Huang Ryan

Andrew McNeice

Humanities

June 2, 2023

How Do We Reach SDG Goal 14

8 million tons of plastic enter the blue ocean each year. “That’s similar to one truckload dumped into the sea every minute of the day” (Bryce). SDG 14 life below water is about marine life under the ocean, “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”. Also to acknowledge human effects on marine life and how to help marine life that is in danger. People do not acknowledge the problem under water and the damaged marine habitats. Waste management has been a problem for humans because there is a limited amount of space to store the garbage on land. One of the most compelling factors is How can citizens and governments help to protect marine habitats?

Due to the fact of ocean pollution, plastic kills fishes and other marine animals like turtles and whales. “About 10% of the plastic waste in the ocean comes from ships that lose cargo at sea, abandoned fishing nets and longlines with Styrofoam attached to it” (Bryce). Because of the plastic or gas pollution like carbon dioxide. There are lots of garbage floating around like plastic water bottles, abandoned plastic fishing nets, plastic bags or straws are common garbage’s in the ocean. Fishes get strangled to death in the fishing nets and some fishes like whales eat Bactria for food, it’s simple for them to suck microplastic in their bodies, the micro plastic are hard to digest so it will stay in their body and affect the health of the marine animal and carbon dioxide kills corals underwater. In the last decade China has been mismanaging the waste. That means most of the garbage end up in the environment, instead of being incinerated, properly buried, or otherwise safely dealt with the trash and waste including plastic gets carried into the ocean. In 2010 China’s mismanaged waste rate was 76% and in 2020 the mismanagement waste rate was 7%. In 2010, the mismanaged city waste rate was 9.28%. By 2019, it fell to 0.4%. “In cities the drop was from 39.39% to 1.2% over the same period.” (chinadialogueocean.net)

Why do overfishing cause problems in the ocean? “The definition of overfishing is taking too many fish from the ocean; it effects the number of individuals removed is more than the breeding or recovery rate in population.” (sdgs.un.org) This leads to drop of population in this specie, which could cause the ecosystem or the environment to be unbalanced.” (Gaynor). Humans right now are eating double the amount of seafood people eat half a century ago. To satisfy the market needs, people start to extract seafood more and more, then marine life in the ocean will start to decrease. Some fish species will end up with more population than other species so that would cause an unstable food-chain or marine ecosystem. How do we stop overfishing? There are three main solutions, first of all apply regulations for fishing nets, thousands of nets catch unwanted marine species every day or abandoned fishing nets with marine animals tangled in it and strangled to death. People can stop this by setting up areas for placing nets and areas for fishing. Most of the nets are made of plastic. Did you know every piece of plastic ever manufactured still exists today, and when it enters the ocean, its effects can be felt for centuries. Globally we produce more than 300 million tons of plastic waste each year, but we have only recycled and reused 9% and most of the waste ends up in landfills. But why only 9%? Most of the items we see in daily life are labeled recyclable. Just like the MacDonalds bags or cups, there’s always an recycle sign printed on it. The problem is 50% of the plastic produced are actually single use. One example is about Australia. “Australia produces almost 3 million tons of plastic per year, of which less than 12% is recycled. Alarmingly, up to 130,000 tons of that plastic will wind up in the ocean as plastic pollution each year. Considering each person produces (or uses) roughly 130 kg of plastic, it means that about 30 kg of each person’s waste could end up in the ocean.” (wwf.org). A lot of people might not know about the pacific garbage patch, it is a huge island of waste most of it is plastic, it is 620,000 square miles which is 1.6 million square kilometers big, it is 3 times the size of France! It is a huge island of trash in the sea between California and Hawaii. It is accumulating because the water flow in the ocean brings plastic from different places to the garbage patch, it is getting bigger due to most of the plastic are not biodegradable. So many marine animals are trapped in the trash and dies because they think that it might be food and when they go up, they get strangled into the garbage. That’s why we must try to clean up the garbage as much as possible, if you see trash then just pick it up and if you could then volunteer to clean oceans and beaches.

What are some effective solutions to stop marine animals from dying? The ocean covers 70% of our planet, produces 50% of the oxygen we breath, shelters 90% of the biodiversity on planet and regulates our climate. That’s how important a healthy ocean is! So how can we help? First you could donate online to ocean helpers. I found two websites one is Pure Ocean the other is Sea Ocean alive. “Pure Ocean is an endowment fund, that aims to raise funds to support innovative projects for the preservation of fragile marine ecosystems and biodiversity.”

(pure-ocean.org). One of their projects is Reef Reborn, which is enhancing the larvae survival to rebuild the great barrier reef located near Queensland, Australia. “About 1429 miles wide and 133,000 square miles in size it is the largest coral reef system in the world.” (quora.com). So that means it is habitat to hundreds and thousands of marine animals! Due to the warming of waters about half of the great barrier corals have died within the last 20 years! Pure ocean saves the corals by feeding larvae with lipid-cocktail nanoparticles, it helps larvae with growing more energy to survive and increase growth rates. So, after some time the corals will grow back, and the marine animals will have their habitats back. Another one is Sea Ocean alive which mainly focuses on cleaning the garbage, trash and waste out of the blue ocean. “Sea Oceans Alive is dedicated to raising awareness and providing education on the importance of conserving marine and freshwater ecosystems. By developing and implementing sustainable solutions, we aim to protect the diverse habitats that make up our oceans, rivers, and streams, ensuring their continued role in supporting life on Earth.” (seaoceansalive.org/) They help the ocean by doing clean up, mobilizing volunteers to clean the waste debris in the ocean. They educate people about pollution through workshops, webinars, and educational materials. They create policies that protects the habitats and aquatic life and advances sustainable practices in areas such as fisheries management. Finally, research and innovation, they collaborate scientists and improve the understanding of the ocean. If you don’t want to donate money then you could help at a nearby stream, river, or beach, to help clean up the garbage.

If we keep polluting our ocean like this it will affect the number of species in the ocean and the population of marine animals or even cause an unstable environment, habitat, and home of the fishes. It will also affect human health too because seafood is a huge factor in human calcium and protein intake, so we would eat the polluted seafood which has micro plastic in the fish’s body and would heavily affect the health of human organs. We should acknowledge this problem and save the ocean by using sustainable materials, better garbage management and setup regulations for overfishing. Best to start from yourself and volunteer or donate money to ocean cleaning companies. With these solutions we could save the marine animals and the planets biggest ecosystem together.

Work Cited Page

Plastic pollution in the marine environment:

G.G.N. Thushari, and AbstractPlastic pollution is recognized as a severe anthropogenic issue in the coastal and marine ecosystems across the world. Unprecedented and continuous accumulation of growing plastic contaminants into any respective aquatic ecosystem by the anthropog. “Plastic Pollution in the Marine Environment.” Heliyon, 27 Aug. 2020, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844020315528.

How does plastic pollution affect the ocean?

Bryce, Emma, and Mary Flora Hart. “How Does Plastic Pollution Affect the Ocean?” China Dialogue Ocean, 9 Mar. 2022, chinadialogueocean.net/en/pollution/14200-how-does-plastic-pollution-affect-the-ocean/?gclid=CjwKCAjwgqejBhBAEiwAuWHioKTVFOsK_S-jraRVOTW5lG5nqAC8KSa54uGYe2a2U9vQnZ8oVnVyThoCk60QAvD_BwE.

How China is stemming the flow of ocean plastic

“How China Is Stemming the Flow of Ocean Plastic.” China Dialogue Ocean, 15 Feb. 2022, chinadialogueocean.net/en/governance/16503-how-china-is-stemming-the-flow-of-ocean-plastic/?amp=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmtGjBhDhARIsAEqfDEePBAuT92XV8t1AezHESa65eIE0k2w6BnY6XSudr_u62035SStzwXIaAq9GEALw_wcB.

7 Solutions to Overfishing We Need Right Now

Igini, Martina. “7 Solutions to Overfishing We Need Right Now.” Earth.Org, 20 Mar. 2023, earth.org/solutions-to-overfishing/.

Pure ocean donation

Pureocean. “Pure Ocean Home.” Pure Ocean Fund, 7 Mar. 2023, www.pure-ocean.org/en/.

Sea ocean alive

“Sea Oceans Alive.” Sea Oceans Alive, www.seaoceansalive.org/. Accessed 2 June 2023.

MSC

“Sustainable Fishing: MSC.” MSC International – English, www.msc.org/?gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwyLGjBhDKARIsAFRNgW9J62l5imlqDR-fgJ_VCXYUmQDQ6Tlqd4ypYPACY19Fzy7ECLST9NcaAp4QEALw_wcB. Accessed 2 June 2023.