PROTECTING OUR OCEANS HAS NOT BEEN A NATIONAL PRIORITY

Our lives and our health depend upon ocean health.  Every second breath of air – every second mile of travel - depends upon oxygen manufactured exclusively by the ocean. We depend upon a healthy ocean to produce much of our food. Yet, to many Americans the ocean and its living ecosystems are out of sight – out of mind.

While many Americans express a deep emotional connection to the oceans, their awareness and knowledge about them is often superficial. Research conducted by The Ocean Project (TOP, 1999), SeaWeb, (1999), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 2004), and the FrameWorks Institute (FrameWorks, 2004) demonstrates that the primary impediment to ocean conservation is a lack of public awareness in the United States about the importance of healthy ocean ecosystems to human health and survival. The Ocean Project studies demonstrate that more than half of the U.S. population is unaware that the oceans are in any way threatened, let alone damaged. If asked about the threat to the oceans, most citizens point first to industrial pollution as the culprit and not to the main source of the problem—themselves.

Two recent and independent national commissions (USCOP 2004, POC 2003 – make links to these sites) that researched over a collective five years determined that America’s ocean health has been eroded by human activities. Degraded water quality and overfishing threaten the function of ocean ecosystems and their productivity. Around 90% of the top predators have been removed from ocean ecosystems during the past 30 years. Selective removal of desirable marine animals has led to dysfunctional, unproductive ecosystems that can, and have… collapsed.

The good news is that if we act quickly, decisively and effectively we can restore America’s ocean heritage to health and productivity once again. This action depends upon Americans knowledge and understanding of the value of their national ocean heritage and their collective remedial action.