By Andy Campbell
The Huffington Post (9/16/15)
A disturbing new report published by the World Wildlife Fund found that the world marine vertebrate population declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.
The Living Blue Planet Report — analyzed by the Zoological Society of London and issued as an update on our oceans’ health — also found that local and commercial fish populations have been cut in half, tropical reefs have lost nearly half of their reef-building coral, and there are 250,000 metric tons of plastic in our oceans.
“Global climate is one of the major drivers causing the ocean to change more rapidly than at any other point in millions of years,” the WWF reported in a press release. “These findings coincide with the growing decline of marine habitats, where the deforestation rate of mangroves exceeds even the loss of forests by 3-5 times; coral reefs could be lost [to temperature rises] across the globe by 2050; and almost one-third of all seagrasses have been lost.”
Populations of some commercial fish stocks, such as a group including tuna, mackerel and bonito, had fallen by almost 75 percent, according to the study.
