Overfished and under-protected: Oceans on the brink of catastrophic collapse

The world's oceans are facing a bleak future, say marine scientists, unless we rebuild its abundance, variety and vitality.

HIDE CAPTION

Marine life under threat

<<

<

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

>

>>

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Healthy species-abundant oceans key to long-term human survival
• Overfishing and climate change threaten to trash ocean ecosystem
• Bottom-trawling considered a highly damaging practice by marine scientists
• Ocean acidification caused by climate change threatening to kill off vital coral reefs

 -- As the human footprint has spread, the remaining wildernesses on our planet have retreated. However, dive just a few meters below the ocean surface and you will enter a world where humans very rarely venture.

In many ways, it is the forgotten world on Earth. A ridiculous thought when you consider that oceans make up 90% of the living volume of the planet and are home to more than one million species, ranging from the largest animal on the planet -- the blue whale -- to one of the weirdest -- the blobfish.

Remoteness, however, has not left the oceans and their inhabitants unaffected by humans, with overfishing, climate change and pollution destabilizing marine environments across the world.