World Oceans Day is a global day of ocean celebration and collaboration for a better future. The overall theme for World Oceans Day 2017 is Our Oceans - Our Future. The main conservation focus will be on plastic pollution prevention and cleaning the ocean of marine litter.

According to Prof Gavin W Maneveldt of the Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, University of the Western Cape, the oceans cover roughly 71% of the Earth's surface. It should not be surprising then that whatever we as humans discard will eventually find its way into the oceans.

As a consequence of our “disposable” lifestyle, plastic pollution (largely because it is durable and very, very slow to degrade) is now regarded as one of the 10 worst forms of pollution.

Global reports estimate that the amount of plastic currently entering our oceans from landfills (not to mention direct pollution) equates to dumping the contents of one garbage truck into the ocean every minute.

In a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, it is projected that by 2050 (assuming our actions don’t change) there will be more plastic (937 million tons) than fish (895 million tons) in the oceans. While coastal clean ups are manageable, the real challenge is that the ocean currents concentrate pollutants such as plastics in subtropical gyres (large, global systems of circulating ocean currents), now being referred to as the world’s “ocean garbage patches”. Once inside these patches, the plastic will circulate almost indefinitely and keep accumulating. The challenge of cleaning up these gyres is that the plastic is spread across millions of square kilometers making cleaning operations both time consuming (estimated at tens of thousands of years using vessels and nets) and costly (estimated at billions of US dollars).

It is estimated that currently there is about 165 million tons of plastic debris in our oceans (that is almost 29 times heavier than the Great Pyramid of Giza), killing an estimated 100,000 marine mammals and millions of birds and fish annually.

It is now widely recognised that humans are the problem to most of our modernday challenges, we are also the solution, which will require a dramatic behavioral change on our part.

So, why do we celebrate World Oceans Day?

• To remind everyone of the major role the oceans have in everyday life. They are the lungs of our planet, providing most of the oxygen we breathe.
• To inform the public of the impact of human actions on the ocean.
• To develop a worldwide movement of citizens for the ocean.
• To mobilise and unite the world’s population on a project  for  the sustainable management of the world's oceans. They are a major source of food and medicines and a critical part of the biosphere.
• To celebrate together the beauty, the wealth and the promise of the ocean.

Elrina Versfeld Vice Chairperson: Pearly BeachBewarea Conservancy

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