Explained: How clean ocean linked to human rights

Bhubaneswar: As the world is observing the Human Rights Day on December 10, there is a need for everyone to know how the importance of clean, healthy and sustainable environment. In October this year, the UN Human Rights Council recognized that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right.

On this backdrop, it is necessary to remember the importance of clean ocean and ensure it remains free from hazardous pollutants.

We live on a blue planet where 70% of the Earth’s surface has been covered by oceans and seas. Also, oceans provide food, regulate climate and generate most of the oxygen we breathe. However, marine pollution, sea-level rising and over-fishing damage threaten the ecosystem and violates the human rights.

One-third of the total human population, nearly 2.4 billion people, live within 100 km of an oceanic coast and all human life is dependent upon the oxygen and freshwater it creates.

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

The annual economic value of the ocean is estimated at USD $2.5 trillion, equivalent to the world’s 7th largest economy, says Leticia Carvalho, head of UNEP’s Marine and Freshwater branch.

It provides nutrition, medicines, and mineral and renewable energy resources. It supports jobs in fishing, seafood, leisure and science. Ocean is the original “super-highway,” that links economies together and transports goods and people all around the globe.

Moreover, the ocean moderates the climate and influences our weather. Since the start of the industrial period, it has stored more than 90 per cent of the heat from human-caused climate change and one-third of the world’s carbon emissions, said Carvalho. Vital ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes could help us store more than 1.4bn tons of carbon emissions a year by 2050 if they are protected and restored.

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, deep-seabed habitats alone host between 500,000 and 10 million species. But some 80 per cent of the ocean remains unexplored and 91 per cent of marine species remain undescribed.

The ocean is home to vast mysteries, from the largest animal on the planet to microscopic organisms, which make up 98 per cent 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.

(This story is a part of ‘Punascha Pruthibi – One Earth. Unite for It’ awareness campaign by Sambad Digital.)