This year, we need to start taking our impact on the oceans seriously

The issues of the oceans are sometimes missed in favour of these on land, however a slew of conferences this yr may put us on a path to the sustainable improvement of the seas

“HOW inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean”. That quote, often attributed to Arthur C. Clarke, pops up recurrently at ocean science conferences, however is not any much less true for being a cliché. The ocean covers 71 per cent of the planet’s floor and makes up 95 per cent of the realm that’s liveable by life.

Increasingly, it’s being exploited by us. As our particular report on what has been termed the “blue acceleration” particulars, over the previous 20 years, the ocean economic system – fish, ships, hydrocarbons, wind vitality, cables, tourism and …