Date: 14-Jan-19
Author: Liam Taylor

Our oceans face numerous threats in the face of climate change and irresponsible fishing. Image: Peter Feghali/Unsplash

Late last year representatives of government, the private sector and civil society pledged billions of dollars to protect vast swaths of the world’s oceans at the fifth Our Oceans Conference.

The event, which took place on the Indonesian island of Bali, hosted participants from around the globe who generated almost 300 bilateral and multilateral agreements aimed at protecting the world’s ocean from climate change. Together, these pledges were valued at over US$10 billion and cover approximately 14 million square kilometres of ocean .

“These numbers are beyond our expectations,” Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs, told participants in his closing address.

“We are thankful for your collective contributions and making our ocean healthier and more sustainable.”

The Our Oceans Conference was launched in 2014 with the central objective of increasing and enhancing collaboration and partnership between various ocean stakeholders in order to develop concrete and actionable commitments. To date, the conference has achieved commitments totalling in excess of US$28 billion that cover 26.4 million square kilometres of ocean. 

Key themes of the two-day conference were the impacts of climate change as well as illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, which had a value of about $23 billion in 2016. Other topics covered included maritime piracy, human trafficking, drug smuggling and slavery.

Over a billion people worldwide depend on the ocean to supply their primary source of protein, with Earth’s maritime resources valued at about US$24 trillion. More than 90% of world trade by volume and 40% by value is distributed via the ocean.

Positive Action

• Marine plastic pollution is a huge issue for many marine and coastal mammals such as turtles, tortoises, dolphins and whales. Avoid single-use plastics where possible and find out how to recycle the unavoidable stuff at RecyclingNearYou.
• For those that want to help clean up, Clean Up Australia, Take 3 for the Sea and Seaside Scavenge are three incredible organisations working to reduce global plastic pollution through education and participation.

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Positive Environment News has been compiled using publicly available information. Planet Ark does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the original information and encourages readers to check the references before using this information for their own purposes.