2. Safeguarding Marine Life

Summary

Our paper is focused on improving conservation of marine ecosystems. Main goals include more holistic management - integrating across sectors and scales. We fundamentally depend on marine biodiversity and ecosystem structure and function. Critical marine ecosystem services include maintenance of global nutrient, oxygen, and carbon cycles, production of vital resources such as fisheries and energy, and the sustenance of cultural and mental wellbeing. However, whilst global biodiversity and ecosystems remain under increasing pressure from our rapidly changing climate and expanding human populations and their demands on marine ecosystems availability of these vital services are set to decline. The fundamental challenge is therefore to safeguard ecosystem biodiversity, function, and adaptive capacity into the future against increasing competing demands and stressors on marine resources.