How clean ocean linked to human rights

Bhubaneswar: As the world celebrates Human Rights Day on December 10th, everyone needs to understand the importance of a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. In October this year, the UN Human Rights Council recognized a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right.

With this in mind, it is important to remember the importance of clean seas and to ensure that they remain free of dangerous pollutants.

We live on a blue planet where 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by oceans and seas. Oceans also provide food, regulate the climate, and produce most of the oxygen we breathe. However, marine pollution, sea level rise and damage from overfishing threaten the ecosystem and violate human rights.

A third of the total human population, nearly 2.4 billion people, lives within 100 km of an oceanic coast, and all human life depends on the oxygen and freshwater that it generates.

Many societies are able to take access to water, drinking, sanitation and irrigation for granted. In 2010 the UN made water a human right. Without the ocean, which powers the planet’s water cycle and creates fresh air, we would not exist at all.

The ocean’s annual economic value is estimated at $ 2.5 trillion, which is the seventh largest economy in the world, says Leticia Carvalho, UNEP’s marine and freshwater director.

It provides food, medicine, and mineral and renewable energy resources. It supports jobs in the fishing, seafood, recreation and science sectors. The ocean is the original “super highway” that connects national economies and transports goods and people around the globe.

In addition, the ocean softens the climate and influences our weather. Since the beginning of the industrial period, it has stored more than 90 percent of the heat from man-made climate change and a third of global CO2 emissions, Carvalho said. Vital ecosystems like mangroves, seagrass and salt marshes could help us store more than 1.4 billion tons of carbon emissions annually by 2050 if they are protected and restored.

According to the Biodiversity Convention, the habitats of the deep sea floor alone are home to between 500,000 and 10 million species. But about 80 percent of the ocean is still unexplored and 91 percent of the marine species are undescribed.

The ocean holds great mysteries, from the largest animal on earth to microscopic organisms that make up 98 percent of the ocean’s biomass. These microbes are essential to the food chain, the production of nutrients for land and sea, and the health of all animals and humans.

Explained: How clean ocean linked to human rights