Tundi Agardy, Ph.D.
“Healthy, vibrant oceans are essential for human health and well-being.”
 |
The intact, pristine world ocean provides sustenance, healthful seafood and miraculous compounds; it gives us options for transportation and waste disposal; it acts to maintain planetary balances; and it nurtures our collective human spirit. While always having posed risks to individual seafarers and coastal inhabitants, societies have been able to understand and cope with ocean dangers while the earth was in balance and marine ecosystems were unspoiled. The dichotomy between the sea as a great provider and the sea as a place of danger – the oceans giveth and the oceans taketh away – has been embraced by philosophers and theologians for centuries1. Now, however, the degradation of the seas has reduced the ability of the oceans to nurture humans, and has acted to increase the risks that the oceans pose to individuals and to the public health2.
In this World Ocean Observer, we examine the links between ocean health and human health writ large, demonstrating the many ways oceans support human well-being. Our review looks at public health through a broad lens. We conclude that degraded oceans are a tragedy and a travesty, not only because marine life is threatened, but because by soiling our seas, we threaten our own lives and those of future generations as well.
1 Patton, K. C. 2007. The Sea Can Wash Away All Evils. Columbia University Press, NY
2 An academic textbook just released on this topic provides a broad overview of these issues; see Walsh, P., S. Smith, L. Fleming, H. Solo-Gabriele and W.H. Gerwick. 2008. Oceans and Human Health: Risks and Remedies from the Seas. Elsevier
