Greenhouse gases from fossil fuels generate a lot of news coverage, but there are also other huge problems in our oceans. Oil tankers transporting oil all over the world are wreaking havoc on marine life and the local coastal communities, especially when they leak or sink. “Last year, in late February, an oil tanker named the Princess Empress sank off the east coast of Mindoro Island in the Philippines. Up to 200,000 gallons of thick black industrial oil poured into the Philippine Sea’s crystalline waters, contaminating coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove forests. More than 20,000 families whose livelihoods depended on fishing and tourism were rendered jobless and short on food for several months.” This area is referred to as the “Coral Triangle.“ The Coral Triangle is a marine area that includes ocean and coastal waters in Southeast Asia and the Pacific and is so rich in biodiversity it has been nicknamed the “Amazon of the Seas.” It spans more than 4 million square miles across seven countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands and Singapore. “It hosts nearly 80 percent of the world’s coral species and 30 percent of its reefs,” and contains a multitude of extraordinary ecosystems. “In the Coral Triangle, more than 120 million people rely on the ocean for food or their livelihoods. More than 500 species of reef-building corals provide habitat and protection for at least 2,000 different types of fish.”
If you haven’t yet heard, countries are expanding fossil fuel operations because of an increasing reliance on oil and gas. Climate change is already stressing coral reefs. “Toxic chemicals contained in oil can make fish unsafe to consume. Oil can also injure marine mammals and seabirds and asphyxiate mangrove trees when their complex root systems are smothered in the viscous substance. When corals come into contact with oil, they may stop growing or reproducing, if they are not killed outright, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”
Marine Protected Areas (“MPA’s”) can be very helpful in protecting marine life, but a lot of research is needed, as well as government and local support, funding, and enforcement. “Most MPAs in the Coral Triangle have not had their protection levels assessed, according to the fossil fuel report. The Marine Protection Atlas shows that of the 24 MPAs that have been assessed in the region, less than half are actually protected. The others have merely been proposed.” “This lack of protection is clear from the overlap between oil and gas infrastructure, shipping traffic and related pollution across MPAs in the region.”
John Amos, founder of Sky Truth, commented: “[w]e hope that by raising the visibility of chronic oil pollution from global shipping that we see happening just about everywhere that we look in the ocean, and the double threat that’s also posed by the expansion of offshore oil and gas production that people who are concerned about protecting habitat and considering biodiversity are going to now start looking at that as another threat that they need to consider in advocating for 30 by 30 globally.”
All of us should educate ourselves on what is happening to our coral reefs, so that we may become an informed audience, realize the consequences of oil spills on our oceans, and start grassroot movements to educate and persuade our government leaders to consider and implement protection for coral reefs in our respective countries. The ONLY way things will change is through a massive movement of concerned citizens with the power to influence leaders on important changes that must be made. If nobody cares, nobody will listen, nothing will change, and we can watch our oceans get destroyed.
Sources:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14122024/coral-triangle-threatened-by-oil-and-gas-developments/
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16112024/nations-must-ratify-treaty-of-high-seas-to-protect-oceans/
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15102024/saving-coral-genetics-in-turks-and-caicos-to-rebuild-reefs-of-the-future/
