Once we resolve one threat, another is never far behind. We've been together at hearings, press conferences and meetings on wood burning, sludge dumping, garbage dumping, chemical dumping, acid dumping and numerous other assaults on the ocean. Now, businesses motivated by short term profits want to mine sand from the ocean floor. These companies show no concern for the impact of their actions on the ocean ecosystem. When we walk on the beach or sun ourselves on the sand, we often fail to recognize the diversity of life that is all around us.
Sandpipers poke their beaks just below the surface to feast on the organisms that live there.
As children we dug holes in the sand and found sand crabs, a source of food for many species. It takes only a trained eye to find all the life on the dry, beach sand. Just imagine all the life supported in the sand at the ocean floor. Like the rainforest, a fragile ecosystem that is only inches from the surface, most of the life on the ocean floor is concentrated in the first few feet of sand. And like any disturbance of the soil in the rainforest, any assault on the sand on the ocean floor has a dramatic and long lasting impact.