NO OCEAN, NO LIFE; NO OCEAN,NO US in Perreault Magazine BP: It was announced today (2/15/2015) that China leads the world in the accumulation of plastic ocean garbage. The study, published in the Journal of Science, estimates that China’s heavy coastal population contributes 1.2 million to 3.5 million metric tons of plastic to the world’s oceans each year, largely due to mismanaged waste. In your opinion, what can be done – and by whom – to create a sense of urgency for the developing economies of Asia? SE: People don’t tend to think about the ocean when they think of what we need to do to take care of the planet – as if the ocean somehow doesn’t matter or is so big, so vast, that it can take care of itself, or that there is nothing that we could possibly do to harm the ocean. But that’s not true. Now we know that the ocean has limits; there is only so Much that we can take out before it will be empty of fish and other sea life, and there is also a limit to how much of our greenhouse gas emissions, excess toxic chemicals and trash we can throw into the ocean before this vital living system will no longer be able to function. The study you refer to in Science Magazine reports that the amount of plastic that washed ashore in the year 2010alonewasenoughtocoverevery inch of coastline on Earth. That doesn’t even include 99% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean every year. Now we know. Ignorance is the biggest problem of all for the ocean – and many other things as well. Knowledge is the key to making a difference. With knowledge, you can be powerful. I have had the privilege of spending more time than others in the ocean and have seen things that others haven’t.
WE HAVE LOST 90% OF OUR BIG FISH IN JUST A FEW DECADES NO OCEAN, NO US.
People need to know. My job is to inspire people to go see for themselves and to use their talents, whatever they are, to make a difference for the natural world. Now that we know the astonishing amount of plastic that enters the ocean each year, we can act. People around the globe can stand up, armed with knowledge, and demand an end to disposable plastic and mismanaged waste. All countries around the globe have a responsibility to contain whatever plastic they create and consume. It’s up to individuals – scientists, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, kids! – to find creative solutions to plastic pollution and ignite that sense of urgency to cause change. BP: According to the study, which estimated that 4.8 million to 12.7 million metric tons of plastic wound up in the world’s oceans in 2010, we are taking out tuna and putting in plastic. Mission Blue takes us to the Tokyo Fish Market – the largest in the world – and shows the disturbing scene where endless rows of tuna are being sold. In just 55 years, humans have managed to wipe out 90 percent of the ocean’s top predators. These are animals like sharks, bluefin tuna, sword fish, marlin, and king mackerel. The depletion of these top predator species can cause a shift in entire ocean ecosystems where commercially valuable fish are replaced by smaller, plank ton feeding fish. Why can’t we ban certain fishing procedures and why can’t we have a global coalition for the protection of marine life and for penalizing large pollutants? SE: We can! Researchers and advocates are working hard to ban practices like shark fining and bottom trawling, and they’re making progress. There’s still a long way to go, but people are waking up to the fact that the ocean is not an inexhaustible resource. We need to make it uncool to eat tuna, or swordfish, or grouper, or other ocean wildlife. We need to give them a break. We used to worry about maneating sharks. Now we worry about man, eating sharks. Sharks are not eating us; we're eating them. In the Stone Age, we had no choices. We had lots of wild life and few of us. Now we have seven billion people with wildlife under great stress; we need to protect every fish alive because they are much more valuable as part of the natural world that keeps us alive than they are cooked on a plate. We have lost 90% of our big fish in just a few decades. So how long before they are all gone if we keep eating them this way? Everyone can make a difference just by changing what they eat. Less demand will mean
less support for commercial fisheries. It isn’t too late to shift from the swift, sharp decline of ocean systems in recent decades to an era of steady recovery. There is time, but not a lot.