State of the Ocean

Sea turtle

A high-level international workshop convened by IPSO met at the University of Oxford earlier this year. It was the first inter-disciplinary international meeting of marine scientists of its kind and was designed to consider the cumulative impact of multiple stressors on the ocean, including warming, acidification, and overfishing. The 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats – and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world’s ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history. Delegates called for urgent and unequivocal action to halt further declines in ocean health. For full details relating to the report summary on major ocean impacts and stressors, released June 20th 2011, please click here.

—from stateoftheocean.org


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