world’s excess carbon dioxide, but as is does so it becomes more acidic. This dissolves coral, the shells of molluscs and the bones of other fish which in turn diminishes the food supply for higher order pre...