Life Below Water

Our planet’s oceans are ultimately responsible for the regulation of our natural water cycles and many other everyday functions that rely on this process.

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This includes our obvious basic needs such as the provision of drinking water and sources of food; however the health of our seas is also connected to unexpected factors such as the weather, earth’s climate and even the oxygen we breathe.

Protecting our oceans is therefore imperative to the maintenance of our planet, our resources, our ecosystems and to human life. Oceans provide a habitat for thousands if not millions of animal and plant species, as well as supporting the livelihoods of over 3 billion people across the globe.

However, unregulated fishing threatens food supplies and jobs, illegal hunting endangers marine life due to black market trade and entanglement in abandoned nets (ghost nets), changes to the climate are affecting biodiversity and plastic pollution is rife— together causing irreparable destruction.

What can YOU do to help?

Limit Plastic Use

ESPECIALLY single use plastic items, and find more sustainable, biodegradable and wildlife friendly alternatives, such as sustainable bamboo or plant based items.

Plastic is very harmful to marine life, and so reducing our plastic consumption is key to preventing it ending up in our oceans.

Any plastic you cannot avoid using, be sure to recycle responsibly!

Reduce and offset your carbon footprint

Doing this as much as you can will help reduce the amount of CO² absorbed by our oceans. Read our Planetary resources on Climate Action for more tips on how to achieve this!

Clean the beaches!

Take part in an organised beach clean or organise one yourself for your local community! The Marine Conservation Society provide a list of planned UK beach cleans.

Support certified and legal fishing

by buying products labelled with sustainable seafood and dolphin friendly logos.

Report ghost nets, abandoned fishing gear and crimes against marine wildlife and habitats.

You can contact Sea Shepherd UK by calling 0300 111 0501 or by emailing ghostnet@seashepharduk.org / report@seashepherduk.org Sea Shepherd operates internationally.

Look for...

...the Marine Stewardship Council label for sustainable seafood, shown on seafood products, to support certified and legal fishing!

Young People in Action!

Mason Vander Ploeg

Junior Sea Doctors made schoolboy Mason one of their Sea Heroes as he is using his voice and passion to spread the message of the dangers of plastic to marine life and our oceans. His campaign began at 8 years old after seeing sharks in Hawaii and becoming aware of underwater photographer, Rob Stewart. Mason wants to encourage and inspire others to protect marine life using his voice on the radio, TV, social media and speaking at conferences.

Follow Mason @masons_ocean

Image © facebook/masonsocean

Useful Links

UN Environment Programme org unenvironment.org
World's Largest Lesson Link worldslargestlesson.globalgoals.org
National Geographic Link nationalgeographic.com
Sea Shepherds org seashepherdglobal.org
4Ocean com 4ocean.com
Oceana org oceana.org
Plastic Soup Foundation Link plasticsoupfoundation.org
Junior Sea Doctors com juniorseadoctors.com
The Ocean Cleanup com theoceancleanup.com
Greenpeace UK Link greenpeace.org.uk