As the Rio+20 conference closes, radical change remains necessary, experts tell Al Jazeera. Hopeful rhetoric had preceded the Rio+20 UN Conference on sustainability. World leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, NGOs, the private sector and other groups met in an attempt to find ways to reduce poverty and increase social equity while ensuring
How Many More Fish in the Sea?
Seafood is the primary source of protein for more than one billion people – can they live without it? Worldwide, 90 per cent of large predatory fish stocks are now gone due to overfishing. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 85 per cent of fish stocks are “overexploited, depleted, or recovering from
Ocean Systems in Peril
How a warming planet is threatening ocean cycles that fuel our atmosphere, food chain, and weather patterns. The ocean’s phytoplankton, also known as marine algae, is the planet’s most important organism. They generate at least half of the oxygen we breathe, and are a vital component in the ocean’s food chain. So when researchers find
Oceans of Pollution
Scientists and experts are alarmed at amount of plastic debris and growing ‘dead zones’ in the world’s oceans. A drumbeat of recent scientific studies emphasises an increasingly alarming convergence of crises for Earth’s oceans. The amount of plastic floating in the Pacific Gyre – a massive swirling vortex of rubbish – has increased 100-fold in