slogan_ocean2016_enUNESCO says that World Oceans Day is a global day of ocean celebration and collaboration for a better future.  The central coordinating platform for World Oceans Day has resources and ideas for everyone – no matter where you live – to help expand the reach and impact of World Oceans Day all year-round.

The overall theme for World Oceans Day 2017 is Our Oceans, Our Future, and the conservation action focus is encouraging solutions to plastic pollution and preventing marine litter for a healthier ocean and a better future.  For considerable detail on the seriousness of marine litter, click here to read a recent paper on the subject.  Here’s the abstract:

The isolation of remote islands has, until recently, afforded protection from most human activities. However, society’s increasing desire for plastic products has resulted in plastic becoming ubiquitous in the marine environment, where it persists for decades. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the quantity and source of beach-washed plastic debris on one of the world’s remotest islands. The density of debris was the highest recorded anywhere in the world, suggesting that remote islands close to oceanic plastic accumulation zones act as important sinks for some of the waste accumulated in these areas. As global plastic production continues to increase exponentially, it will further impact the exceptional natural beauty and biodiversity for which remote islands have been recognized.

And here’s a comment (with maps) from Fusion TV.

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