Oceans

ISSUES

Sea pollution

Marine pollution is the result of products being thrown into seas and oceans, mostly by mankind: domestic waste (sewage and rubbish, pollutants in runoff water...), industrial waste (hydrocarbons, metals, synthetic chemical and organic substances, radionuclides...) and agricultural waste (fertilisers, pesticides...). This includes water pollution and marine sediments, and more generally all damage to marine ecosystems caused by harmful substances being discharged into the sea, either by their nature or their quantity.
Fragile coastal areas
Most of the pollution comes from continents and is carried by rivers and winds. It is concentrated in coastal waters which provide water for 99% of total fish production. In fact, only a small amount of industrial pollution on the high seas is the result of accidents or malice: shipwrecks, deballasting, degassing and oil spills which are spectacular and disastrous when they reach the...

NEWS

New material to soak up oil spills?

Three years after Gulf spill, BP fights huge fines

Petrobras fined $5 million for oil spill off Sao Paulo coast

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DEBATES

The Nitrogen Fix: Breaking a Costly Addiction

Fred Pearce

Over the last century, the intensive use of chemical fertilizers has saturated the Earth’s soils and waters with nitrogen. Now...

Ghost nets – an underestimated danger

Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear is...

llegal Oil Discharge in European Seas

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FOCUS

Nobel Price of ecology

Designed to recognize grassroots environmental heroes, the Goldman Environmental Prize, founded by Richard and Rhoda Goldman in 1989 In San Francisco, is awarded annually to individuals from the six inhabited continental regions for sustained and significant efforts to...

VIDEOS

19/03/2013	WWF, in collaboration with the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic...	13/02/2013	When high-impact fishing methods like scallop dredging and bottom-trawling...
09/01/2013	The Ecologist Film Unit investigates claims that mining for tin for use in...	23/02/2012	The sea can't erase everything we left behind. Let's help it. From 22nd to...

GREEN TIPS

Sea Criminals Firmly Dealt With

In November 2003, the Brest (France) magistrate’s court fined the captain of the ship ‘Voltaire’ €100 000....

INDICATORS

Biocapacity
Ecological footprint

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