MOM AND POP WHITMAN: Wave builds to protect our oceans – Wicked Local

Neil Russo| Special to the Weymouth News

Pop: Put the kettle on, mom;coconut cake.Snaidsaw a late-night movie and some PacificIslanders were gathering coconuts as a part of the plot, and he convinced Eb to bake a coconut cake. Our good fortune. Let's indulge.

I have the fall 2021 edition of the "Nature Conservancy" magazine, and Eb suggested that we discuss the article:Wild Harvestby Nancy Averett about protecting the oceans.

I think that most people just take the oceans for granted. Fishermen, of course, and ocean vessels work the oceans. Unfortunately, too much pollution is dumped into the oceans such as plastics and refuse. The time is long overdue to protect them.

Less than one-tenth of the oceans are protected from mining, over-fishingand pollution. Healthy oceans are a positive for the planet. Healthy oceans will expand the fish populations, supplying more food for the world.

Jennifer McGowan, a spatial planning technical coordinator for Nature Conservancy, joined an international team of 25 researchers calling for a globally coordinated effort last March to safeguard more of the oceans.

The high seas are a little bit like the wild west,McGowan said.The presence of commercially valuable resources,like tuna or rare minerals,put different areas at risk. Over-fishing, greenhouse gases, and pollution threaten important ecosystems.

Mom: The researchers noted that only 7%of the oceans is protected by a marine protected area of some kind, and only 2.7%are consideredhighly protectedno-take zones.

Some 2,600 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean alongside a massive submerged mountain liesLost City,hundreds of chalky white spires and mounds formed when extremely hot water oozed out of the seafloor and solidified. These towering hydro-thermal vents,one is 200 feet tall,spew hot water into the dark ocean which supports tiny invertebrates, worms, fleas and bigger fauna such as crabs, fish and eels.

The future of this unusual ecosystem, and many other biologically marine areas is uncertain. Lost city is located south of the Azores in the high seas beyond any country's jurisdiction. It has no legal protection, and scientists fear it could be damaged by deep sea mining.

In the North Pacific Ocean, halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and Samoa, Kingman Reef supports about 130 species of stony corals and an array of marine life such as green sea turtles and giant clams.

Millennium Atoll, a remote coral atoll in the southern line islands in the South Pacific, has one of the most well-preserved coral reefs in the world.

As numerous countries pledged to protect at least 30%of their land and water, the researchers concluded that it was possible to safeguard biodiversity and carbon stored in ocean sediment without putting seafood at risk. The study was among the first to estimate the carbon loss from bottom trawling, the practice of dragging large, weighted nets across the ocean floor to catch fish. They estimated that the practice may be releasing as much carbon dioxide annually as global aviation does!

The researchers crunched data to find places where it's possible to safeguard biodiversity and carbon stored in ocean sediment without putting seafood at risk.

Pop:Underwater mountainranges found in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Peru's Nazca Ridge, whose highly protected waters provide feeding grounds for sharks and whales, were considered of safeguarding ocean biodiversity, keep carbon stored in the seafloor and increase fish catch by 8 million metric tons annually with increasing ocean protection up to 30 percent. The increase in fish catch is calledspillover effectby scientists, in which the density of fish in a protected area grows so large that it causes fish to spill over into adjacent areas.

Increasing calls for greater marine protection must be matched with local input and resources to properly manage the areas.Governments are signing on to these really ambitious commitments over the next decade, and there's still a reality that less than 5%of our (already) protected ocean space is effectively managed,saidLizzie McLeod, TNC's global reef systems lead.

A new initiative is Blue Nature Alliance, a consortium of funding groups that includes the Pew Charitable Trusts.

We think Blue Nature Alliance can contribute about 5%to the overall goal of protecting 30%of ocean, said Angelo O'Connor Villagomez,senior officer of marine protection. Half of our effort will go toward creating new areas and half to improving the management of existing areas.

TNC has established the Blue Bonds Conservation program to help buy back an island nation's debt and then restructure it to make payments easier. The restructuring frees up some money that TNC requires be put to protecting their marine waters.

The more protected areas, the more opportunity for spillover to help better feed the worldwith its increasing population.

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MOM AND POP WHITMAN: Wave builds to protect our oceans - Wicked Local