Author Archives: David Evans

Australians have been urged to reconsider carpeting their homes after a study found the floor covering may double microplastic pollution in household dust.Scientists from Macquarie University gathered and analysed dust samples from 108 households across 29 countries, including about 30 homes in Australia.Overall, dust from carpeted homes had roughly twice the microplastics load than dust from homes with other types of flooring.Dr Neda Sharifi-Soltani led the research and said the scientific community was still trying to understand how microplastics might impact human health.Separate studies have detected microplastics in human faeces, urine, blood and in people’s lungs, with research ramping up globally into potential effects.The dust study found that even though some of the microplastics polymers detected were toxic, the exposure dose was low.But Dr Sharifi-Soltani also warned: “This is an underestimation because of all the knowledge gaps and analytical instrument limitations that we encountered.”Doing the health risk assessment for microplastics in household dust is in its early stages.”In her mind the findings so far are enough to warrant a warning for people to reconsider installing carpets in their homes.The study was based on indoor atmospheric dust samples gathered over a one-month period from 108 homes in 29 high, medium and low-income countries.The 16 high-income countries included Australia, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland.”Australia had the second-highest amount of microplastics in household dust among higher-income countries,” Dr Sharifi-Soltani said.The dust analysis was informed by a range of other information gathered from study participants, including flooring type, how often floors were cleaned, and how many people lived in each home.In all countries, greater vacuuming frequency was associated with lower microplastics loads.Story continuesLower-income countries had higher loads of microplastics, which were deposited at an average daily rate of 3,518 fibres per square metre, per day.The rates for medium-income and high-income countries were 1,268 and 1,257 respectively.”No matter what country we collected the dust from, the single biggest influence on the amount of microplastics in household dust was … how often the floors were vacuumed,” she said.The study also showed most of the microplastics found in household dust came from sources inside the home, not outside.The research has been published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

A majority of Virginia voters are concerned about pollution, particularly plastics clogging waterways and runoff that contaminates waters, according to a recent survey by the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program, Clean Virginia Waterways at Longwood University and OpinionWorks. Most voters also support legislation to cut pollution.Steve Raabe, founder and president of OpinionWorks, also said that he was surprised that while 87% of respondents called water pollution a serious problem, most didn’t realize that it comes from people discarding plastic bottles, tires, food containers and more on land.AdvertisementWhen the respondents think of ocean debris, he said, they assumed it came from fishermen dumping trash.According to the study, 87% of the 901 surveyed said plastic in the water is at least a “somewhat-serious” problem, while 65% of people said land litter was at least a “somewhat-serious” problem. Nearly 80% said they are most concerned about harmful chemicals and toxins in water.AdvertisementThe Chesapeake Bay Foundation on Wednesday released its 2022 State of the Blueprint report, which found Virginia, along with Maryland and Pennsylvania, are not on track to meet their pollution reduction goals in lowering nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment levels.Chesapeake Bay Foundation graph on how nitrogen reduction progress by state. Hilary Falk, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation director, wants the states to recommit to the blueprint.Virginia has improved in areas such as wastewater mitigation — meaning waste water treatment facilities are performing better because of infrastructure upgrades. The report states the commonwealth has a chance to get back on track because of these improvements but lags in decreasing in the amount of runoff.“That approach is not sustainable,” said CBF Virginia Executive Director, Peggy Sanner. “About 90% of Virginia’s remaining pollution reductions must come from agriculture, and population growth and climate change are leading to more polluted runoff from developed areas.”According to Chris Moore, a CBF senior regional ecosystem scientist, pollutants such as nitrogen attaches to plastics. Fish eat the debris and get sick.“Unfortunately, a lot of our plastic pollution that gets into our waterways comes from runoff,” Moore said. “It’s stuff that gets discarded on streets or maybe blows out of someone’s car, blows off someone’s lawn, eventually gets swept up in stormwater.”Earlier this year, the Virginia Best Management Practices program, which helps control farm and urban runoff, received historic funding of $295 million over the next two years. It uses a cost-share program that helps farmers pay for fences to go around bodies of water and prevent livestock from entering and contaminating the runoff.However, according to Sanner, such investments may not be enough.AdvertisementToday’s Top StoriesDailyStart your morning in-the-know with the day’s top stories.There is a possibility that the 2025 blueprint deadline will be pushed back, but CBF and state officials will discuss how to stick as close to the original deadline as possible. Problems like inflation, which increases costs, and the need for more funding are barriers to meeting the 2025 pollution goals.The voter survey included interviews conducted in March among residents across political parties, ethnic, racial and gender lines. Raabe said the survey was statistically representative of the state with a 3.3% margin of error.It showed the participants support legislation to help prevent litter: 61% support a ban on single-use plastic bags; the majority also supported banning plastic straws and polystyrene (plastic foam). Less than half — 41% — were in favor of a 5-cent tax for using grocery store plastic bags.Percentage of participants who want to ban single-use plastic bags. Legislation calling for phasing out plastic foam containers has been pushed back this year and Gov. Glenn Youngkin released an executive order in April that repealed a plastic bottle ban among state agencies.According to Raabe, many shoppers forget to use reusable bags, even when they keep them in their cars. But, stores, he said, could display signs reminding people to grab them before coming in.Also in the survey, 23% of the participants said they chose bottled water instead of tap water, even in areas where the tap water is considered safe. Nearly 40% said they drink bottled water often.AdvertisementEverett Eaton, 262-902-7896, everett.eaton@virginiamedia.com

The Indonesian fisheries ministry has launched a four-week program to pay fishers to collect plastic trash from the sea.The initiative is part of wider efforts to reduce Indonesia’s marine plastic pollution by 70% by 2025.The country is a top contributor to the plastic trash crisis in the ocean.Each of the 1,721 participating fishers will receive the equivalent of $10 a week for collecting up to 4 kg (9 lbs) of plastic waste from the sea daily. JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has launched a program that will pay thousands of traditional fishers to collect plastic trash from the sea. The four-week initiative is part of wider efforts to cut marine plastic waste by 70% by 2025.
The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries said on Oct. 4 that it had budgeted 1.03 billion rupiah ($67,600) to pay 1,721 fishers across the archipelago for any plastic trash they collected daily from Oct. 1-26. It said the money, which works out to about 150,000 rupiah ($10) per fisher per week, would serve as compensation for their not fishing during this period. That’s slightly more than the 140,000 rupiah ($9) per week that the ministry estimates they earn from fishing.
“This activity is very simple,” Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, the fisheries minister, said at a press conference in Jakarta, adding that it wasn’t expected to be the silver bullet for the country’s marine waste problem. “But at least this will raise awareness among the stakeholders at sea and the people around the world.”
A manta ray swimming amid plastic trash in Indonesian waters. Image courtesy of Elitza Germanov.
The fisheries ministry says it expects each fisher to collect up to 4 kilograms (9 pounds) of plastic trash daily during the program. Participants are located across all of Indonesia’s main islands.
Indonesia is one of the largest contributors to marine plastic pollution in the world. The country produces about 6.8 million metric tons of plastic waste annually, according to a 2017 survey by the Indonesia National Plastic Action Partnership. Only 10% of that waste is processed in the approximately 1,300 recycling centers in the country, while nearly the same amount, about 620,000 metric tons, winds up in the ocean.
Marine plastic waste poses a threat to marine animals, who can become entangled in it or ingest it. This leads to suffocation, starvation, or drowning. Marine plastics have been blamed for the deaths of more than 100,000 marine mammals annually. If the dumping of plastic in the oceans continues at current rates, by 2050 it will outweigh all fish biomass, according to an estimate.
“The most important thing is prevention,” Sakti said. “If we can properly conduct prevention, then there shouldn’t be any waste in the sea. Because once the trash gets to the sea, then it’s already damaged.”
Plastic pollution is rampant in Indonesian ports. Image by Anton Wisuda/Mongabay Indonesia.
Indonesia plans to spend $1 billion to cut 70% of its plastic waste by 2025. Proper management of plastic waste is lacking in coastal communities, where the use of plastics far outpaces mitigation efforts such as recycling.
Beach cleanups are among the popular measures being carried out here. Local governments are also implementing efforts to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics, including outright bans, while the private sector is investing in sustainable alternatives. The government also plans to make producers take greater responsibility for the waste generated by their products.
“This is an important moral message to the world that dumping plastic waste into the sea is very bad,” Sakti said. “Hopefully this can be a nationwide effort and, even better, a worldwide action.”
Plastic trash on Kuta Beach, one of the main tourist destinations on the Indonesian island of Bali. Image by Luh De Suriyani/Mongabay Indonesia.
Basten Gokkon is a senior staff writer for Indonesia at Mongabay. Find him on Twitter @bgokkon.
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Conservation, Corporations, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Environmental Politics, Fish, Fisheries, Food Waste, Marine, Marine Conservation, Marine Crisis, Marine Ecosystems, Microplastics, Ocean Crisis, Oceans, Plastic, Pollution, Sustainability, Waste, Water Pollution
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Study links in utero ‘forever chemical’ exposure to low sperm count and mobilityPFAS, now found in nearly all umbilical cord blood around the world, interfere with hormones crucial to testicle development A new peer-reviewed Danish study finds that a mother’s exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” during early pregnancy can lead to lower sperm count and quality later in her child’s life.PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are known to disrupt hormones and fetal development, and future “reproductive capacity” is largely defined as testicles develop in utero during the first trimester of a pregnancy, said study co-author Sandra Søgaard Tøttenborg of the Copenhagen University Hospital.TopicsFertility problemsHealthPollutionPlasticsMen’s healthPregnancynewsReuse this content

SPLBy Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondentOne of the worst forms of plastic pollution may have met its match in the saliva of a humble worm.Spanish researchers say they’ve discovered chemicals in the wax worm’s drool that break down polyethylene, a tough and durable material.The researchers say that one hour’s exposure to the saliva degrades the plastic as much as years of weathering.They hope the breakthrough will lead to new natural approaches to deal with plastic pollution.They’ve discovered two enzymes in the liquid that can degrade polyethylene at room temperatures and believe it’s the first time that such an effective agent has been found in nature. King will not attend climate summit on Truss advicePoorer homes to get £1.5bn energy efficiency helpInvestment zones ‘unprecedented attack on nature’From the poles to the depths of the oceans, plastic is a major pollution issue across the whole world.Getty ImagesWhile efforts to reduce, recycle and reuse plastic are slowly making progress, there are few options when it comes to the very sturdy polyethylene (PE) material. It is one of the most widely used forms, comprising around 30% of production and is used for a wide range of materials including hard wearing items like pipes, flooring, and bottles but it’s also used for bags and food containers. This plastic is dense and is very slow to break down in nature as it is highly resistant to oxygen. Most attempts to degrade it require PE to be pre-treated with heat or UV light to incorporate oxygen into the polymer. Getty ImagesThe Spanish team first discovered that wax worms could break down the material in 2017, but in this new study they’ve worked out that the key elements are enzymes in the creature’s saliva. In their paper they show that this key step of getting oxygen into the polymer can be achieved within an hour of the plastic being exposed to the saliva of the larvae. “What we think is that the enzymes are capable of an accelerated version of the weathering of polyethylene,” said Dr Clemente Arias, a co-author from the Spanish National Research Council. “What we found was that the enzymes alone can oxidise plastic, which is the process that takes such a long time in the environment,” he told BBC News. The researchers are using saliva from the larvae of the greater wax moth, commonly known as wax worms. SPLThese creatures are a well known pest that attacks and destroys honeybee hives. They are also popular with anglers as a bait and as a food source for reptiles. The researchers say the larvae’s destructive abilities when it comes to beeswax may provide an explanation of their capacity for PE degradation. The scientists believe that what they’ve discovered so far provides a promising alternative approach to biological degradation and could lead to new solutions.”We imagine you could apply this new understanding to large plastic waste management facilities,” said Dr Federica Bertocchini, a co-author on the paper also from the Spanish National Research Council. “But you could also have a home-based kit which could help you degrade your own plastic.”There are still many questions to be answered, say the researchers, including whether the saliva is working on the polymer or on the additives that are used to strengthen this type of plastic. “We also want to know why a humble worm has these amazing enzymes, what’s the use of them in their daily life,” said Dr Arias. They want to now develop their work by carrying out bigger experiments.”The field of biodegradation is focused on bacteria and fungi, mostly bacteria, and on looking for enzymes,” said Dr Bertocchini.”Now we have some enzymes that work, so the idea is, well, let’s give it a try.”The study has been published in the journal, Nature Communications. Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc.

New research suggests that plastic could contribute to ocean acidification, especially in highly polluted coastal areas, through the release of organic chemical compounds and carbon dioxide, both of which can lower the pH of seawater.The study found that sunlight enabled this process and that older, degraded plastics released a higher amount of dissolved organic carbon and did more to lower the pH of seawater.However, the findings of this study were conducted in a laboratory, so it’s unclear whether experiments conducted in estuaries or the open ocean would yield similar results, experts said. The trillions of pieces of plastic currently roving through the global ocean are known to be an assault on life. Turtles get tangled up in discarded plastic fishing nets. Whales open their mouths to eat and unwittingly fill their stomachs with shopping bags. Filter-feeding fish and other organisms gobble up tiny plastic particles, poisoning themselves with the plastic’s toxins and passing that toxicity along to any animal that consumes them.
And now, new research suggests that plastic pollution could be harming the ocean in an additional way: by contributing to its acidification.
Through a series of laboratory experiments, scientists from the Marine Sciences Institute in Barcelona, known as ICM-CSIC by its Spanish acronym, found that when plastic — especially aged, degraded plastic — interacts with sunlight, it releases a cocktail of chemicals, including organic acids, into the ocean. Organic acids are known to lower the pH of seawater, causing it to become more acidic. In addition, the sun’s degradation of plastic can lead to carbon dioxide (CO2) release, which can cause pH to plummet further.
In highly polluted parts of the ocean, such as coastal areas, plastic could contribute to a drop of up to 0.5 pH units, which is “comparable to the pH drop estimated in the worst anthropogenic emissions scenarios for the end of the 21st century,” says Cristina Romera-Castillo, a postdoctoral researcher at ICM-CSIC and lead author of the study documenting the findings.
Lead author of the study Cristina Romera-Castillo examines a sample of polluted ocean water. Image courtesy of Marc Gasser.
“The main factor producing the acidification is the greenhouse gas emissions that are dissolved in the ocean,” Romera-Castillo told Mongabay. “But I think it’s interesting to know that plastic is also contributing to the acidification.”
The world’s oceans absorb about 30% of humanity’s carbon emissions, which has resulted in a decrease in pH across the globe. Lowered pH obstructs the ability of marine organisms, such as corals, planktons, oysters and urchins, to build skeletons and shells out of calcium carbonate and to generally survive. The weakening of these calcifying organisms can impact other species that depend on them for food and habitat.
Like other climate change impacts, ocean acidification doesn’t occur uniformly across the world’s seas. But it’s estimated that, on average, the pH of surface waters has fallen by about 0.1 pH units. That may not sound like a lot, but scientists say this drop has already resulted in numerous and widespread changes across the global ocean. And things are set to get much worse if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
Some scientists even warn that ocean acidification represents a planetary boundary since it could significantly disrupt the functioning of Earth’s natural operating systems. According to the planetary boundaries theory, Earth’s ability to support life as we know it could be threatened if humanity pushes ocean acidification past a certain threshold — a limit beyond which the planet cannot cope with the changes and stresses humans place on it. When the impacts of high levels of ocean acidification interact with other Earth systems and processes, the resulting destabilization could place human life at risk.
Scientists found that when plastic — especially aged, degraded plastic — interacts with sunlight, it releases a cocktail of chemicals, including organic acids, into the ocean. Image courtesy of Cristina Romera-Castillo.
While plastic pollution would not have nearly as much of an impact on ocean acidification as greenhouse emissions would, Romera-Castillo said it’s something to keep an eye on.
“There are many reasons why we should be concerned about plastic, and this is one more thing,” Romera-Castillo said. “This is not the only one or maybe not the worst, but it’s one more thing.”
Romera-Castillo and her coauthors conducted their lab experiments with new plastics, as well as aged plastic collected from Canary Island beaches. They placed the plastic waste inside glass bottles filled with seawater, and then exposed the bottles to ultraviolet light similar to the amounts occurring in sunlight. They found that the older plastic released a higher amount of dissolved organic carbon and did more to lower the pH of the seawater.
Right now, nearly 13 million metric tons of plastic reach the ocean each year, but this number could increase dramatically in the near future. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, plastic production could triple in the next 40 years, going from about 460 million metric tons in 2019 to 1.23 billion metric tons in 2060. More than likely, much of that plastic will end up in the natural environment, including the ocean. A UN plastics treaty which is currently in the works could potentially reduce those waste amounts.
Plastics, lumped in with roughly 350,000 other types of artificial chemicals in the global marketplace, are also categorized under another already breached planetary boundary. These so-called novel entities have become so pervasive as pollutants in the world — with new ones being engineered and introduced all the time — that they have violated the novel entity boundary’s critical threshold, with governments no longer able to keep up with evaluation or regulation of synthetic chemical risks.
Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist and ocean acidification expert at the University of Plymouth, who was not involved in the new study, says the research shines a light on an important finding: that plastics do break down in seawater, releasing organic compounds and CO2 in the process.
“I think it’s important that people know about this phenomenon,” Hall-Spencer told Mongabay, “because what we’re often told is that plastics, once they get into the ocean, will last for millions of years, won’t break down or be there effectively forever.”
Right now, nearly 13 million metric tons of plastic reach the ocean each year, but this number could increase dramatically in the near future. Image by Naja Bertolt Jensen / Ocean Image Bank.
However, he questioned whether plastic would significantly contribute to acidification in the actual ocean. For instance, he suggested that waves and currents could mix the water and dissipate the impacts of plastic acidification. He also pointed out that ocean plastics are often encrusted with biological organisms that consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, which might also reduce the plastic’s contribution to acidification.
Furthermore, Hall-Spencer noted that a lot of ocean plastic ends up in places far from sunlight — like on the seafloor.
“It’s important that we know these plastics break down, and in doing so, they lower the pH,” he said. “But what’s needed as a next stage is verification that plastics in the ocean are lowering the pH.”
Stephen Widdicombe, a marine ecologist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory and co-chair of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network, who was also not involved in the new study, said the findings are noteworthy since they indicate that plastic could be a potential driver of ocean acidification in coastal regions. But like Hall-Spencer, he said more research would need to be done to understand if these processes would happen outside the lab in real world situations and on a larger scale.
The study “does show us the importance of monitoring for multiple threats,” Widdicombe told Mongabay. “Often we get fixated on thinking, ‘Oh, we’ve got to go and monitor how much plastic there is there,’ or ‘We’ve got to go and monitor for ocean warming or deoxygenation,’ when really what we should be monitoring for is everything.”
Romera-Castillo said it would be much harder to conduct the same experiments in the ocean due to the multiple factors one has to consider, such as the respiration of microorganisms and the movement of the water. However, she said she and her team would like to try this in the future.
“This [study] is the first step,” she said. “Now, there are many questions opening up.”
Banner image: A coral reef in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Lowered pH obstructs the ability of marine organisms, such as corals, planktons, oysters and urchins, to build skeletons and shells out of calcium carbonate and to generally survive. Image by Renata Romeo / Ocean Image Bank.
Citations:
Romera-Castillo, C., Lucas, A., Mallenco-Fornies, R., Briones-Rizo, M., Calvo, E., & Pelejero, C. (2023). Abiotic plastic leaching contributes to ocean acidification. Science of The Total Environment, 854, 158683. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158683
Persson, L., Carney Almroth, B. M., Collins, C. D., Cornell, S., De Wit, C. A., Diamond, M. L., … Hauschild, M. Z. (2022). Outside the safe operating space of the planetary boundary for novel entities. Environmental Science & Technology. doi:10.1021/acs.est.1c04158
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin III, F. S., Lambin, E., … Foley, J. (2009). Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2). Retrieved from https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/
Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a staff writer for Mongabay. Follow her on Twitter @ECAlberts.
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Lisbon sits at the mouth of the Tagus River where it flows into the Atlantic. This confluence of waters welcomed thousands of people in June, who gathered in the Portuguese capital’s Altice Arena for the second United Nations Ocean Conference.
“Sadly, we have taken the ocean for granted, and today we face what I would call an Ocean Emergency,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at the opening of the conference, which aimed to mobilize science-based solutions to the crisis. “We must turn the tide. A healthy and productive ocean is vital to our shared future.”
Altice Arena. Photo: James Fahn, Earth Journalism Network
Human actions have burdened the ocean and its inhabitants with serious problems, including more acidic and hotter waters from emissions and global warming, which represent existential changes for many ocean-dwelling organisms. Meanwhile overfishing, pollution and industrial activities have depleted and damaged ocean ecosystems. Through these combined threats, we’ve robbed marine communities of their resilience at the very moment they need it most.
Could granting the ocean inalienable rights help turn all of that around — and protect people who depend on the ocean in the process?

Experts at the conference argued that a declaration of oceanic rights from the United Nations could recognize the ocean as a living entity that has its own inherent entitlements, such as those to life and health, along with the right to continue its vital natural cycles.
Ocean Biology Processing Group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, public domain
Participants included representatives of the Earth Law Center, a Colorado-based nonprofit dedicated to the growing Rights of Nature movement. The organization has spent the past five years spearheading the concept of ocean rights.
In 2017 the center secured support from more than 70 nonprofit organizations in 32 countries for its Ocean Rights Initiative. That year, at the UN’s first ocean conference, then-executive director Darlene Lee explained that the initiative recommended “the United Nations governments, organizations and stakeholders, promote and adopt holistic and rights-based governance of the ocean, including incorporating the inherent rights of the ocean into law and policy.”
There’s historic precedent for establishing far-reaching rights principles through the United Nations. In 1948 the UN passed the groundbreaking Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined certain rights and freedoms — such as liberty and equality — as basic entitlements of all people across the globe.
Although that declaration of human rights is not legally binding, Earth Law Center oceans campaign director Michelle Bender says it has served as a powerful tool for embedding human-rights principles in laws and policies, including international treaties, national constitutions, and legal codes around the world.
Similarly, this summer the General Assembly adopted a groundbreaking resolution declaring access to a clean and healthy environment as a universal human right. And in 2010 a resolution was passed on the human right to water and sanitation.
Activists hope to extend the notion to the ocean we all share.

The effort took a step forward at the UN Ocean Conference, where The Ocean Race — a round-the-world sailing contest that also advocates for a healthy ocean — organized a panel discussion where advocates could discuss ways to advance the declaration and raise awareness of its importance.
Speakers included Prime Minister Ulisses Correia de Silva of the Republic of Cabo Verde, Earth Law Center representative Callie Veelenturf, and Ocean Race chairman Richard Brisius.
Addressing a packed audience, speakers argued that establishing legal rights for the ocean could start a cascade of societal shifts in peoples’ attitudes toward, and understanding of, the ocean. They called on the public to urge their UN ambassadors to support ocean rights and get a declaration on the UN’s agenda.
Although these speeches were given in a dimly lit, hushed venue — one of two adjacent rooms where everyone had to listen through headphones so as not to disturb proceedings next door — the audience was enthusiastic. Many attendees clustered around the speakers as the event came to close, eager to hear more.

Experts and national leaders speaking at the panel, and those I talked to after the event, said the declaration would prioritize the ocean’s interests alongside those of people.
This is a fundamentally different approach from most of today’s ocean-related decision-making, which is typically “anthropocentric in nature,” says marine biologist Guillermo Ortuño Crespo, who attended the event. He’s not involved in the ocean rights initiative, but his research has involved scrutiny of management of the ocean. He says the current approach puts humanity at the center, valuing and protecting the marine environment based on the services it provides to people.
A wrecked fishing trawler believed to have been illegally fishing along the Skeleton coast of Namibia. (Photo by Pim GMX, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Crespo describes this anthropocentric paradigm as “a limited value system that psychologically removes us from nature.”
Other experts said a declaration of ocean rights could upend that value system by giving the ocean a voice. It would represent, in Bender’s words, “a fundamental shift in our relationship with the ocean.”
Granting the ocean legal rights would be a step toward “a more ecocentric value system,” Crespo says, “which is still upheld by innumerous coastal and Indigenous peoples across the ocean. These communities recognize the intrinsic right that the ocean and its many species and features have to exist and be protected.”

The UN panel didn’t occur in a vacuum — the Ocean Race is also in the middle of a series of summits, running through 2023, examining ocean rights as a solution to restoring ocean health. The organization has held summits since 2015 to bring together country leaders, industry figures, ocean experts and others to discuss critical marine issues.
Johan Strid, director of Ocean Race Summits, says the race has a “unique and neutral platform to host a dialogue and drive this discussion in a constructive way.”
The summits  and associated workshops, events and “action labs” are components of a strategic program that the Ocean Race, the Earth Law Center, the nonprofit organization Nature’s Rights and other partners ramped up earlier this year.
One major event took place in March in the Italian coastal city of Genova. There the partners started a consultation process to create a draft resolution. The consultation will “gather stakeholders from all backgrounds, regions and expertise to gain feedback on the process, partnership in outreach and raising awareness, as well as drafting of the principles themselves,” says Bender.
Moving forward, a series of workshops will allow consultation participants to analyze the  ideas discussed in the ocean rights summits. The workshops will then feed into a working group that will finalize the resolution.

The push for ocean rights resonates with other Rights of Nature efforts, but its scale is particularly ambitious.
“It would apply to the ocean as a whole, including in areas beyond national jurisdiction,” says Bender.
That’s an important distinction, as international waters — those beyond individual countries’ control — are currently “almost completely ungoverned and unprotected,” as the International Institute for Environment and Development highlighted in March. The United Nations is working to address this, with member countries negotiating a legally binding treaty on the conservation and use of the high seas under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Photo: Susanna Pershern/Submerged Resources Center (via National Park Service, public domain)
But conventional safeguards for the ocean often exist in silos, piecemeal and poorly enforced. Provisions such as Marine Protected Areas only shield selected parts of the ocean, while frameworks currently under discussion like the UN’s proposed plastic treaty tackle individual issues affecting the marine environment.
Bender commends all these efforts as “great steps forward,” but contends that we also need a whole-ocean approach.
This is essential, she argues, because every impact in the ocean is interconnected: Pollution that originates on land enters the ocean and affects the entire planet. A declaration of ocean rights would provide an opportunity to encompass all ocean governance issues and align related frameworks under one overarching umbrella.
Ocean rights would be based on principles that reconnect humans “to the systems that sustain us,” she says. The application of these principles could help to put the brakes on activities like deep-sea mining, and potentially have ramifications for related issues like CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, the standards it upholds could be systems-based. For example, recognizing humans as predators could result in efforts to guide fisheries management.

As discussions continue, organizers aim to have a draft resolution ready to present to the United Nations in September 2023.
Bender says deliberations so far have addressed principles such as intergenerational equity, connectivity and reciprocal responsibility.
Another principle in discussion boils down to “when in doubt, favor the ocean.”
This is similar to the in dubio pro natura standard adopted in Panama and elsewhere, which translates to “when in doubt, err on the side of nature.”
Strid says the resolution would be the starting point for a process within the United Nations itself, assuming the international body agrees on the concept in the first place. Even if that happens, he says, getting “all states in the world to agree on a matter takes time.” They hope that can be accomplished by 2030.
Strid accepts that the timeline is “highly ambitious,” but history shows it’s not impossible. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights took around two years from initial introduction to adoption.
The endeavor has some wind in its sails already, with committed support from the nations of Cabo Verde, the Seychelles and Panama, along with the city of Genova.
In the panel discussion, former Seychelles’ president Danny Faure argued that the support of nations like theirs — known as Big Ocean or Small Island Developing States — is important if ocean rights are to be achieved.
Strid agrees. “Small island states are significantly impacted by the issues concerning the ocean,” he says. Their participation, he adds, can raise awareness of these devastating effects.
Public support will also prove essential. The Ocean Race has launched a campaign called One Blue Voice through which people around the world can sign on to a petition that organizers will present to the United Nations.

Strid stresses that “we are in the early stages of the work.” As the process of shaping the resolution develops, they will focus efforts on gathering formal support from relevant organizations and policymakers.
Despite the immensity of the challenge ahead, both Bender and Strid say they remain hopeful.
“The nature of our sport is to overcome the impossible,” Strid says.
Bender, meanwhile, finds optimism in the successes of the rights of nature movement and the fact that ocean rights have been featured for the first time this year at the Blue Climate Summit and other events. She sees all this as essential momentum that will eventually achieve planetary support for nature and the people who rely on it.
“Humankind is a part of nature, and we cannot realize human rights without a healthy environment to support them,” she says.
This story was produced as part of the 2022 UN Ocean Conference Fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch).

Could Property Law Help Achieve ‘Rights of Nature’ for Wild Animals?