About 71% of the earth is covered with . This means land occupies the remaining 29% - that's less than half the amount of the water. Yet , the activities that take place on this 29% of land have intense impacts on the . Our oceans and seas are worlds in themselves - they are home to scores of marine . The lives on both land and in water are interconnected. Oceans generate the oxygen we breathe, provide food, and regulate the climate. The way we treat our oceans impacts not only the life that lives within it, but us too.
Millions of sharks are killed every year for their fins, which is a delicacy in some parts of the world. Although, it is legal to capture some species, illegal shark finning takes place. The shark 's fins are cut off and the rest of the body is dumped into the ocean so as to avoid having to declare the full animal at port.
Over th last couple of decades, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone up. This has led to ocean acidification : the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide and this lowers the chemical balance of the water. Ocean acidification putz the entire marine food web at risk.
Dead zones are regions in the oceans where oxygen levels are so low that no marine life can live. Every year, a 'dead zone' forms near the Gulf of Mexico as farmers fertilize their land and the rain washes the chemicals into the rivers and ocean.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a huge amount of garbage that lies in the North Pacific Ocean. It moves between the West Coast of North America and Japan. It is supposedly twice the size of Texas.
Minamata in Japan was the victim of serious mercury poisoning in the 1950s. A chemical company had dumped large amounts of mercury into the Minamata Bay. Recent research has found that mercury levels in the ocean have increased tremendously.
