The unimaginable is happening.
Humanity, which represents only 0.01% of the biomass of living beings on the planet, has succeeded in modifying its environment to the point of threatening the collapse of the planet’s largest wild space, the one that is home to 98% of the water on Earth and on which we are directly dependent for our survival: the ocean.
The ocean is our main climate regulator. The spectacular masses of water in the ocean ensure that heat and humidity are evenly distributed across the planet. Without it, the temperature at the Earth’s surface would be suffocating and unsuitable for human life.
The ocean was our ancestral cradle, and life hatched in its depths, but we currently are in the process of turning it into our tomb.
When the ocean overheats, the ocean currents that dictate climate regulation are altered. This major disruption to the water cycle leads to chronic droughts or torrential rainfall, with climatic events multiplying in frequency and intensity; marine heatwaves increase exponentially, whales starve to death, the body of water expands, and coupled with melting ice, sea levels rise by almost half a centimeter a year...
“We’re witnessing the collapse of the oceans in real time”, states researcher Olivier Adam (Sorbonne/CNRS), who points out that at the current rate of change, “there’s no reason why there should be any cetaceans left in the oceans in the next forty to fifty years”.
The largest ocean current, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which includes the Gulf Stream, has been declining steadily by 15% since 1950. Recent publications estimate that this marine current could reach a tipping point within a few years that would radically alter global weather patterns, and potentially at a sharp rate, making it very difficult for human societies to adapt. Western Europe would be particularly affected, with a significant reduction in rainfall, while the rest of the world would scorch under unbearable warming, plunging human lives and food systems into chaos.
UNESCO has warned that the ocean could soon emit more carbon than it absorbs.
This is staggering. We are turning our closest ally into our worst enemy.
The ocean is becoming a ticking time bomb for humanity.
Climate change is occurring at a time when the oceans are already being battered by industrial fishing. At a time when we need healthy ecosystems more than ever to help absorb and mitigate climate change as effectively as possible, politicians continue to support the destruction of the ocean by funding (with our taxes) underwater bulldozers, otherwise known as trawlers, that catch fish whilst pulverizing everything else around them.
Trawling generates permanent underwater deforestation.
Over the past few decades, we have crushed the underwater forests formed by marine organisms on the ocean floor. With one hand, we have used the ocean as a dumping ground and polluted ecosystems right down to the deepest depths; with the other, we have systematically siphoned off the ocean. Large marine animals such as tuna and sharks have declined by more than 90% in the global ocean. In the North Sea, fish have fallen by more than 99% since 1906. We have lost biodiversity and animal abundance, along with a whole part of the ocean’s carbon pump.
We have emptied the ocean.
Every year the huge nets towed along the seabed by French bottom trawlers impact an area equivalent to 600,000km2. That’s more than the whole of France...On land, such devastation would be unacceptable, not least because every year destructive fishing methods such as trawling benefit from enormous public subsidies, amounting to at least 300 million euros in France.
Without public subsidies, this energy-intensive and climate-changing fishing method, which is structurally unprofitable, would disappear.
The ocean would be able to breathe, animals would repopulate the marine environment, small-scale fishers would not have their fishing gear uprooted by these bulldozers of the seas and the ocean could continue to regulate the global climate.
Let’s stop ravaging the ocean. Marine life is resilient if given the opportunity to repair itself. Protecting the ocean is simple: all we have to do is stop destroying it. When a marine area is truly protected, fish abundance increases by up to 670% in just a few years. But far from complying with international protection standards, France continues to authorize high-impact fishing methods such as trawling in so-called “protected” areas. For the moment, protection “à la française” only protects the interests of industrial lobbies and trawler fleets whose diesel bills and ecological impacts are paid for by the public. This situation is unsustainable.
Emmanuel Macron was well advised to declare 2024 the “Year of the Sea”, given that our future depends on the ocean. This is an opportunity to radically change France’s policy towards the ocean and adopt a strong, sincere and rational ecological and social ambition, which would enable us to win on every front, namely in terms of: public finances, climate performance, ecological restoration and employment. Instead of being criticized for its environmental hypocrisy, in 2024, France could invent a model that is responsible from all points of view. This would encompass moving away from industrial fleets that depend on public subsidies and destroy common resources, in favor of a coastline that is largely protected and reserved for small-scale and inshore fishers, whose trades generate three times as many jobs and are three to four times more profitable. A model combining protection and social-ecological transition could be a source of pride for France and serve as a global benchmark come the third United Nations Oceans Conference, which will be held in Nice in June 2025. As the world’s second largest maritime power, equal with the United States, France must shoulder this responsibility before the international community.
2024 must be the year when France finally renounces the destruction of the ocean.
The citizen coalition for the protection of the ocean that we are launching with hundreds of NGOs, movements, collectives, foundations, companies and committed public figures, will relentlessly pursue this ambition in 2024. The challenge is for France to radically transform its relationship with the sea and implement three urgent measures in the general interest:
These demands are part of a 15-point plan that we are calling on France to implement as quickly as possible to save the ocean, the climate and jobs.
The time for grand speeches is over, and now it’s time for action. France’s maritime position means we have a duty to act.