"The Heritage of Mankind"
The sea, the seabed and deep seabed are being used and
exploited. They are environmental and economic factors and contain
resources of incalculable value and global importance - in the
past, the present and the future.
Some 71 per cent of the earth's
surface is covered by sea. At present almost 50,000 merchant
vessels with a capacity of over 762 million tonnes ply the oceans,
transporting over five billion tonnes of cargo, which accounts for
about 90 per cent of global trade. Worldwide an average of sixteen
per cent of the animal protein we consume is in the form of fish.
30,000 fishermen catch some 120 million tonnes of marine creatures
annually.
Significant factors
Today a quarter of the earth's
entire oil and gas requirements is met by exploiting seabed
deposits. The seabed also contains further untapped or inadequately
explored reserves of oil and gas, gas hydrates and ores.
The sea and oceans are home to a
greater diversity of biological species than all terrestrial
systems and provide over half of all the natural resource-based
goods and services of our planet. They store ninety per cent of
global carbon and, through phytoplankton, convert a third of the
annual carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere into oxygen and
simple sugars, which can be absorbed in turn by marine species.
Our treatment of this sensitive
ecosystem affects not only the future of fisheries, for instance,
but the whole of life on earth.