Our Green theme continues as Global Citizenship Marine this year.
Why care about the marine environment? There are many reasons the marine environment is so important:
* 71% of the planet is covered in water * Oceans produce over half of the oxygen we breathe *Oceans regulate our climate * Oceans play a role as a Carbon sink soaking up excess CO2 * Seafood plays a huge role in nutrition, diets and in medicine * Thousands of people are employed in the marine sector * Tourism is huge around the ocean * The sea also provides scope for many sports eg. surfing, swimming and boating
Sadly, human activity is having a detrimental effect on the ocean in many ways including litter on our beaches and microplastics in our waterways.
Climate change has also had an impact causing acidification and coral bleaching. Melting ice-caps has led to changes in whale migration patterns.
Overfishing has taken huge amounts of fish out of the ocean and this is not sustainable.
Invasive species has threatened and eradicated native species.
Marine biodiversity is being challenged in so many ways. Here is a clip about a 2 minute beach clean. It is really worth a look:
