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Other Ocean Voices>>>

Reflections From former SeaWeb Vice President, Sustainable Markets

Should We Ask "What Can the Ocean Do for Industry"
or "What Industry Can Do for the Ocean?"

If we abuse the ocean, we destroy its ability to sustain businesses into the future. — Melanie Siggs

One billion people rely on fish as their primary protein source, and several million depend on fish as their main source of income. Fish is a rich food for poor people and a desirable food for richer people, containing all eight essential amino acids, omega-3 fatty acids and important nutrients. The planet relies on the ocean for its weather systems, to make oxygen and sequester carbon. With the ocean covering more than two-thirds of the planet, it shouldn't come as a big surprise the extent to which we, globally, rely upon it.

Marine pollution comes from ocean sources such as merchant shipping, cruise liners, fishing vessels as well as oil and gas platforms and land-based sources such as beaches, landfills and storm drains. Thomas Hallermann/Marine Photobank

For some this is a small venture, perhaps relying on the ocean for subsistence purposes or capturing a few fish to trade locally; for others, it might be about drilling deep below to extract oil or gas, and in between these two ends of the spectrum, a million or more people are engaged in shipping, fisheries and extractive industries that rely upon a healthy ocean sustaining their future. These industries create a wealth of economic activity around the world. It is this activity, particularly when coupled with a fundamental sense of fairness and responsibility, that can drive positive behavioral and policy change. If we abuse the ocean, we destroy its ability to sustain businesses into the future—businesses that rely upon the intricate balance of its entwined systems.

While we concern ourselves with landfill sites, seafill sites also occupy the ocean, packed with tires, televisions and of course, plastic. Steve Spring/Marine Photobank

Many more industries—possibly unwittingly—negatively impact it. One devastating example of this is waste plastic. Ninety percent of all rubbish floating in the world's oceans is plastic. In 2006, UN environment programs estimated that every square mile of ocean contained at least 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. Floating in the surface layer are plastic products, tons of drift nets, plastic bags, packing straps and common household items like soap, televisions, automobile tires and deodorant bottles. One suspected spill of plastic bags was measured to have covered 10 miles of ocean.

Beneath the waves, vast coral reefs and colonies, some thousands of years old, house more than 25 percent of all marine fish species. These unique and crucial habitats form an integral part of the oceans systems and yet they too are struggling to manage to cope with the impacts of industries such as tourism, reef fish trades and the taking of coral, which supplies those who think that this coral would look more attractive as home décor or jewelry and consequently support a significant trade in its collection and processing around the world.

Marine debris has severely impacted birds such as the albatross and sea turtles, which often die from filling their stomachs with plastic and other items they mistake for food. Claire Fackler, NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries/Marine Photobank

We can regulate against millions of dollars of fish being illegally taken from the sea, and we can try to protect our vast ocean and its crucial systems through a system of agreements and treaties. But ultimately we must all take responsibility to come together in helping explore, support and realize the work of industries and governments, underpinned by scientists and conservationists. For the industries around the world that rely, directly or indirectly, upon the ocean, that means understanding and using their power—positively, collectively and collaboratively—to share the responsibility to implement what is appropriate and fair. Industry needs the ocean, but right now the ocean needs industry to get it right, and fast.