Ocean Polluting: The Dirty Facts
In our ever-moving world of AI, market drops and fast cars, we often times forget the importance of the earth around us. Climate change is a growing concern for us all and one that can’t be ignored. The coral reefs are just too clogged with garbage and our lakes and streams are leading waste into our increasingly acidic ocean.
The media has been swamped recently with news from overseas of climate change activist, Greta Thunberg and her heralding address to the UN. She accused the assembly of ‘betraying’ a generation. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she exclaimed, choking through her speech. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line.”
New Zealand’s connection to the ocean flows back thousands of years, when the first explorers discovered the country in a waka hourua, truly unaware of its intense power. Māori culture says that demi-god Māui fished Aotearoa out of the sea. The ocean features so predominantly in Māori culture with tangata whenua keeping that tradition alive.
Marine biologists and ocean activists have been doing their bit to make sure that our ocean stays as clean as possible. In the past decade, big activist groups like Greenpeace, Ocean Conservancy, Sustainable Coastlines and Blue Frontier, amongst many more, have started making a massive impact with their campaigns to bring that number down.
“The ocean is under quite a bit of stress,” marine biologist and University of Auckland post-grad student, Emily Frost, tells us. “This is particularly in the coastal region. This includes run-off from agriculture as well as global change, such as ocean acidification and ocean warming. This can upset the balance of the ecosystem in the ocean as a lot of animals that we use, say in exports through aquaculture, are not able to deal with these types of stressors.”
Defined by Frost, ocean pollution is the presence of items or nutrients that would not be naturally present in the oceans in the absence of humans. It is causing a huge impact on further discoveries, the livelihood of underwater species and our general wellbeing as humans. According to a report by National Geographic reporter, Jenny Howard, the amount of plastic floating in the Atlantic Ocean has tripled since the 60’s.
By using home-grown initiatives, however, we can change, such as apolitical charitable trust, Sustainable Coastlines. They have created models and tools to really get behind communities cleaning up the ocean and teaching them how they can best keep this country clean.
Emissions and thousands of single-use plastics, like cigarette butts, plastic drinking bottles, grocery bags, lids, straws and foam take-away containers are all floating about in our seas. It’s putting species in jeopardy and causing contamination to marine colonies like coral reefs.
Coral Reefs
Coral reefs are the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Sprawling, living vessels of life. Expectations taken from data accumulated by Victoria University claim that, unfortunately, coral reefs may be a distant memory in a couple of decades due to global warming. As the ocean heats up from man-made emissions, coral reefs are affected by coral bleaching. Though coral bleaching does not always cause its death, it is very distressing for the lives of the coral and may cause the reefs to shrink or weaken.
“Societal shifts in our attitude need to continue and more pressure needs to be placed on governing bodies,” Frost says. “Nothing will happen from the top-down, we must push from the bottom up. Make it known that we need to do something and continue placing pressure on those in government that can make that change. We must never stop the pressure, or the hope that we can do something. Something as easy as reducing house-hold plastic through to doing the ‘three [bags] when visiting the sea’. I see that great organisations such as Sustainable Coastlines are active in this area and the government has started funding them. This gives me some hope.”
Data from a recent study published in the journal Science, estimate that over 11 billion plastic items get tangled in coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia, especially, is taking a hammering at the Great Barrier Reef, which brings approximately two million visitors a year to gaze at the tropical fish and beautiful coral vista. With certain plastics, there comes diseases as well. Sadly, half of the Great Barrier Reef has disappeared. If the ocean warms up just 1.5 degrees more, coral reefs may be a distant memory that we can’t afford losing.
“There is a myriad of impacts on the ocean and coastal ecosystem,” Frost continues. “Such as increased mortality, decreased reproduction, a change in the abundance of key stone species (such as kina, these are species which are key for the ecosystem) and ultimately an ecosystem-switch, where there is so much stressor that the ecosystem switches into a different state. These are all things that we can experience in New Zealand and we will if we are not careful.”
Lakes and Streams
In a Colmar Brunton poll conducted in 2018, 1,000 New Zealanders were surveyed and said that they were very concerned for New Zealand waters. “Kiwis are extremely worried,” Fish & Game chief executive, Martin Taylor, said in an interview with Colmar Brunton after the results came out. “They are losing their ability to swim, fish and gather food from their rivers, lakes and streams.”
Statistically, 44 percent of lakes around New Zealand are labelled as being ‘polluted’ and 62 percent of lowland rivers have become too dangerous to swim in, mostly due to farming waste. It comes with the territory unfortunately, with big parts of our country being cleared for habitation. Due to the excess spillage into our waterways, there’s been a change in the oxygenation of the water quality over the years. Ultimately, the fish need this to survive.
When asked to respond to this issue, Frost explained, “[There] can be a myriad of things, some as simple as increased mixing with underlying sediment being kicked up into the top portions of the river or lake, or things like increased run-off. There needs to be some concrete legislation around that and some pragmatic thinking from Dairy NZ, etc. The Firth of Thames is a key player in this argument, it is quite literally going down the toilet, at the expense of other key economic players, aquaculture.”
The Firth of Thames, located south of Auckland, is the connecting point of the rivers Waihou and Piako. An important environment for wader, shorebirds and fish, such as snapper and kahawai, man-made influences have unfortunately impacted it over the years. Severely damaged waters, running out from the rivers, had been affected by dairy-farm run-off. The dairy industry has increased rapidly over recent years. According to a report by Dairy NZ, the number of cows has risen rapidly to 4.99 million around the country whose waste leaches into the waterways and then into the wider ocean.
“I think the number one thing we can do is build reconstructed wetlands,” founder of Sustainable Coastlines, Sam Judd, told us. “This basically means planting trees in and next to waterways to re-establish natural filter systems. This cleans up humans and the environment at the same time. So if we develop the capacity of local communities to create jobs planting native trees next to waterways, we will be going a long way towards helping people and water. We also need to take a good hard look at the construction industry. Between building and demolition, this sector produces more than 50 percent of our waste. It also has a huge impact on water quality by letting sediment escape into our urban waterways.”
Extensive farming practice cause stream erosion where fish habitats, such as the Firth, silt up and wildlife migrate to new places that they’re not used to in order to maintain their lifecycle. Maybe they will swim upstream and join the ocean and harbours which are impacted by that silt and contaminants, harming shellfish, fish stock and seaweeds.
Ocean Acidification
“At the moment, [ocean acidification] is a silent nightmare which is creeping up on you,” Frost says. “It is not as well-known as its sister, ocean warming, but it is just as devastating.”
Taken back in October last year, Stats NZ announced that the ocean has increased 7.1 percent in acidification in its sub-Antarctic surface waters between 1998 to 2017. Ocean acidification is a decrease in pH levels due to the ocean being made up of mostly carbon. When that carbon dioxide is absorbed by seawater, a chemical reaction occurs that decreases the seawater pH. This is a problem that we can help to fix, but will most likely last for many, many more years. Ocean acidification and its subsequent warming isn’t just a Kiwi problem. It’s a worldwide issue that we all need to pay attention to before it’s too late. The oceans are heating up too. The Southern Ocean is heating up at a massive rate and has prompted falling fishing stock and increasingly intensive cyclones. Even on the West Coast of the US, oyster farms are producing stock that contain more and more pH.
New Zealand is not immune to ocean acidification. The ‘Munisa transect’ time-series in waters off Otago regularly read the pH of New Zealand waters. Bimonthly, NIWA’s, Dr. Kim Currie, gains water samples from the 65km Otago Harbour tip. It’s with this sample that Currie measures the pH, alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon. The results are quite startling, as shown in a report she co-wrote with other oceanographers and Setting Up a Coastal Ocean Acidification Observing Network in New Zealand. The results showed that the Otago area is a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide and the biological activity is the main driver of seasonal variability. There’s the long term pH decrease in subantarctic water that spreads out to wider water that needs to be fixed.
How do we fix our ocean?
“As a hopeful ocean lover,” Frost says, “change may bring us closer to an ocean without stress. We need to make significant changes now across NZ and in the international arena if we are to make head-way on the impacts we have on the ocean. Only then may we have a chance in having an ocean and ocean ecosystem that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren can enjoy.”
Just as Greta Thunberg did in her UN address, we need to hold those accountable for damaging our planet. Up and down the country, beaches are being closed or labelled ‘unswimmable’ due to farm effluent, rubbish and even human faeces. There’s change happening already, thankfully.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is pushing harder for a ban of single-use plastics that find themselves in our waters. This is an excellent opportunity for Kiwis to truly get behind this initiative. To help to save our oceans, we need to be mindful of our rubbish, think of alternative methods that big industries like Dairy NZ could help with cleaning and clearing our streams and lakes, and to cut back on our emissions that are adding acidity to our oceans. We all need to adapt and monitor our own social behaviour. By doing so, we can engage, monitor and further investigate the ocean for what it is, alongside some real political legislation.
Another way to save the ocean is by participating in local or private beach clean-ups. It’s estimated by Sustainable Coastlines that they’ve used up to 100,000 volunteers since their starting. They’ve also built The Flagship: Sustainable Coastlines Education Centre on Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter out of 85 percent salvaged materials with a focus on hands-on learning and environmental care.
Judd thinks that there is hope. “In addition to running activities that connect them to nature as local guardians (planting trees and cleaning the coast), we can build citizen science platforms that enable communities to learn more about what is happening in our waters, as school students develop real-world skills. Kids already want to be outside – they love learning outside the classroom! Linking the curriculum to data collection and positive action provides the incentive for their teachers to get them outside and it can also provide a way for them to use technology in nature.”
If you want to organise a clean-up, contact your latest Department of Conservation office to see if they too want to get involved and promote the event to the wider community. They can also help with landfill charges as you’ll need somewhere to dispose of the waste you find on the beach. Involving local schools can get kids feeling more passionate about caring for the environment and this can be helpful with saving future generations.
Judd is optimistic at the end of our conversation together, saying that “despite all the bad things I have described about our current state of affairs, I think that the future of our waters looks eminently positive. Graduate employees are beginning to demand better values from businesses and we are starting to see that being good to the planet is part of business’ being able to survive. We cannot just rely on one sector to take action on this. Everyone is going to have to work together and support the work of different sectors to come hither, step up and do something about these problems at scale.”