What's at stake |
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Over the last three decades the world has come to realize that the seas' living resources are not inexhaustible and the oceans can no longer be treated as a bottomless sink for pollutants. More than economic resources are at stake when marine species begin to disappear and coastal ecosystems are altered and degraded. Human well-being and indeed our very survival depend on the health of the ecosystems in which we live. And in nature, health and diversity are closely linked, since diversity allows living things to adapt to changes in their environment. We humans are, directly and indirectly, participating in an assault on the Earth's biodiversity. Since about half of us live in the coastal zone, much of that threatened biodiversity is found in the marine environment. Pollution, habitat destruction, overexploitation of living resources, erosion and sedimentation, and the intriduction of alien invasive species are taking a severe toll on coral reef, mangrove and seagrass communities. Throughout the Regional Seas people are seeing their coastal ecosystems polluted, dredged, bulldozed, dynamited, silted over and converted. Habitat destruction is perhaps the worst of all threats to the coastal environment. It leads to the decline of innumerable marine species, including many on which traditional fisheries and coastal livelihoods have long depended. Moreover, it can preclude recovery and restoration of lost species, who no longer have a home until the habitats themselves are restored – a costly and often impossible task. Because the reefs, saltmarshes and mangrove forests act as natural breakwaters preserving coastlines from buffeting waves, their destruction can lead to erosion, putting coastal infrastructure at risk. Particularly threatened in the Regional Seas, and therefore receiving particular attention in the regional programmes are: Marine resources Read more in:
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