Poorly managed fishing

76% of the world's fisheries are already fully exploited or overfished. And each year billions of unwanted fish and other animals - like dolphins, marine turtles, seabirds, sharks, and corals - needlessly die from inefficient, illegal, and destructive fishing practices. Poor fisheries management is the largest threat to ocean life and habitats ... not to mention the livelihoods and food security of over a billion people.
Inadequate protection

They might cover over 70% of our planet’s surface, but only a tiny fraction of the oceans has been protected: just 0.6%. Even worse, the vast majority of the world’s few marine parks and reserves are protected in name only. Without more and better managed Marine Protected Areas, the future of the ocean’s rich biodiversity - and the local economies it supports - remains uncertain.

 

Tourism & coastal development

The beach is not just a favourite holiday destination, it’s our favourite place to live. Around the world, coastlines have been steadily turned into new housing and tourist developments, and many beaches all but disappear under flocks of holiday-makers each year. This intense human presence is taking its toll on marine life. Shipping

The oceans are huge highways, across which we ship all kinds of goods. Like other human activities, this heavy traffic is leaving its mark: oil spills, ship groundings, anchor damage, and the dumping of rubbish, ballast water, and oily waste are endangering marine habitats around the world.

Oil & gas

Important reserves of oil, gas, and minerals lie deep beneath the seafloor. However, prospecting and drilling for these poses a major threat to sensitive marine habitats and species.

Pollution

Untreated sewage, garbage, fertilizers, pesticides, industrial chemicals ... most of the pollutants on land eventually make their way into the ocean, either deliberately dumped there or entering from water run-off and the atmosphere. Not surprisingly, this pollution is harming the entire marine food chain - all the way up to humans.
Aquaculture

Fish farming is often touted as the answer to declining wild fish stocks. But more often than not, the farming of fish and shellfish is actually harming wild fish, through the pollution the farms discharge, escaped farmed fish, increased parasite loads, and the need to catch wild fish as feed.

Climate change

Coral bleaching, rising sea levels, changing species distributions - global warming and climate change are already having a marked affect on the oceans. Strategies are needed to deal with these phenomena, and to reduce other pressures on marine habitats already stressed by rising water temperatures and levels


4.  We have an increasing multiplicity of extinctions which
      have upset and continue to unbalance our ecosphere.
 

An extensive literature now exists on the toxification and destruction of ecosystems, and the continuing overexploitation of species and ecosystems which carry out irreplaceable ecospheric functions. The commodification of nature remains official government policy, while an extensive greenwash literature provides cover for reams of destructive federal and provincial legislation and policies in agriculture, fisheries, forestry and industry--particularly the chemical industry which manufactures millions of tons of toxics every year, for deliberate dispersal into the Ecosphere.

http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/MosqEcoFun5.html

5  We have dwindling supplies of clean water.

 IFPRI News Release: Report Finds World Water Supplies Dwindling ...

Report Finds World Water Supplies Dwindling While Demand Rises; ... problem worldwide, both causes and spreads disease and depletes available clean water. ...   www.ifpri.org/pressrel/030997.HTM   Ignorance is not bliss..