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According to the report World Wide Fund for Nature or WWF, oceans around the world are worth $24 trillion dollars, and it would yield around $2.5 trillion of output each year.
WWF has prepared a report called Reviving the Ocean Economy: The Case for Action – 2015.
The report examines the value of oceans in terms of monetary benefits to human.
According to the report, if all the oceans in the world including Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, Antarctic Ocean, and Indian Ocean are considered as a nation, then it would be the seventh largest economy in the world.
Report warns this ocean economy is on the verge of collapse.
The loss of the fish population, coral ecosystem and disappearance of seagrass is threatening the economy of oceans.
Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International said, “The ocean rivals the wealth of the world’s richest countries, but it is being allowed to sink to the depths of a failed economy. As responsible shareholders, we cannot seriously expect to keep recklessly extracting the ocean’s valuable assets without investing in its future.”
Report says that the increasing population is a possible threat to oceans, as with the increase in population dependency on ocean food increases and this is causing the marine environment to change faster than it has in millions of years.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia said the ocean is at a greater risk than any time in history. Fishes are pulled out at a faster rate than it can recover, pollutants are dumped in oceans and global warming is acidifying ocean to a point that the natural system will stop working.
Researchers said by 2050 coral reefs could vanish.
The change in the marine environment will affect millions of people who are having jobs in commercial fishing industry.
Overfishing is the major problem which is destroying fish species, including the Pacific bluefin tuna which is just 4 percent of its population level before fishing began.
The report says that 90 percent of all fish species target by commercial fishing are endangered, over harvested and thus affecting the marine ecosystem.
Conservative group said ocean acidification would take thousands of years to return to normalcy.
The report has mentioned steps which can save ocean economy.
Establish conservative areas.
Address acidification of ocean issue.
Strengthen bonds between government and private bodies to protect threatened areas.
By 2020, there should be at least 10 percent of coastal and marine areas protected and managed.
