La survie des océans

Photo: MissionBlue.org

Nous avons pêché 90% des poissons comestibles des hautes mers, dont le thon rouge menacé de disparition. Les chalutiers qui travaillent à cette destruction râtissent le fond des mers, transformant le plateau continental jadis si riche en désert de boue. Les changements climatiques réchauffent les océans, dérangeant la structure de base de la chaîne alimentaire aquatique et détruisent les coraux. Pendant ce temps, les concentrations croissantes de CO2 dans l'atmosphère acidifient les océans, ce qui menace la survie de plusieurs espèces. L'océan se transforme lentement en désert.

La pollution a été délavée des surfaces terrestres: les égoûts contiennent des chimiques toxiques et les terres agricoles ruissellent des engrais. Cette pollution infecte les mers, détruit les riches eaux côtières. Mais c'est un problème que nous ne voyons pas car pour la plupart d'entre nous, les mers sont lointaines et oubliées. Jean-Michel Cousteau, le fils du célèbre explorateur et documentariste, dit que nous utilisons les mers comme des égoûts (idem pour les rivières, Jean-Michel!), mais parce que nous sommes des créatures visuelles et ce n'est pas sous nos yeux, nous ne faisons pas le lien.

Mais les réserves et les régions marines protégées peuvent faire un grand bien, peut-être plus que les régions protégées terrestres. Elles permettent à la mer de se reposer de l'influence humaine et permet à la vie marine de se remettre. Car la bio-diversité sur la planète, c'est dans les océans que çà se passe. Pourtant, notre seule préoccupation, souvent, c'est : est-ce bon à manger, ou est-ce que çà va ME manger.

Pourtant, les régions marines protégées sont très importantes et redonnent un souffle de vie aux océans. Il faut en créer d'autres, surtout en haute mer, ce qui est la mission de Sylvia Earle de Mission Blue: http://www.mission-blue.org/

Un ONG qu'elle a fondé en avril, à l'âge de 74 ans, la mission est de protéger des endroits stratégiques dans les océans qui sont menacés. Déjà $17 millions en dons ont été amassés pour protéger les océans. Une partie des dons va pour promouvoir la fin des subventions des flottes de pêche, ce qui serait probablement la méthode la plus rapide pour cesser la surpêche industrielle. Les régions déjà protégées ont aussi besoin de plus de protection sur le terrain, comme le bateau de charbon qui s'est échoué dans les coraux de l'Australie il n'y a pas si longtemps a si bien démontré.
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"Earth Day: Are We Destroying the Oceans?

We have fished out an estimated 90% of the major commercial fish species that swim the high seas, including the giant and endangered blue fin tuna. The trawlers carrying out that destruction are raking the ocean floor, turning parts of the once vibrant continental shelf into so much mud. Climate change is warming the oceans, disrupting the fundamental structure of the marine food pyramid and destroying coral reefs. Meanwhile, increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are making the seas acidic, which threatens to kill off species in large numbers. "The ocean is becoming a desert," says Jeremy Jackson, the director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Pollution that has washed off the land — from sewage that contains chemical toxins to nitrate fertilizer from farmland — has infected the oceans, destroying once vibrant coastal waters. But it's a problem we barely notice, since for many of us the oceans are distant and out of sight. "We are using the oceans as a sewer," says Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the great French marine explorer and filmmaker, and a documentary maker himself. "But because we're visual creatures and we can't see what's going on, we don't relate."

The good news is that, like their counterparts on land, marine protected areas can make a significant difference in ocean health. They give the seas a break from human influence and allow sea life a chance to recover. The breadth of life beneath the waves — from the blue whale, the biggest animal that ever lived, to the tiny microscopic creatures of the deep sea — is unsurpassed. "When it come to the diversity of life on Earth, the oceans are where the action is," says Sylvia Earle, a famed oceanographer and former chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "But we look at the ocean like a Neanderthal would: is it good to eat? Or is it going to eat me?"

"We know that protected areas are very important," says Callum Roberts, a marine conservation biologist at the University of York. "They breathe life back into the oceans."

Going forward, the challenge will be expanding protected areas beyond the puddle they currently occupy and into the high seas, where virtually no protection currently exists. That is the mission Earle — known as "Her Deepness" to her many admirers in oceanography — has set herself at age 74. In early April, with help from the tech-world nonprofit TED, Earle launched Mission Blue, a new nonprofit dedicated to protecting "hope spots," as Earle calls them.

Among Earle's first targets are the Patagonia shelf off southeastern Argentina and the Sargasso Sea, the 1.4 million or so square miles (3.6 million sq km) of underwater rainforest east of Bermuda. What they have in common is their unique value to the marine world, their size — and the fact that they're under threat. "This is the way to protect the ocean, the heart of the planet," says Earle.

Already, Mission Blue has generated nearly $17 million in donations for ocean protection, and there's already movement afoot to declare the Sargasso Sea a protected area, which would be by far the biggest MPA in the world. Some of the money is going towards a campaign that would end subsidies for fishing fleets, which might be the quickest method to reducing the plague of industrial overfishing. But the effectiveness of even established MPAs must be strengthened in the meantime, in order to prevent mishaps like the Chinese coal freighter that ran aground this month on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia, leaking fuel onto perhaps the most iconic marine spot on the planet."

Excerpts from article written by Bryan Walsh published in Time here: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1982015,00.html

Visit Sylvia Earle's Mission Blue Website here: http://www.mission-blue.org/