Healthy Oceans

The earth is a Blue Planet, with oceans covering over two-thirds of the surface, providing more than 90 percent of the available space for plants and animals to live, helping to control the planet’s weather, and containing the richest variety of life forms. Yet destructive overfishing, coastal pollution from fertilizers and toxic materials, habitat destruction from bottom trawling and coastal dredging and filling, and man-made climate change all affect the ocean’s health and ability to bounce back from changes.

Many populations of whales are depleted or threatened with extinction like northern right whales of which 350 remain. All seven species of sea turtles are either threatened or endangered. Marine scientists predict that at the current rate of fishing, most commercially valuable fish species will collapse in the next 40 years all over the world. In U.S. waters nearly one quarter of all fish stocks are depleted and many are not being rebuilt to healthy levels.

To restore the oceans to health, Environment America supports a moratorium on new offshore drilling for oil and gas, a halt to destructive overfishing which is depleting our oceans of fish, establishment of marine protected areas where some limitations are placed on fishing, actions to reduce the flow of nutrients and toxics into coastal waters, and aggressive action on global warming.