Hello and welcome to the Natural World Facts Awareness Project.
A new series in which I’ll be explaining
the importance of wildlife conservation and what you can do to help.
In this video, I’m joined by Alex Collins,
a fellow YouTube wildlife enthusiast and biologist
at the University of Bristol.
His channel is linked below,
I recommend you check it out
for videos on some of the world’s rarest species
and what you can do to help them.
So what is Marine Conservation?
Marine Conservation is defined as the protection of marine ecosystems,
With the focus of limiting the damage caused to them by humans
and protecting threatened species.
The main threats being seen in our oceans include species loss,
habitat degradation,
and changes in ecosystem function.
Human activities causing a rise in extinction rates
has lead to a huge decrease in biodiversity,
particularly in coral reefs, 88% of which are threatened
by excessive CO2 emissions.
These reefs are among the most important stores of biodiversity on the planet.
It takes around ten thousand years for a reef to form from coral polyps,
and up to 30 million years for
a reef to fully mature,
hosting an estimated 25% of all marine life.
And yet, around the world,
coral reefs are dying,
as warming temperatures and stressful conditions bleach the corals
white as they are forced to expel the colourful algae
on which the coral depends for its survival.
So, why does this matter?
Why is marine conservation so important?
With the world’s oceans currently under more threat than ever before,
and with half of the world’s coral reefs having died in the last 30 years,
marine conservation has never been
more important than is today.
I’ve already made some videos
explaining why conservation is so important to you
and why we should save endangered species
So make sure to check those videos out after
you’ve finished watching this.
Put simply, different species rely on each other for survival.
If one species is under threat,
the likelihood is that so is another species.
This can have a chain reaction, until
eventually a whole ecosystem is under threat.
We need healthy ecosystems just as much as
the marine life itself,
because without them, we’d have less food, less money,
and with altogether less life on our planet.
The bottom line is Earth needs healthy oceans, and it is our
responsibility to protect them.
So how can we do this?
One of the most effective methods has been the setting up of marine protected areas.
This creates a much safer environment for marine life,
undisturbed by the impacts of overfishing,
noise pollution from ships, and other human activities.
Thankfully, biodiversity has been found to increase by 21% within marine reserves like these.
We can also use artificial reefs.
These are man-made structures, built to promote marine life
and the growth of new coral.
Artificial reefs have proven successful in providing a habitat for threatened wildlife,
These allow damaged ecosystems to recover, and
valuable biodiversity to regenerate.
As well as these strategies, we also need to be careful in the way
we interact with the marine environment.
Active demersal fishing techniques like trawling,
where a net is dragged along the bottom of sea floor,
can be really destructive
as this destroy ecologically important species like certain corals.
Active pelagic fishing techniques, where a net is dragged through the open ocean,
can also be just as bad.
This is because it’s indiscriminate, meaning that they
catch anything in their way of net,
regardless of whether the fisherman want it or not.
This often leads to protected animals like dolphins and turtles being injured
or killed. For every 1 kilogram of prawns that are caught and sold in stores,
nine kilograms of other sea animals are caught as bycatch,
being injured or killed and then thrown away.
Marine conservation efforts have been made to reduce the destruction
caused by these fishing techniques,
either by reducing the amount of time of these techniques are allowed to be used
Or making the technique itself less destructive.
One example of this, is to use specific fishing hooks which
are less likely to catch unwanted species.
Solving these problems does take a lot of hard work,
but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do
if you don’t work as a conservationist.
So here are some other things that you can do to help marine conservation.
Firstly, use your water supply more economically.
This will not only save you money but it will
also reduce excess runoff, containing pollutants and waste into the ocean.
Secondly, use less energy in your daily life.
Higher temperatures can cause the death
of corals, rising sea levels and flooding,
and more extreme weather which can damage marine ecosystems.
Many marine species also rely on specific temperatures to determine
what sex they develop into.
This is called temperature-dependent sex determination,
and so by changing the temperature we can throw an entire population out of balance.
You can also fish more responsibly,
or just fish less, or not at all if that is an option to you.
The same goes for eating seafood.
Reducing your use of plastics is also essential.
Ingestion of microplastics (bits of plastic
which are less than 5mm across) can lead to bioaccumulation.
This is where harmful substances
build up in the food chain and eventually cause serious damage
to the species at the top.
There are just a few things that you should consider
when trying to cause less impact to marine life.
There are of course plenty of other things that you can do to help.
So if you’d like to know more,
then let us know down in the comments,
so that we can make another video for you.
Thank you for watching.
Subscribe to see more videos from The Awareness Project.
Hit the like button and be sure to watch our video
on the Pine Marten by following the link to Alex’s channel.
I hope you enjoy.