This page has been archived, and may no longer be up to date

Bountiful Oceans

Food, work, fun, adventure, sport and life – not many things can give us all those things in one. Every day the oceans give us the air we need to breathe; the weather to grow crops; water to support the smallest to the largest animals on earth and 80% of all species; vast ice flows to help regulate our climate; millions of jobs and a life-time of pleasure.

World Oceans Day in Senegal. 06/08/2013 © Clément Tardif / Greenpeace

Our Oceans – fit for the future

You and I are alive right now because of the oceans. There is no other place in the universe so full of life as this planet; so green, so rich in diverse, beautiful, weird and wonderful, large and small species, on land and at sea and it is all because Planet Earth is Planet Ocean.

They are home to the largest animal our planet has ever known – the now-endangered blue whale - but there are still huge areas of ocean that humans have never seen. Biologists estimate that there could be anywhere between 500,000 and 5,000,000 marine species down there that have yet to be discovered.

Earth's longest mountain range is not on land but under the sea - the Mid-Oceanic ridge system, which winds around the globe from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic. It is four times longer than the Andes, Rockies, and Himalayas combined!

More people have stood on the moon than dived the deepest ocean trench and less than 5% of all the oceans have been explored. There is so much more for us to discover.

Underwater Life in Dry Tortugas. 08/16/2010 © Todd Warshaw / Greenpeace

They are home to some of the longest-lived animals on our planet – including the orange roughy (a fish that can live up to 200 years) and centuries old corals. They are silent witnesses to the huge environmental damage done over their lifetimes, damage which will have a significant impact on all our futures.

But, imagine if all those millions, maybe billions, of people who get food, jobs and pleasure from the ocean worked together to stop the overfishing and other ocean destruction.

Imagine what we could do together to be the change we want for the sea.

Teachers Welcome Greenpeace in Apo Island. 07/09/2013 © Steve De Neef / Greenpeace

We can do it.

Companies have changed their fish supply policies, destructive fishing practices have been banned, huge whale sanctuaries created – all because the voices demanding change could not be ignored. But now, in part due to the relentless march of technology, our oceans are being altered on a vast scale and at an unprecedented speed, meaning that many more of us need to be heard - and fast.

There is one big solution that is simple and affordable – the creation of ocean sanctuaries. 

If we zone off about 40% of the oceans as protected areas – places that are special to marine life, such as important feeding and breeding grounds or areas where fish populations are already at breaking point - then we can give our oceans the breathing space they need to recover and keep our planet running.

Fish in the Great Barrier Reef. 12/12/2011 © Darren Jew / Greenpeace

It is estimated that governments would have to spend around US$15million a year to make it happen. We will spend fifteen times more on luxury good by 2015, than politicians will set aside for the safeguarding of the world’s most essential asset. Let’s change that.

The oceans support billions of us. If each of us did just one thing, we could change the future. We can make sure that in years to come our children can still enjoy clean sea, teeming with life. Setting up ocean sanctuaries now will give our children and us oceans of plenty in the future. It’s a big job but together we can create oceans fit for the future.

The latest updates

 

Greenpeace as part of Break Free From Plastic presents a new way of exposing plastic...

Press release | 5 October, 2017 at 21:29

Malta, 5 October 2017 – A four-by-four meter dragon spitting single-use plastic was installed in front of the 'Our Ocean 2017' conference to highlight the global crisis of plastic pollution. The Break Free From Plastic movement is demanding that...

Nestlé, Unilever, P&G; among worst offenders for plastic pollution in Philippines in...

Press release | 22 September, 2017 at 5:14

Manila, 22 September 2017 - A week-long beach clean up has exposed the companies most responsible for plastic pollution after an audit of plastic waste conducted on Freedom Island, a critical wetland habitat and Ramsar site [1] spanning 30...

Total’s application to drill near the Amazon Reef rejected

Press release | 29 August, 2017 at 21:24

Brasília, August 29th - Brazil's Environmental Agency (Ibama) today rejected the application for a license to drill in the mouth of the Amazon Basin by the French company Total (operating in a joint venture with BP). This is an important step...

Scientists are telling BP and Total to stay away from the Amazon Reef

Blog entry by Mal Chadwick | 28 July, 2017 3 comments

Researchers, naturalists, explorers and broadcasters are joining the call for oil companies to leave the Amazon Reef alone. The latest call to protect the reef came as an open letter highlighting the importance of this unique...

The UN just took a major step forward for marine protection

Blog entry by Veronica Frank | 27 July, 2017 2 comments

I’ve just returned from a meeting of governments at the United Nations in New York, and come bearing even more exciting things than Duty Free gifts. The UN just took another step closer to a new Treaty protecting marine life on...

16 - 20 of 1359 results.

Categories