MEDIA STATEMENT
Benefits The Ocean Provides Are Increasingly Being Undermined By Our Actions
Second World Ocean Assessment Warns of Urgent Action Needed for Ocean Health
New York, NY (21 April 2021) - Today, the United Nations launched its Second World Ocean Assessment on the global state of the world’s oceans.
“The Second World Ocean Assessment warns that many benefits that the ocean provides to humankind are increasingly being undermined by our actions. [...] The findings of this assessment underscore the urgency of ambitious outcomes in this year’s biodiversity, climate and other high-level summits and events. Together we can foster not only a green, but also a blue recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and help ensure the long-term resilience and sustainable relationship with the ocean,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres in his remarks at the assessment’s launch.
The Second World Ocean Assessment brings together the research of hundreds of scientists from around the world to report on the state of the ocean, reinforce the science-policy interface, and provide a scientific basis for informed decisions by governments, intergovernmental processes, policy-makers and others involved in ocean affairs.
It notes that some progress is being made in terms of new ocean protections with the expansion and implementation of management frameworks for conserving the marine environment, including the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs), but pressures from human activities continue to degrade ocean ecosystems.
The report underscores the essential role MPAs play in protecting and restoring the ocean while also calling for the increased need to not only create new designations, but ensure that MPAs are supported with improved capacity and management plans.
In response to the assessment’s release, the Campaign for Nature made the following statement:
Enric Sala, Explorer in Residence, National Geographic and the author of the award winning book The Nature of Nature, Why We Need the Wild. @enric_sala
“We must act urgently to protect the ocean. We live on an ocean planet. Without the ocean there would be no life on this planet. It is our duty to restore and protect the marine ecosystems that we depend on everyday for our survival. We can start by protecting at least 30% of the planet —the land and the sea— by 2030.
By harnessing the tool of marine protected areas for conserving parts of the ocean, we can restore degraded ecosystems. I have seen it over and over again, but we have to commit to it and we must go about it scientifically and with robust management plans to ensure their long-term success.”
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The Campaign for Nature works with scientists, Indigenous Peoples, and a growing coalition of over 100 conservation organizations around the world who are calling on policymakers to commit to clear and ambitious targets to be agreed upon at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, China in 2021 to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030 and working with Indigenous leaders to ensure full respect for Indigenous rights.
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