Coastal development


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CAMPAIGNS Pollution Whether it be oil, plastics, or noise the increased population of the human race is destroying the marine environment. Over Exploitation The massacre of many marine species is reducing, fish stocks, whale numbers, and invertebrate populations to a point where they cannot recover. Coastal Development Increasing the number of people living within close proximity to the sea, increases the population having a direct impact on its survival chances. Climate Change The climate is changing in a rapid and unpredictable manner. Although it has changed in the past, a rapid change now could effect the ecosystems at a rate that evolution cannot keep up. Habitat Destruction Humans demand more and more from the earth as our population increases. This requires us to steal areas from nature to fuel our greedy need for resources or land. DOWNLOADS Fact Sheets For all the species and habitat types used in our case studies it is the intention to make a factsheet that can be downloaded Petitions For all our online petitions we have others ready to be printed out for use at your own school, work place or event	COASTAL DEVELOPMENT With all the different main categories described here, coastal development has large overlaps with the other criteria; however these overlaps are very broad. At present approximately 75% of the world’s population lives in coastal areas, therefore it can be seen as the main contributor towards the destruction of the marine environment. It can start on a small, local scale with the formation of a community near the coastline, which will increase the harvesting from the sea for food and income. In time the community may develop along with its population leading to many forms of pollution; from chemical, to light, sound and even hormones! As communities become wealthier, sometimes from within the community itself, but unfortunately very often from large, powerful oversea investors, it may warrant the building of hotels to accommodate the large numbers of tourists, flown from around the globe, expected to deposit large sums of cash, whilst producing vast quantities of waste and other forms of pollution and destruction in doing so. It is not uncommon, for hotels to be built using resources that have been mined from ancient coral quarries in the oceans. In the most extreme cases, where the demand for plots of land by the sea is so great, the acquisition of new terrain by the destruction or modification of old is often warranted. Sometimes this has required the flattening of mountains, the formation of artificial beaches and even the sucking up of the sea floor to form it into new islands. What hope do fragile ecosystems have in response to this blatant disregard for organisms sharing the coastline we crave so much?