More and more of us inhabit this already very damaged planet. The resources that we previously had are slowly running out. The Earth simply cannot give more of itself. And this is something that we see every day: the global average temperature increases, the poles melt causing the rise in sea level, meteorological phenomena become more and more extreme,… among many other events that we are telling you on the blog.
In the tropics and at the poles they have two serious problems: one is global warming, and the other is overfishing.. Marine life in both regions is threatened.
A study carried out by researchers from Spain, Australia and New Zealand, which has been published in the journal Science Advances, confirms this. 2016 was the hottest in recorded history, and that heat was absorbed for the most part by the oceans. Given the situation, marine animals are having a hard time getting ahead.
For the first time an investigation takes into account, through satellite images, the increase in ocean temperature, changes in ocean currents and levels of marine productivity of the last three decades.
Thus, Researchers can determine which areas with the most marine biodiversity are among the most affected by global warming, which are the closest to the tropics and the poles, such as the east coast of the United States and Canada, the area of the equator, the North Sea or the southeast of Australia and New Zealand.
By contrasting the data of the study with the information on the fishing activity of the last 60 years they realized that the areas with the greatest marine biodiversity are also the most affected by overfishing. For this reason, the impacts of industrial fishing and the climate must be considered "simultaneously for the conservation" of these areas, according to Francisco Ramírez, a researcher at the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), who added that "It is not about ending the fishing activity but about implementing conservation policies».
You can read the study here (In English).