Page 77 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

• Coral reefs are the nurseries of the oceans, they are biodiversity hot spots. On some
tropical coral reefs, for example, there can be 1 000 species per m².

• Today, fisheries provide over 15% of the human dietary intake of animal protein for
communities around the world.
• Commercial overexploitation of the world’s fish stocks is so severe that it has been
estimated that up to 13 % of global fisheries have ‘collapsed’, with a much higher
proportion under threat.
• Agricultural practices, coastal tourism, port and harbour developments, damming
of rivers, urban development and construction, mining, fisheries, aquaculture, and
manufacturing, among others, are all sources of marine pollution threatening coastal
and marine habitats.

• Excessive nutrients from sewage outfalls and agricultural run-off have contributed to
an increase in the number of low-oxygen (hypoxic) areas known as ‘dead zones’, where
most marine life cannot survive, resulting in the collapse of some ecosystems.
• There are now close to 500 dead zones covering more than 245 000 km² globally,
equivalent to the surface of the United Kingdom.
• Coastal systems such as such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows
can absorb, or sequester, carbon at rates up to 50 times those of the same area of
tropical forest.
• Total carbon deposits in these coastal systems may be up to five times the carbon
stored in tropical forests.

• Between 1980 and 2005, 35 000 square kilometers of mangroves were removed globally.
• Between 30 and 35 percent of the total global extent of critical marine habitats such
as seagrasses, mangroves and coral reefs are estimated to have been destroyed.

• Technological change and the emergence of new economic opportunities such as
deep-sea mining, more intensive fishing, and deeper oil and gas drilling increase risks
to areas that historically were not under threat.

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