Ocean Conservation ~ Now Is The Time To Act

Instructions

~ Ocean Conservation ~ Now Is The Time To Act ~ ~ Table Of Contents ~ ~ Introduction ~ ~ Why The Oceans Are Important ~ ~ What Is The Problem? ~ ~ What Scientists Are Doing To Help ~ ~ What You Can Do To Help ~ ~ Conclusion ~ ~ Introduction ~ Welcome everyone! Hello! Hola! This project is all about ocean conservation. The ocean has always been special to me, and my heart aches when I see the problems that are happening, how the ocean is dying. If you are going to read through this project, I ask you to read everything, not just a little bit. Everything I have to say is important. Now, please enjoy the little slideshow I put together. It has some pictures of sea creatures and some of the bad things that are happening in the oceans right now. Please enjoy learning about ocean conservation! Save the seas! ~ Why The Oceans Are Important ~ The oceans are extremely important to life on Earth. The ocean generates most of the oxygen we breathe and stores more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere. The oceans cover over 70% of the world, and according to Sylvia Earle, legendary oceanographer and explorer, "Without the oceans you have a planet quite like Mars. No ocean, no life. No ocean, no us." The oceans also contain massive amounts of life, or organisms that are found no where else on Earth. When you think about, explorers can go two ways to get to a whole different world. You can go to space, or you can go to the ocean. It's an entirely different world, one that many have not experienced. The ocean is the key to life, we must protect it. ~ What Is The Problem? ~ Over the last 50 or 60 years, the ocean has changed dramatically due to pollution and over fishing, to name a few problems. The coral reefs that were once lush and beautiful, and bare and lifeless. The vast stretches of sea grass are covered with plastic bottles. The vast stretches of beautiful blue water that once were home to massive schools of fish, have no fish in them at all anymore. Pollution is a very big problem, because most garbage that we produce ends up in the ocean. Pesticides we use to keep bugs off of crops washes into rivers and then flows into the ocean, killing fish and corals. But chemicals are not the only problem. So is garbage, especially plastic. Plastic doesn't break down, or it does to a point where it is hazardous. Sea creatures then consume the plastic, thinking it is food. The plastic then kills those creatures. Millions of pounds of garbage makes its way into the ocean every year. It has become a very large problem. Plastic and garbage is taking over the ocean, and killing it. Another problem that is incredibly bad for the ocean, is over fishing. Over fishing is when fishing industries pull so much fish out of the ocean, that it gets to a point where there is little to nothing left. The fish populations cannot reproduce fast enough to keep up with the amount of fish we pull out of the sea every year. If we are not careful, some species of fish could even go extinct. One of the most awful, most barbaric forms of over fishing is shark finning. This is when fishermen catch sharks, cut off the fins to use for soup, and then toss the shark back into the ocean and leave it to die. This is one of the most awful things I have ever heard of in my life. It's terrible because they don't even use the whole shark, they just take the fins, and shark populations have decreased dramatically because of the practice of shark finning. One of the other forms of over fishing is the over fishing of tuna. Tuna are a very tasty fish that many people eat, and it's in high demand all over the world. Tuna have been over fished so much, that just like the sharks, only a small amount of them remain. A lot of tuna's are caught as babies, that are not even anywhere near old enough to reproduce, which means populations will decrease even more due to that. It really is awful. The ocean's biodiversity is being hunted to the brink of extinction. And one of the reasons is because of how healthy fish are for you. This is true, fish are very healthy for you because of the amounts of omega-3 oil they have. But according to Sylvia Earle, "We don't have to kill fish to get the omega oils that we really value, an that are good for us. We can get them from the plants that the fish eat. The fish don't make those oils anyway." So some of the reasons for over fishing, really are not necessary, and are simply just harming the environment and the ocean. ~ What Are Scientists Doing To Help ~ Scientists are doing many things to help. They are researching the impacts of pollution and over fishing. By doing this they can see the damage and decrease or increase of organisms when changes happen in their environment. Scientists are also coming up with alternatives to use instead of plastic, like glass with little to no chemicals that are used for the coloring of glass. - Continued in Notes and Credits -