This comes at a time when humans are hungry for fish. According to the United Nations, the world's 17 major fishing grounds are all being exploited at or beyond their sustainable capacity. More than 1,000 fish species are endangered. We have not been fishing, but vacuuming the sea. Increasingly, fish reach the market with high concentrations of harmful bacteria and toxic chemicals.
Fish are also significant accumulators of mercury, lead and pesticides.
The risk of oil spills is everpresent, threatening an assault against which already heavily-stressed marine ecosystems are ever more vulnerable. Global warming is a fact. It means stress and even death to the algae upon which corals depend for life. Around the planet, coral reefs are rapidly deteriorating. Reef-based food chains are crucial in many island nations of the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian oceans.