Treasuring Our Oceans

Humpback whale

Humpback whale, one of many species found in the magnificent Revillagigedo archipelago

The world’s oceans are being damaged by plastics and pollution, overfishing and drilling for fossil fuels, by acidification and warming. One part of repairing the damage is to create marine reserves where no fishing or extractive industries are allowed. It is especially important to create these no take reserves in some of the most biologically rich and unique habitats. A number of countries bordering the Pacific Ocean are now doing just this.

Mexico has just created a huge reserve around the Revillagigedo Islands, in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Baja California. Over the last couple of years New Zealand, Ecuador, Niue, Chile and French Polynesia have all created large marine reserves. Thank-you to all these countries for doing something that will benefit so many species, including humans. Meanwhile, bizarrely yet predictably, Trump is threatening to reduce marine reserves in American waters and open them up to fishing and to oil and gas exploitation.

Creating marine reserves has many advantages. It is not just about protecting wonderful and unique habitats. There are potentially many economic benefits. Perhaps the most obvious is tourism. As the reserves provide sheltered breeding grounds and fish stocks recover so the adjacent seas outside the reserves become much more productive fisheries. The enhanced global reputations of countries creating these reserves can also have significant diplomatic, political and economic benefits.

The North Sea, like many others, has suffered from overfishing, pollution and from the oil and gas industries. Now the North Sea is the epicentre of the global expansion of the offshore wind industry. I welcome this. Humanity needs to switch from a fossil fuel to a renewables based economy with great urgency. As we do so many wind turbines will be built in the North Sea. There seems some evidence that the sea’s biodiversity can recover as a result. The base of each turbine creates a mini reef effect, providing an anchorage for seaweed and crustaceans and shelter for fish to spawn and so for seals to hunt. I would love to see more focus on how these effects could be enhanced, for example by suspending chains between the turbines and creating no take reserves within the wind farms. A couple of years ago I wrote a blog enthusing about offshore wind, tidal lagoons and the idea of creating an artificial island in the North Sea to act as an energy hub for all the countries bordering the North Sea. This could be designed to help create a very much more biodiverse ecosystem, as well as being a major part of helping Europe become a zero carbon economy. It could have many and varied political, economic and ecological benefits. Helping nature flourish is not just about protecting pristine habitats. It is also about creating new habitats within our cities, in our industrial landscapes and also in our changing and industrialized seas. To really protect the oceans we need to switch from a linear to a circular economy, from fossil fuels to renewables, from pollution to conservation, and we need to do it all quickly. Humanity is capable of rising to the challenge. There is much to celebrate and very much more still to do!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.