University of Plymouth

For generations, humankind has been focused on its terrestrial environment; shaping it through agriculture, urbanisation and conservation. Our aquatic environment, meanwhile, has been a comparatively unmanaged source of food, enabled transport, and is a location for leisure. It has also absorbed much of our CO2 production and been a repository of our waste from land. In recent years, we’ve demanded even more of it: a place for low carbon energy generation, a mine of rare minerals, and a site for commercial development. The cost of that use – over-use – is increasingly clear when we consider the loss of biodiversity, reduced fish catches, degraded environments and increased pollution, particularly plastics.

Communities and governments around the world have recognised the scale of environmental damage caused to ecosystems by human behaviour. Calls for climate action have resulted in government policies to try to mitigate the worst impacts and halt, or even reverse, the damage that has been caused. Targets are set. The number of trees to be planted are specified, as is the acreage of peat bogs to be restored. These are noble aims, and positive actions are being taken by local and regional groups to implement change to meet these targets, supported through grant schemes and funds to promote environmental benefit. Private sector finance has entered this arena, particularly in the area of carbon trading. These interventions are well intentioned.

For two-thirds of the Earth’s history, two-thirds of its surface has been ocean. However, it is only in recent years that we have come to appreciate the scale of its life-giving power. A resource of clean energy; a producer of much of our oxygen; a regulator of climate; home for millions of different interrelated types of life from viruses and bacteria to the mighty whales; an incredible food resource. We also appreciate how the scale of human enterprise is threatening our ocean and with it all life. Now more than ever, it is crucial we learn how to value, protect, manage and use sustainably the natural capital that our ocean produces. The care of our ocean cannot though be considered in isolation.