Voyage of discovery takes team of Greenpeace activists round globe
A GROUP of activists on a Greenpeace ship are voyaging across every ocean on the planet to find out more about the threat to marine life.
The environmental organisation, which is calling for a third of the world’s oceans to be protected by 2030, says the crew have found several species are facing extinction due to rising temperatures, overfishing and pollution.
They have been documenting their trip around the world with a range of photographs, which expose the damaging impact human activities are having on our oceans and their inhabitants.
The activists set sail after a number of research studies produced alarming findings, including the Census of Marine Life, which found up to 90 per cent of all large predatory fish such as cod, sharks and tuna, have disappeared.
While the International Union for Conservation states that six out of seven species of sea turtle are now under threat, as three species are classed as vulnerable and three as endangered.
Green Peace has decided to publish many of the photographs today, on Endangered Species Day, to “show what’s at stake and why we urgently need to protect our blue planet”.
The group also says oceans are “a key part of the solution” to climate change as healthy oceans can absorb carbon dioxide and prevent it from heating the planet.
The United Nations states scientists who completed the first Global Integrated Marine Assessment in 2016 raised serious concerns about the increasing temperature and acidification of the world’s oceans, as this can cause a mass migration of fish that millions of people rely on and widespread coral bleaching.
Up to 25 per cent of marine species are dependent on coral reefs but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says evidence suggests up to 90 per cent of warm water reefs “will disappear” even if countries achieve the target set out in the Paris Agreement, by limiting the increase in global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.