Chapter II 



PERSPECTIVE ON PRESERVING THE 

 MARINE ENVIRONMENT 



The earth is a water planet. The global ocean's 140 million square miles 

 of surface and 330 million cubic miles of water stretch over 70.8 percent of 

 the earth's surface and wash the shores of over 100 nations. The waters of 

 the ocean have a profound influence on man and his environment. They 

 play a major role in governing his climate. Their phytoplankton produce 

 over half of the earth's oxygen. They are a rich source of food, energy, and 

 minerals, a highway of commerce, a receptacle for wastes. The ocean's shores 

 are the site for urban centers and industry, a place of refuge from industrial 

 civilization for the commercial and sports fisherman, swimmer, boatsman, 

 and sunbather. 



Man is only one of the ocean's users, and the most recent. The ocean, 

 likely the original source of life, is populated by a pyramid of living crea- 

 tures whose abundance, variety, antiquity, peculiarity, beauty, and balance 

 are among nature's wonders. Life is found throughout the ocean's waters, 

 but most living creatures of the sea inhabit the coastal zone and the shallow 

 continental shelf areas. Here land and water meet and the nutrients mingle. 

 The estuaries, lagoons, wetlands, and beaches are primary sanctuaries for 

 water fowl, nurseries for coastal fisheries, habitats of a rich variety of plants 

 and animals. It is estimated that most of the total domestic U.S. commercial 

 fish catch is obtained from the Nation's coastal zone. 



Upsetting the Ocean's Ecological Balance 



The history of life in the ocean is one of interaction between the living 

 creatures and the oceanic environment — the water, the air, and the land. 

 To a large extent the shapes and habits of each living creature in the sea 

 have been molded by that environment. Each has adjusted to and has 

 been shaped by the ocean, and over the millions of years a series of deli- 

 cately adjusted, interlocking relationships have developed. The life of all 

 parts of the ocean is linked — the plankton to herring and mackerel, to tuna 

 and shark, to squid and whale. These links also extend to the land and man. 



Today, in many places, the ocean's ecological balance is endangered. 

 Man has acquired and employed the means, deliberate or accidental, to 

 alter the ocean environment, and measured in the time of evolutionary 

 change the living creatures in that environment do not have the time to 

 adjust. Contamination of the ocean has begun. Chemical wsistes from fac- 



17 



Pollution has forced the city of Cleveland to fence and 

 chlorinate a section of Lake Erie to provide city 

 residents with a place to swim. 



