Have a look at the underside of the ocean.
In 2015 more of the planet was protected than ever before. Fully protected marine reserves have popped up left and right, with zones all over the globe being marked off limits from fishing, drilling, dumping and other issues that could harm the natural environment. And since June of 2014 alone it’s estimated that more than 1.5 million square miles of ocean have been granted that designation. And those numbers are rapidly growing, if the past year is any evidence.
But in spite of those global efforts and seemingly impressive numbers, it turns out only a grand total of 4 percent of the world’s oceans are fully protected from fishing, drilling and dumping according to the UBC Institute for Ocean and Fisheries. The goal, they say, among countries and institutes across the globe is to classify at least 20 percent of the ocean as Marine Protected Areas. And now only 0.5 percent of the ocean are considered “no-take” areas, which are zones where it is strictly enforced and prohibited to extract any resources at all, living or otherwise. In 2009 a study by UC Santa Barbara, Oregon State University and the National Marine Fisheries Service suggested that no-take reserves produce four times as many fish, with the fish themselves growing to be 25 percent larger than in unprotected areas. The benefits, they say, are that those fish travel and reproduce outside of no-take zones, creating healthier ecosystems even in neighboring areas where fishing is permitted.
