Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Foreword and Preface
- Preface
- Summary of the first global integrated marine assessment
- The context of the assessment
- Assessment of Major Ecosystem Services from the Marine Environment (Other than Provisioning Services)
- Assessment of the Cross-cutting Issues: Food Security and Food Safety
- Assessment of Other Human Activities and the Marine Environment
- Assessment of Marine Biological Diversity and Habitats
- Chapter 33 Introduction
- Section A Overview of Marine Biological Diversity
- Chapter 36 Overview of Marine Biological Diversity
- Section B Marine Ecosystems, Species and Habitats Scientifically Identified as Threatened, Declining or Otherwise in need of Special Attention or Protection
- I Marine Species
- II Marine Ecosystems and Habitats
- Section C Environmental, economic and/or social aspects of the conservation of marine species and habitats and capacity-building needs
- Overall Assessment
- Annexes
Chapter 33 - Introduction
from Assessment of Marine Biological Diversity and Habitats
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2017
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Foreword and Preface
- Preface
- Summary of the first global integrated marine assessment
- The context of the assessment
- Assessment of Major Ecosystem Services from the Marine Environment (Other than Provisioning Services)
- Assessment of the Cross-cutting Issues: Food Security and Food Safety
- Assessment of Other Human Activities and the Marine Environment
- Assessment of Marine Biological Diversity and Habitats
- Chapter 33 Introduction
- Section A Overview of Marine Biological Diversity
- Chapter 36 Overview of Marine Biological Diversity
- Section B Marine Ecosystems, Species and Habitats Scientifically Identified as Threatened, Declining or Otherwise in need of Special Attention or Protection
- I Marine Species
- II Marine Ecosystems and Habitats
- Section C Environmental, economic and/or social aspects of the conservation of marine species and habitats and capacity-building needs
- Overall Assessment
- Annexes
Summary
The biodiversity of the world's oceans directly supports many of the services and industries reviewed in Parts III, IV, and V, and may be affected by how the various social and economic benefits are used. To ensure the ongoing availability of those benefits to current and future generations, and to maintain healthy oceans, it is essential that the uses made of the ocean are sustainable, both individually and in the aggregate. In Part VI we examine ocean biodiversity from several perspectives, and when trends are apparent, link those trends to their main drivers. From this multi-perspective investigation of biodiversity trends, we obtain the third part of the information to be integrated in this first Assessment. This information may contribute importantly to improving global ocean literacy worldwide, and informing policies and selection of management measures from local to global scales.
The Convention on Biological Diversity1 (CBD 1992) emphasizes that “biodiversity” exists on many scales: from genetic diversity within populations, through diversity of populations of the same species, the diversity of species in ecosystems, to the diversity of habitats within geographic areas. The diversity at all of these scales reveals patterns and structures that are crucial to the functioning of ecosystem processes and the delivery of ecosystem functions. However, in-depth analyses of patterns and trends, linking them to all drivers that underlie them and their ecological, social, and economic consequences are not feasible for the entire ocean, at even one of these scales.
Therefore Part VI presents overviews of these biodiversity features first spatially, and then followed by more focused examinations of key species groups and habitats. From these overviews, it is possible to present an analysis that integrates how global ocean biodiversity is changing as a result of the impacts of humanity's uses of the ocean, with the ability of the ocean to sustain itself, and humanity's uses of it into the future.
Chapters 34 and 35 present the main global patterns of diversity of populations, species, and habitats.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The First Global Integrated Marine AssessmentWorld Ocean Assessment I, pp. 495 - 498Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2017