User:Haydenwa17/Sustainable Development Goal 14

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Marine pollution from plastics[edit]

This section is an excerpt from Marine plastic pollution § Scope of the problem.[edit] Marine pollution caused by plastic substances is recognized as an issue of the highest magnitude, from a pollution perspective. Oceans are Earth's deepest and most extensive basins with average depths of the abyssal plains being about 4 km beneath sea level. Gravity will naturally move and transfer materials from land to the ocean, with the ocean becoming the end-repository. One estimate of the historic production of plastic gives a figure of 8300 million metric tonnes (Mt) for global plastic production up to 2015, of which 79% have been accumulated in landfills or the natural environment. Some 8 million tons of plastic waste enters the oceans every year.Oceanic plastic pollution is remarkable for the sheer ubiquity of its presence, from ocean trenches, within deep sea sediment, on the ocean floor and ocean ridges to the ocean surface and coastal margins of oceans. Even remote island atolls can have beaches loaded with plastic from a faraway source. At the ocean surface, plastic debris is concentrated within circular structures of large areal extent, called ocean gyres. Ocean gyres form within all oceans, due to the interaction of global-scale ocean currents. Ocean currents concentrate plastic waste within the gyres.

Plastics have been increasingly manufactured because of their flexible, molding and durable qualities, which provides plastic with a myriad of useful applications. Plastics are remarkably resistant to natural weathering processes that break down many other materials at the Earth's surface. Ocean processes, including storms, wave action, ocean currents, hydration, and surface exposure to the atmospheric weathering processes (e.g. oxidation) and ultraviolet radiation, tend to break plastic particles into ever-decreasing sizes (resulting in microplastics), rather than organically digest or chemically alter plastic substances. Estimates of the total number and weight of plastic across five ocean gyre plastic concentration zones are of the order of 5.25 trillion particles weighing almost 300,000 tons. The reduction in size of plastic particles to the millimeter and micro-scales allow plastic to settle within deep sea sediments, with perhaps four times as much plastic ending up within sediments compared to surface ocean waters. Plastics are now a part of complex biogeochemical cycles with living organisms, such as cetaceans, seabirds, mammals, and bacteria, ingesting plastic.

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Target 14.b: Support small scale fishers[edit]

The full title of Target 14.b is: "Provide access for small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets".

small scale fishing operation in the Philippines

This target has one indicator: Indicator 14.b.1. is the "progress by countries in the degree of application of a legal/regulatory/policy/institutional framework which recognizes and protects access rights for small-scale fisheries".

No data is available for this indicator yet.

Small-scale fisheries contribute to the nutrition, food security, sustainable livelihoods and poverty alleviation – especially in developing countries, according to the FAO. Its mission is to also to recognize the small-scale fisheries sector dependents should be empowered to participate in decision-making with dignity and respect through integrated management of the social, economic and ecological systems.

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