WWF-UK Research centre: Facts and key issues

Inadequate management, destructive fishing practices, overfishing and habitat loss have pushed numbers of sharks, swordfish, tunas and other species closer to home - such as cod and haddock - to their lowest levels in history.

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Marine and coastal ecosystems facts and key issues

Facts | Key issues

Facts

The Marine Species Population Index, which calculates the average changes in populations of 217 species of marine wildlife, shows a decline of about 35 per cent since 1970.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports that global consumption of fish has risen by 100 million tonnes since 1950. Most of the increase in the last ten years has been attributed to aquaculture (farmed fish).
Over 70 per cent of fish stocks are either fully exploited or over-exploited.
In recent years, the harbour porpoise has suffered a dramatic decline around European coasts and has virtually disappeared from the English Channel and southern North Sea.
Cod stocks have undergone severe declines during the last few decades - we are currently at historic low levels - and the species is now threatened with commercial extinction in UK waters.
Over 75 per cent of saltmarsh in England and Wales has been lost, and it is estimated that 25 per cent of the UK's mudflats disappeared between the 1950s and the 1980s.

Key issues

Unsustainable fishing - 40 out of 60 commercial fish stocks in the North-east Atlantic are being fished unsustainably (16 out of 21 in the UK), and this could jeopardise the jobs of 15,000 full-time and 3,500 part-time fishermen in the UK alone.
Lack of protection - less than one hundredth of a per cent of the UK's seas and their wildlife are adequately protected. For example, there are more than 30 types of whales and dolphins in British waters, yet there is virtually no protection for them.
Pollution - scientists declared a baby bottlenose dolphin washed ashore in Cardigan Bay to be one of the most polluted marine animals ever found.
Climate change - it is predicted that a one-metre rise in sea level would result in the loss of half the world's coastal wetlands; and direct temperature changes can also produce phenomena such as the catastrophic coral bleaching seen in the Indian Ocean during severe El Nino events.

For more information about the WWF network's work on marine issues visit www.panda.org/marine