World Oceans Day: The Caribbean Sea faces dual threat of climate change and overfishing

Excerpt from GlobalVoices.org

Oceans cover approximately 71 percent of the earth’s surface, and contain 97 per cent of its water, so how is our “blue planet””—and specifically, the Caribbean Sea—faring? Is the blue economy, touted as a sustainable solution to the region’s concerns, little more than a catchphrase, or the Caribbean’s last hope?

The theme of World Oceans Day 2021 is “Life and Livelihoods.” Although the Caribbean Sea, with an area of just over one million square miles, represents only around one percent of the global ocean area, it is a critical resource for its people, just about 70 percent of whom live in coastal areas. Certainly, the Caribbean depends in some way on the sea and its coastlines for a living.

The region’s marine environment faces a long list of challenges, including pollution of all kinds: plastics and other forms of trash, as well as abandoned fishing gear and the runoff of pesticides and other chemicals used in agriculture, much of which is unregulated. Drastic changes to island coastlines to accommodate tourism developments, including hotels, marinas and cruise ship ports, have resulted in the removal of vital mangroves and other coastal habitats and impacted coral reefs and seagrass beds. Prospecting and drilling for oil is another growing concern for some Caribbean territories.