Global Oceans/Ravaged and Under Assault

I again refer to a Spiegel Online/International article - provided by Tom Simeone - that details results from a classified German Report on the current condition of our Global Oceans.

Relevant to this first article is another Spiegel reference from August 2008: Our Ravaged Seas by Thomas Schulz. It begins with this opening statement: "The oceans are a primary source of food for mankind, and fishing provides 200 million people with income, as meager as it may be. But growing demand and the industrial-scale exploitation of the seas are destroying global fish populations. The European Union's quota system is partly to blame."

Rather than summarize each article, I will first suggest that you read Ravaged Seas/Globalization Is Destroying the World's Oceans, a three part assessment of the impact of globalization. Part 1: Globalization Is Destroying the World's Oceans; Part 2: 'Everything Was Gone'; Part 3: Pirate Fishermen and Big Multinationals.

Then, continue to the article Global Ocean Protection Measures Have Failed (02/2010) by Axel Bojanowski. It begins with "thousands of tons of trash are thrown into the sea each year, endangering humans and wildlife. A classified German government report obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE indicates that efforts by the United Nations and the European Union to clean up our oceans have failed entirely."

This is not simply an EU cause or phenomenon. The accompanying content and photos to both articles are revealing and a great cause for global concern.