Wolfgang Korsus Dipl.-Ing. NT, Astrophysiker
Klingenberg 40
25451 Quickborn
Email: wkorsus@gmx.de
iPhone: 01625680456
FN: 04106 69295
Website: Wolfgang.korsus.net
Chapter 333/13 Part 2
Let’s take another look at two international treaties, because, as far as I know, they have made marine protection an international obligation.
1 – the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (London
Convention, LC) of 1972
2 – and the London Protocol (LP) of 1996, which tightens and specifies the provisions.
But despite all the talk, nothing has happened! I say with disappointment:
As was to be expected, the situation in many coastal areas is even more dire today. Large quantities of various pollutants are still entering the sea:
– Pollutants from untreated wastewater or exhaust air from industrial plants,
– Oil from the routine operation of oil rigs or from tanker accidents, and large quantities of „plastic waste.“
– Most of the plastic waste comes from land. This is especially true in places where there is simply no well-organized waste collection system, because there, as is already common practice, it is washed into the sea via rivers or blown directly into the water from land.
– On busy shipping routes (such as the English Channel), ship waste accounts for a high proportion of the plastic waste in the sea. To date, there are only rough estimates of the amount of plastic that ends up in the water worldwide each year. US researchers at the National Academy of Sciences estimated 6.4 million tons of plastic waste as early as 1997. This amount is likely to have increased since then (see also „Brave New Art World“ p. 322 ff.). Plastic waste does not only pollute coastal waters. A large proportion of it accumulates in the middle of the oceans. There, large amounts of water rotate in gigantic whirlpools that trap the waste, so to speak. The largest of these garbage patches is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which covers several thousand square kilometers. The world’s oceans are polluted with plastic waste to varying degrees. The highest concentrations, ranging from 1 to 2.5 kilograms per square kilometer, are found in the large ocean gyres, especially in the North Pacific.
Destruction of coastal habitats
Despite increasing warnings from scientists, the destruction of coastal habitats around the world continues on a daily basis.
! Wetlands, salt marshes and mudflats, coral reefs and mangrove forests are being literally destroyed.
♨ Humans are doing this; they are intelligent, after all ♨
It is typically stupid to destroy wetlands such as bays or mudflats for construction projects, and land reclamation and dike building are just as bad! Example… A striking example of land reclamation occurred in 2006 off the coast of South Korea, where Saemangeum Bay was separated from the sea by a 33-kilometer-long dike. „Until then, the bay was the third largest tidal flat.“
Many wetlands on coastlines around the world are being or have been destroyed because of a few „brain-damaged“ people.
One example that can only be perceived under heavy anesthesia is the salt marshes and reed belts on San Francisco Bay! The area is roughly the size of Manhattan and is considered the largest wetland on the US West Coast. But as always, only about seven percent remains in its natural state today, as most of the area has been used for other purposes…It has been cut up and built over by roads, bridges, and residential areas. …and another threat, due to this shameful treatment of nature, is now also tropical coral reefs. Although they cover only about 1.2 percent of the world’s continental shelf areas, they are incredibly rich in species.
I have also ventured to make some estimates, and it has something to do with the oceans… and the tropical coral reefs there, because around one to three million species of fish, mussels, corals, and bacteria are native to them. Moving on to fish species, around a quarter of all marine fish species live in tropical coral reefs.
It may be that some „bigwigs“ have already learned this, but the destruction continues, as it always has, because it is „human nature“!
And now let’s hear from the experts:
They estimate that around 22 percent of tropical coral reefs have been destroyed to date. 35 percent are severely damaged. More than 65 percent of all tropical coral reefs are currently threatened by at least one of the following locally induced factors:
1. Destruction through overfishing or careless fishing practices that devastate the corals;
2. Coastal development (construction measures);
3. Pollution of seawater by pollutants or turbidity from rivers;
4. Pollution of the sea water locally through the direct discharge of sewage on the coast and from commercial and cruise ships, as well as (who would have thought) destruction caused by ferries or tourist boats running aground. Well, do you think about that…=!?
I’ll leave it to the experts, who believe that 75 percent of all tropical coral reefs „must“ be classified as endangered. The biggest problem is ocean warming.
Brief explanation:
Corals depend on symbiotic single-celled organisms that live on their surface and also perform photosynthesis, thereby supplying the corals with nutrients. But if the water gets too warm, first the symbionts die, and then the corals (en masse).
…and, although it’s hard to believe or even know, the aforementioned ocean acidification further increases the stress on the corals to an unbearable level. When comparing worldwide, the coral reefs in Southeast Asia are most threatened, as 95 percent of the reefs there are affected by at least one of the locally caused factors mentioned above. (I know Asians tend to pollute in general.) Around 65 percent of Southeast Asian coral reefs are affected by several threats at once… more specifically… the coral reefs in Indonesia and the Philippines are particularly affected. Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty! …so let’s get into the details… Among the important „coastal“ habitats that are now seriously endangered worldwide are mangrove forests.
MANGROVES have a „special feature.“
They are proven to be the only tree species that grow directly in seawater.
…and how does that happen? …Their roots always reach under the water into the moist sediment…where? …They occur in tropical and subtropical latitudes. Mangroves have developed „metabolic processes“ that allow them to store and excrete the salt they absorb through their roots…and there are around 70 different species of mangroves worldwide.
Not to be forgotten! The mangrove trunks, which are richly branched underwater, are a particularly important habitat for many animal species, especially young fish…also difficult to know…Mangroves surround the coasts like a green ribbon, acting as natural breakwaters and thus protecting against „tsunamis and storms.“
Now for the man-made madness:
Mangroves have been destroyed in many places in recent years. The construction of port facilities, hotels, and shrimp farms are the main causes. Logging also contributes to the destruction of mangrove forests, which threatens the livelihoods of the often poor coastal population. As mentioned briefly before:
As the mangroves, which are the nursery for fish, disappear, fishermen in many areas are already catching significantly fewer fish. And due to the loss of coastal protection, storms are now causing considerably more damage than just a few years ago.
Next topic: Overfishing that makes you shake your head… caused by humans, of course.
Around 95 percent of „total wild fish catches“ come from coastal areas or exclusive economic zones (EEZs), i.e., areas where only the respective coastal state is allowed to fish. …what has happened: Many nations have fished their coastal waters and EEZs too intensively in recent decades… in other words, they have „overfished“… as a result, fish stocks have declined, in some cases drastically and irreversibly.
Now to the percentage results: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that the number of „collapsed“ and „overfished“ stocks has risen from 10 percent in 1974 to 43 percent in 2020. And so the „human urge to destroy“ continued unabated… First, many fish stocks in the „Northern Hemisphere“ were plundered, and what followed very quickly… ? Fishing was simply moved further and further south from the traditional fishing grounds in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. (Here, people are less vigilant and less likely to raise the alarm! …so change is good! (What a crazy idea.)
However, this situation is delicate in two respects. On the one hand, overfishing in some areas deprives local fishermen of their livelihood and, on the other hand, deprives the population of an important source of food. So what?
A good example:
In the early 1990s, industrial fishing caused cod stocks off Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada to collapse. Now came what had to be done: a FISHING BAN! So one was imposed!
Although a fishing ban was imposed, these stocks have not really recovered to this day. It makes me wonder… Cod is a predatory fish that hunts smaller fish species such as herring and capelin (a type of smelt), which in turn feed on plankton. When it disappeared, the small plankton eaters multiplied significantly and ate the food of the cod larvae, which also feed on plankton.
Nature says: pretty cheeky!
1. Change in biodiversity (biological diversity)
Species diversity and habitats in coastal waters are strongly influenced by overfishing and eutrophication (undesirable increase in nutrients in a body of water and the associated useless and harmful plant growth) as well as heat and acid stress. It is even possible that in some cases these factors reinforce each other. In other cases, a single factor can already cause large-scale changes to the marine environment. Eutrophication, for example, can affect larger algae species that are firmly attached to the sea floor. As the increased growth of plankton clouds the water, less light reaches the depths. Coastal habitats are also changed by alien, introduced new plant or animal species that spread. Scientists call this phenomenon bioinvasion. In general, there are three ways in which alien species can spread from one coastal area of the world to another; each of these contributes about one-third to bioinvasion:
a) Introduction through fouling on the hulls of merchant ships (biofouling).
b) Introduction through ballast water in ships.
c) Introduction by mussel farmers or aquarists.
1. Change in sediment transport
Sediments are frequently and naturally deposited in river estuaries, such as deltas. …and there are many of them!
In some cases, thick layers of sediment form in these areas. As the sediment accumulates, the lithosphere, which is the upper layer of the Earth’s crust, gradually and steadily subsides! The consequences can vary depending on the local situation. On the one hand, the subsidence can be compensated for by the slowly rising sediment masses. On the other hand, however, sediment transport can be so strong that the sediments slowly rise higher and higher, causing the delta to gradually widen as the river seeks new paths to the sea. It is also possible, and this is worse, that the sediment transport is insufficient to compensate for the subsidence of the lithosphere, so that the delta region slowly sinks and the sea level rises in relation to the land. … oh dear, it couldn’t get any worse!
3. Climate change as a threat to coastlines
Many threats to the coasts originate in the affected region itself or in the hinterland of the coastal state. Climate change, on the other hand, is a phenomenon that knows no boundaries and affects the entire globe. From a human perspective, sea level rise in particular poses a threat. If we do not succeed in reducing emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which is released by the combustion of natural gas, oil, and coal, the Earth will warm to such an extent that the ice masses will melt at an increased rate. Less problematic is the melting of the relatively thin sea ice, which grows and shrinks with the seasons anyway. The situation becomes much more critical when the mighty ice sheets of the mainland ice, the high mountain glaciers, or the Greenland ice sheet, which covers an area of 1.8 million square kilometers and around 80 percent of Greenland, melt. This is likely to cause a significant rise in sea levels around the world. According to current forecasts, scientists expect global sea levels to rise by 80 to 180 centimeters this century unless CO2 emissions are curbed. (Attention, dear ignorant ones, take precautions… otherwise you will drown).
The relevant and responsible researchers view this with great concern, as many people today live in flat coastal regions.
Therefore, a warning‼ ‼ ‼
According to United Nations estimates, between 100 and 300 million people could lose their homes to flooding by 2050. Around 700 million people worldwide currently live in low-lying coastal areas that are only a few meters above sea level or, as in the Netherlands, protected by dikes and even „below“ sea level. The extent to which climate change will alter ocean currents and thus also winds (which reminds me of the saying: „The wind, the wind, the heavenly child“ !?) is still uncertain today. Nor is it possible to say with certainty whether and in which regions severe storms will occur more frequently. Different „mathematical“ climate models come to different conclusions. Although all models use the same equations, metrics, and input parameters, it is difficult to accurately assess many small-scale climate influences and correctly transfer them to large, global models.
4. The search for the ideal state
All in all, the oceans are currently in poor condition; let’s just call it what it is: a shitty state of affairs. They are not only overexploited and polluted – that’s too trivial. It is very important that humanity has obviously not succeeded to date in using „marine natural capital“ sustainably and ensuring that the oceans can continue to provide their ecosystem services in the long term. These problems have been known for a long time. However, there has almost always been a lack of political will for truly sustainable development, and in the past, all too often, only pure protection goals were formulated, which were far too vague to be translated into concrete political measures. Various countries and the European Union are therefore currently working to define clear sustainability goals that will form the basis for corresponding „political decisions.“ I say „should be“ is too weak a formulation; it must be „MUST BE“! A prerequisite for this is that
that science analyzes threats and problems in detail, makes detailed proposals, and monitors their „absolute“ compliance so that the right course for sustainable use is set at the political level! Otherwise, I see the „political level“ slipping through the cracks of „responsibility“!
Something else comes to mind:
1. Global overview
Of course, I would like to say, but of course I „must“ say, I look at environmental analyses for specific marine areas. These have been carried out for many years for specific areas such as the North Sea, where individual pollutants are measured above all. However, comprehensive analyses of the status quo of all seas were lacking for a long time. Finally, in 2012, a working group of more than 65 US researchers delivered this „first“ in the form of the „Ocean Health Index (OHI),“ which initially recorded the state of the exclusive economic zones of 175 countries. Now it became necessary to determine a usable index, so the researchers formulated ten generally accepted categories that reflect the sustainable economic, ecological, and social importance of the sea for humans! These are closely related, i.e., they are largely based on the ecosystem service categories of the United Nations‘ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) and include, for example, „coastal protection, biodiversity, tourism and recreation, and the function“ of the sea as a „carbon dioxide sink.“ It also takes into account „I can only say should be broadcast daily via video on the Internet worldwide:
‼ ‼ ‼ The sea provides humans with valuable plant and animal species as well as special places. ‼ ‼ ‼
In 2012, the OHI was published and, another „good“ thing, it is continued and updated annually. I would like to point out that the index now takes into account not only the „RA,“ but also the Arctic, Antarctic, and high seas (in the legal sense, this refers to the open sea outside coastal waters). This means that 20 additional regions (zones) have been added to the 220 „EEZs,“ and their data has been published in full on a website that is freely accessible.
Result for 2025:
The overall value for the state of the threatened oceans was 81.67
1. ‼ MORE PLASTIC THAN FISH IN THE OCEANS ‼
I came across the following study back in 2016, and since then, I haven’t really enjoyed a meal…
According to a study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which was presented in Davos in early 2016, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans by 2050. The amount of plastic that enters the world’s oceans every minute today is equivalent to a truckload. If this trend continues unchanged, this amount will double by 2030 and quadruple by 2050.
‼ THIS WOULD BE ENOUGH TO „WRAP“ ALL THE FISH IN THE WORLD’S OCEANS ‼