More than a QUARTER of the world’s oceans need protecting urgently

More than a quarter of the Earth’s oceans need urgent protection to give marine species space to live without human impact, scientists claim.

To keep the aquatic creatures safe, researchers at the University of Queensland say millions of square miles of ocean should have any human activity restricted.

This would include potentially banning fishing, commercial shipping and restricting pesticide runoff in waters covering a quarter of the Earth.   

The Northern Pacific Ocean near China and Japan as well as the Atlantic between West Africa and the Americas are key areas to keep clear, the team said.

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Space required is based on how far different marine species need to roam for things like food and mating, the team said in a paper published in One Earth.

Authors mapped more than 22,000 marine species habitats and created a model to identify the minimum area required to capture a portion of each species range. 

To ensure they have the space to roam without the risk humans pose more than 3.3 million square miles of water should be made into protected areas. 

The range is how far they need to travel and found that a third of all species have less than 10 per cent of where they need to go covered by protected places.

‘Conserving the areas we’ve identified in our study would give all marine species a reasonable amount of space to live free from human impacts like fishing, commercial shipping or pesticide runoff,’ said author Kendall Jones.

As part of the study they included spaces of international importance for biodiversity and areas where human impact on the oceans are extremely low.

They found that the total ocean area required for conservation varied from 26-41 per cent of all waters – depending on the proportion of each species range conserved.

Director of Science at the Wildlife Conservation Society, James Watson, said the findings demonstrated the need for greater worldwide conservation efforts.

‘The world’s nations will be coming together in China this year to sign an agreement that will guide global conservation for the next ten years,’ Professor Watson said.

‘This science shows that governments must act boldly, as they did for the Paris Agreement on climate change, if we are to stop the extinction crisis facing many marine species.’

Here is a diver with a pod of humpback whales but under the researchers protection scheme large areas of ocean would be restricted to little or no human activity

He said it was crucial global conservation strategies involved rapid action to protect endangered species and ecosystems.  

‘We need to use a broad range of strategies such as no-fishing zones, community marine reserves and broad-scale policies to put an end to illegal and unsustainable commercial fishing operations.’

The authors stress that ocean conservation was essential for people and biodiversity and not just marine species.

‘Millions of people around the world depend on marine biodiversity as a crucial source of food and income,’ Professor Watson said.

‘A well-designed global conservation agreement will help preserve these livelihoods into the future.’  

The findings have been published in the journal One Earth.