THE PERILOUS STATE OF OUR OCEANS

AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT

With World Oceans Day this Sunday and the Third United Nations Ocean Conference about to begin in Nice, France (June 9 to 13), we would do well to consider a series of recent reports outlining the dire straits that most of our planet’s seas are in. Due to four over-arching factors - climate change, plastic pollution, destructive fishing and unfettered expansion of fossil fuel operations - there’s never been such an onslaught.

Existing protections are woefully inadequate. A new study commissioned by the Bloomberg Ocean Fund describes how less than nine percent of our oceans are designated as protected, and of that less than three percent are considered effective. The goal, as internationally agreed, was to conserve 30 percent of marine ecosystems by 2030.

Another study, released by Earth Insight in a partnership with environmental organizations, maps out areas licensed for fossil fuel exploration or extraction that will directly impact areas already protected and vital ecosystems with coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass beds. The report calls for an immediate stop to new offshore oil and gas development and urges governments to invest in renewable energy.

In France, the worst culprits are industrial fishing operations in supposedly protected waters. The environmental group Oceana reports that over 100 bottom trawling vessels fished more than 17,000 hours in 2024 inside the country’s half-dozen Marine National Parks. Dragging their huge weighted nets across the ocean floor, they wipe out everything in their path and also release tons of carbon stored in seabed sediments.

French authorities have blocked Greenpeace’s ship from entering the port of Nice ahead of the upcoming conference, even though they’d been invited to participate in a Science Congress there. According to a statement from the environmental nonprofit, “Greenpeace International had intended to deliver the messages of 3 million people calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining to the politicians attending the conference.”

This is what we’re delegates to the conference are up against. The oceans used to absorb over 90 percent of the excess heat from green gas emissions. But in April, sea surface temperatures soared to their second-highest levels ever recorded for that month. Simultaneously, a massive coral bleaching event swept across the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific—threatening ecosystems that support 25% of marine species and billions of dollars in tourism and fishing industries.

More than 60 percent of marine ecosystems are today considered degraded or unsustainably used. Global fish stocks within safe biological limits have fallen from 90% in the 1970s to just 62 percent in 2021. And over three billion people depend on such marine biodiversity for food and income.

Annually, an astounding 12 million metric tons of plastic trash are floating in our oceans. A “Nice Ocean Action Plan” is scheduled to be unveiled at the summit, which will include a potential global treaty for curbing plastic pollution at its source.

Here in the U.S., there is plenty that groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council are seeking to challenge in the courts and through citizen action. President Biden had permanently protected a number of areas in the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico. On his first day in office, without any constitutional or statutory authority, an executive order from President Trump reversed Biden’s withdrawals and opened new areas comprising 625 million acres of American waters to offshore drilling for oil and gas.

To its great credit, in March United Nations delegates announced a new high seas treaty that was first conceived almost two decades ago. This is aimed at the nearly 60 percent of the ocean that’s basically lawless in terms of fishing operations. It still awaits ratification but will hopefully curtail overfishing, loss of habitats and the population declines of whales, sea turtles, seabirds and other marine wildlife.

The NRDC continues to fight to protect marine mammals from noise pollution with stricter regulations on shipping from the International Maritime Organization. And the environmental group is actively advancing policies to stop illegal fishing practices. The U.S. is the planet’s biggest seafood market - but up to one-third of our imports are illegally harvested. In 2019, an NRDC study showed, this was true for around $2.4 billion worth of that seafood.

The health of all life on earth is intrinsically linked to the health of our oceans. We can’t sit on the sidelines and allow the destruction on these various fronts to continue. Support for organizations fighting the good fight is imperative.