Page 76 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

ocean health, but warming temperatures have accelerated global coral bleaching, depleting key reefs
that support more species than any other marine environment. These are alarming trends, especially
since the world’s oceans contain the greatest diversity of life on Earth.
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Box 16: UNESCO’s Facts and figures on marine biodiversity 229

Marine biodiversity: Facts and figures

• The ocean constitutes over 90% of the habitable space on the planet.
• The ocean has a much higher phylogenetic diversity: 30% of phyla are exclusively
marine, whereas only one phylum is exclusively terrestrial.

• By the year 2100, without significant changes, more than half of the world’s marine
species may stand on the brink of extinction.
• Today, 60% of the world’s major marine ecosystems that underpin livelihoods have
been degraded or are being used unsustainably.
• Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are essential to conserve the biodiversity of the oceans
and to maintain productivity, especially of fish stocks. World Heritage marine sites
represent, in surface area, one third of all marine protected areas.

• Approximately 12% of land area is protected, compared with roughly 1% of the world’s
ocean and adjacent seas.
• Tiny phyto-plankton provide 50% of the oxygen on Earth and form the basis of the
ocean food chain up to fish and marine mammals, and ultimately human consumption.
• Ocean acidification may threaten plankton populations and diversity, which is key to
the survival of larger fish.
• If the concentration of atmospheric CO continues to increase at the current rate, the
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ocean will become corrosive to the shells of many marine organisms by the end of this
century. How or if marine organisms may adapt is not known.
• Ocean acidification may render most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs,
affecting tourism, food security, shoreline protection, and biodiversity.

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