UK seas suffering badly
The first global map of the overall impact that 17 different human activities are having on marine ecosystems has been put together.
Previous studies of human impacts have focused on a single activity or on an isolated ecosystem, and rarely on a global scale.
The North Sea around UK is one of the worst affected, and the English Channel too.
Fishing, climate change and pollution have left an indelible mark on virtually all of the world’s oceans. Scientists found that almost no areas have been left pristine and more than 40% of the world’s oceans have been heavily affected.
“This project allows us to finally start to see the big picture of how humans are affecting the oceans,” said Ben Halpern, assistant research scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who led the research.
“Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me.”
Plastic pollution film
There’s an astonishing movie called Message in the Waves available from the TransitionTowns website. It will make you painfully aware of the awful consequences on marine and bird life of using plastic. This movie is downloadable from their high volume server, but you’ll need to email them to get the link and password. [See also]
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