2011 World Oceans Day

More oil reaches the oceans each year as a result of leaking automobiles and other non-point sources than was spilled in Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez


Eighty per cent of all pollution in seas and oceans comes from land-based activities.

Three-quarters of the world's mega-cities are by the sea.

Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy US$12.8 billion a year. The annual economic impact of hepatitis from tainted seafood alone is US$7.2 billion.

Plastic waste kills up to 1 million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and countless fish each year. Plastic remains in our ecosystem for years harming thousands of sea creatures everyday.

Tropical coral reefs border the shores of 109 countries, the majority of which are among the world's least developed. Significant reef degradation has occurred in 93 countries.

Although coral reefs comprise less than 0.5 per cent of the ocean floor, it is estimated that more than 90 per cent of marine species are directly or indirectly dependent on them.

Nearly 60 per cent of the world's remaining reefs are at significant risk of being lost in the next three decades.

The major causes of coral reef decline are coastal development, sedimentation, destructive fishing practices, pollution, tourism and global warming.


Studies show that protecting critical marine habitats -- such as warm-and cold-water coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves -- can dramatically increase fish size and quantity.

More than 3.5 billion people depend on the ocean for their primary source of food. In 20 years, this number could double to 7 billion.

Populations of commercially attractive large fish, such as tuna, cod, swordfish and marlin have declined by as much as 90 per cent in the past century.

Each year, illegal longline fishing, which involves lines up to 80 miles long, with thousands of baited hooks, kills over 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses.

As many as 100 million sharks are killed each year for their meat and fins, which are used for shark fin soup. Hunters typically catch the sharks, de-fin them while alive and throw them back into the ocean where they either drown or bleed to death.


The annual global by-catch mortality of small whales, dolphins and porpoises alone is estimated to be more than 300,000 individuals.


I posted this manatee photo because they are on the endandered list with only 4000-5000 living in the wild.

Together we can make a difference in saving our oceans.
It starts by wearing a blue shirt on June 8, World Oceans Day, and telling two others about the oceans’ vital role in Earth’s ecology. It continues by making it a habit to reduce our daily personal carbon footprint (ocean absorption of carbon dioxide is acidifying waters), and choosing seafood that is sustainably harvested or farmed without harm to coastal waters and seafood stocks

Please be sure to visit Shellbelle's Tiki Hut join the Ocean Celebration