17/06/2020
When the Ocean dies, we all die!
- Commentary by Captain Paul Watson
Year after year for decades I have been warning about the collapse of marine eco-systems.
We are witnessing the killing of diversity of life in the sea through over-fishing, illegal fishing, plastic, sonic, chemical and radiation pollution, coral bleaching, acidification and all accelerated by climate change.
For years I have stated over and over again that 2030 will be the date when the collapse will become irreversible.
In 2015 at COP 21, I delivered a warning with a request for a 50-year moratorium on all heavy-gear commercial fishing operations and an end to government subsidies on corporate fishing.
For years we have called for the strict enforcement of marine conservation laws and regulations.
Unfortunately, there is a severe lack of political and economic motivation to address the problem. Instead, we saw last week the President of the United States open up the only high seas sanctuary on the Atlantic coast to commercial fishing in opposition to a Supreme Court decision that it remain closed.
Poachers are running amuck on the high seas and the world's navies ignore them as they play silly little war games with each other over political power and corporate control of resources.
Without phytoplankton, there will be a depletion of oxygen. Without the fishes, the entire global marine eco-system will collapse.
We don't survive on a planet with a dead ocean.
Ocean conservation is one of the most important causes in the world today. Failure to act now will have devastating and dark consequences.
This is why our ships are battling poachers along the coastlines of Africa. This is why we are intercepting poachers in the Galapagos Marine Reserve and patrolling the waters of the Eastern Tropical Pacific, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and the Southern Ocean. This is why Sea Shepherd volunteers are cleaning beaches around the globe, diving and removing abandoned nets and opposing the destruction caused by open-net fish farms. This is why we defend whales, seals, dolphins, turtles, sea birds, fishes and marine eco-systems.
And I'll keep hammering home this one imperative message - When the Ocean dies, we all die!
"This new research reinforces that, after we are through this extremely difficult time, we will need renewed ambitious action to address the climate and nature crisis."
