What we have done to our oceans. Not a pretty picture

Today the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis released a report with the above map of the above Global Map of Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems and it’s clearly not a pretty picture.

The goal of the research presented here is to estimate and visualize, for the first time, the global impact humans are having on the ocean’s ecosystems.Our analysis, published in Science, February 15, 2008, shows that over 40% of the world’s oceans are heavily affected by human activities and few if any areas remain untouched.

Not surprisingly, the report finds that “the least impacted areas are largely near the poles, but also appear along the north coast of Australia, and small, scattered locations along the coasts of South America, Africa, Indonesia and in the tropical Pacific.” All areas sparsely populated and lightly impacted by man.

At some point, we need to recognize that the earths resources are limited and that we just can’t continue to avoid responsibility for what we are leaving behind. While there may be valid arguments on both sides of global warming; there can really be no debate on the negative impacts we are causing to our planet.

If you use Google Earth there is a stunning overlay of the above map here.

Litter@sea: A tragedy in the making (Blog Action Day!)

If there was ever a question about why we need to protect Planet Earth…