CELEBRITY STYLE SPY: See all the latest celeb photos

World's polluted oceans

Print
Share
Comment

Globe

Almost half of the world's oceans have been badly damaged by fishing, climate change and pollution, and no region has been left untouched, reveals a huge new study.

The first global map of Man's impact on marine ecosystems reveals that fishing climate change and pollution has left a higher-than-expected mark on all of the world's seas.

The world map, created by dividing oceans into kilometre squares, shows that 41% have been strongly affected by 17 human activities.

Each type of human influence fits one of four categories: climate change, pollution, fishing and shipping. Climate change has had the greatest impact, particularly though rising sea temperatures and its effect of acidifying the oceans. The effect of fishing is the next most important, especially the damage that has been caused to coral reefs from trawling and stock depletions from overfishing

Ben Halpern, of the US National Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), who led the study, said: 'This project allows us to finally start to see the big picture of how humans are affecting the oceans.

'Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up, the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me.'

Some of the worst-affected marine areas are found around the British Isles, including parts of the North Sea, the Channel and the North Atlantic off the Irish and Scottish coasts.

Around the world, the regions that are most affected are in the South and East China seas, the Caribbean, the East Coast of North America, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Gulf, the Bering Sea and several parts of the western Pacific. The areas near the poles have been affected the least but these regions are at risk of damage through global warming.

'Unfortunately as polar ice sheets disappear with a warming global climate and human activities spread into these areas there is a great risk of rapid degradation of these relatively pristine ecosystems,' Carrie Kappel, of NCEAS, a principal investigator on the project, said.

However, Dr Halpern said that while the picture is quite grim, it could be reversed by urgent action. 'There is definitely room for hope,' he said.

'With efforts to protect the chunks of the ocean that remain relatively pristine we have a good chance of preserving them.

'My hope is that our results serve as a wake-up call to better manage and protect our oceans. Humans will always use the oceans for recreation, extraction of resources and commercial activity such as shipping. This is a good thing. Our goal is to do this in a sustainable way so that our oceans remain in a healthy state and continue to provide us with the resources we need and want.'