40% of ocean 'endangered'
2006-03-22 15:00
Oslo - The United Nations should protect
the world's oceans from deep sea fishing and pollution in the
same way as environmentally sensitive land, the lobby group
Greenpeace said on Tuesday.
A Greenpeace report, published to coincide with a UN
meeting in Brazil on biodiversity, said that 40% of the
world's oceans should be placed in nature reserves.
Just 0.6% of the oceans are protected reserves at
present, compared with 12% of the world's land, according
to UN data.
While that protection is put in place, trawling along the
ocean bottom should be banned, Greenpeace said.
"An immediate UN moratorium on high seas bottom trawling
is essential to stop the destruction of deep-sea life whilst a
global network of marine reserves is established," professor
Callum Roberts of York University said in a Greenpeace
statement.
The UN meeting in Curitiba, Brazil, which lasts until the
end of March, will discuss ways to expand protection both on
land and at sea to slow the accelerating rate of extinction of
animals and plants caused by human activities.
The meeting will discuss the principle of extending marine
protection, but will not reach a formal agreement.
The United States is not a signatory to the Convention on
Biological Diversity, an international conservation agreement
signed by the 188 countries which are meeting in Brazil.
Greenpeace also urged better protection of forests, saying
its satellite maps showed that intact forests covered less than
10% of the world's land area, threatening thousands of
species of animals and plants.
- Reuters