The importance of the oceans, their wildlife and ecosystems
The land and oceans are part of one system: Earth. So when we ask, why are the oceans important? We’re asking about our own future. Life began in the ocean billions of years before the first plants or animals colonised land. Oceans regulate the state of our atmosphere because they are 99 per cent of the volume of living space for animals and wildlife is the mechanism that drives stability.
Climate change has always been the symptom of biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More loss … that’s to say, the breakdown of the complex connectivity between lifeforms that allows Earth to flex in response to changing conditions. Ocean wildlife has, for the large part, acted as a buffer against the most catastrophic effects and since about fifty million years ago, has kept our climate quite stable.
Industrial fishing only happened recently in our planet’s history and this reduction in the abundance of wildlife represents our greatest challenge for survival.
Below you will find a range of articles designed to inspire an understanding of the magnitude of animal impactWhat is Animal Impact? Without wildlife, Earth would not be habitable for humans, because it's animals that stabilise ecosystems. It’s a fundamental law of nature that animals (and humans) exist because we are the most likely lifeforms to minimise environmental chaos. Animal impact, therefore, is a measure of how much all wildlife is collectively responsible for creating a habitable Earth. The More on our oceans.
The importance of whales and dolphins in our oceans
What’s more important, the ocean or the land?
The importance we bestow on the land is anthropocentric because we live there. It’s naturally important to us that we protect it. Nonetheless, if life in the ocean dies, we suffer irreversible changes to land-based ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More and climate.
In this article, we take a look at many of the ways that land and oceans are linked together.
The answer to the question, ‘why are the oceans important’, is that we live on the land but the oceans regulate Earth’s temperature. The oceans are equally vital to the land we live on.
Seabirds
Life is serendipitous as we’re all victims of circumstance, born into our local environment. The Galápagos Penguins’ Pacific climate deal ensures that it can survive …
Sharks and Rays
Tiger Sharks are found throughout the world’s tropical and temperate oceans. While Great White Sharks steal the glory in terms of Hollywood, Tiger Sharks may …
Latest posts about why the oceans are important
Next month, the Norwegian government is planning to capture up to a dozen Minke Whales and one by one, place them into a cage, sedate them and begin tests to expose them to loud noises such as naval sonar – noise that has been known to kill other species of marine mammal. Apart from the obvious immorality of doing this, the Norway Minke Whale experiments experiments won’t yield any useful information and at best, are an ill-conceived plan by biologists, to use invasive experiments that bear no relation to the important ecological issues being considered.
If you’d like to write to the Norwegian government, objecting to the Norway Minke Whale experiments there is some advice here on Whale and Dolphin Conservation’s website.
If you are in Australia, the embassy email address is emb.canberra@mfa.no.
Here is a copy of what I sent.
Re: Norway Minke Whale experiments
Dear Ingunn Midttun Godal, Cc His Excellency the Ambassador to the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Australia, Mr. Paul Gulleik Larsen I am an ecologist and consultant with nearly 30 years experience working for industry, governments and NGOs in Mozambique, US, New Zealand and Australia. A principle part of my expertise has been on ocean noise impacts on marine mammals. The capture and exposure of Minke Whales to ocean noise will not provide the Norwegian government with any meaningful information with which to create robust policy decisions. At worst, it may create more problems for your government, because the questions that are being asked, may not be the right ones. Such studies, only ever proposed by biologists, seek to understand the direct impact of noise on an animal's hearing but fail to appreciate that this is an ecological matter. There is no relationship between what you want to know, and the experiment being proposed ... that fact has been known for decades. For starters, Minke Whales and other marine mammals, are critical to the ecosystem processes that, for example, create commercial herring abundance in the region. Noise impacts flow through the food chain via a complex web of direct and indirect impacts that cannot be understood by studying the hearing profile of a Minke Whale. Second, the behavioural (often referred to as indirect) effects of noise on cetaceans are considered to be more significant than the direct effects. The results of this experiment will not provide you with any robust or useful advice about behaviour, because captured animals are not feeding, breeding, resting or socialising. The context in which any observations are made is so unnatural, there is nothing you will gain from the work. This would be like if I proposed to you, studying the behaviour of goldfish by putting one in a bowl on a table. If I asked you to represent that work publicly, you'd be right to say no ... and I would be wrong to expect you to listen to anything I have to say. The study being proposed will provide you with no clarity on any important ecological issues and risks exposing you to criticism for something that isn't even relevant to what you want to know. My advice, were it to be considered, would be to abandon the Minke Whale capture and noise experimentation proposal altogether. It cannot possibly provide you with any closure on the issue. It's not even a question of scientific rigour. The experiment is completely inappropriate. Yours sincerely, Simon Mustoe.
Read more about whales and dolphins on our Oceans page
https://simonmustoe.blog/why-are-the-oceans-important-climate-change-wildlife-and-ecosystems/
