Alarming Report on Ocean Health Should Concern All of Us

A press release issued by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean should concern all of us. It concerns a report put together by an expert panel of 27 participants from 18 organizations in six countries. The report, yet to be released in its complete form, concludes that the world's oceans are at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species "unprecedented in human history." The conclusion is based on research that examined the following: the combined effects of pollution, acidification, ocean warming, overfishing and hypoxia (deoxygenation). The panel concluded that the combination of stressors on the ocean is creating the conditions associated with every previous major extinction of species in Earth's history.

The panel also concluded that the speed and rate of degeneration in the ocean is far faster than anyone has predicted, that many of the negative impacts previously identified are greater than the worst predictions, and although difficult to assess because of the unprecedented speed of change, the first steps to globally significant extinction may have begun with a rise in the extinction threat to marine species such as reef-forming corals.

The preliminary report does not include much good news. Another cheery finding: The rate at which carbon is being absorbed by the ocean is already far greater now than at the time of the last globally significant extinction of marine species, some 55 million years ago, when up to 50 percent of some groups of deep-sea animals were wiped out. One more for you: Overfishing has reduced some commercial fish stocks and populations of by-catch species by more than 90 percent.

"The challenges for the future of the ocean are vast, but unlike previous generations we know what now needs to happen," said Dan Laffoley, Marine Chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas and Senior Advisor on Marine Science and Conservation for IUCN.

How can the lodging industry make a positive difference? Two things come to mind: buying only fish certified to be sustainable, and doing all it can to reduce its carbon impact on our planet. Your thoughts?