The degradation of the ocean accelerates, alerts the new « Starfish » barometer – Liberation

The big blue in great danger. A new world ocean health bulletin published for the first time this Sunday, On the eve of the UN conference on the ocean, draw up an observation « alarming » of an environment « Who deteriorates more and more quickly ».

According to this report entitled « Starfish », the sea is increasingly hot, its level rises, the species decline and the great ecosystems are threatened. So many signs that show « Let the situation deteriorate and that the pace of degradation accelerates », Deplore Marina Lévy, CNRS researcher, who co -edited the 2025 edition of this indicator. All the lights are therefore red.

Intended for the general public, this seasick -shaped barometer – As its name suggests – will be presented this Sunday to the heads of state and government present in Nice for UNOC 3. Consisting of five branches, the indicator produced by a multidisciplinary team of researchers documents by a series of figures the state of the ocean, human pressures, the invoice of ocean change, protection efforts and opportunities for humanity. These are « Show 360 ° the different facets of the ocean », underlines Marina Lévy.

We learn in particular that 1,677 marine species may disappear, including a third of sharks and more than a quarter of cetaceans, that the health costs due to plastic exposure via seafood exceeded 219 billion euros in 2015 and that 37.7 % of fish stocks are overexploited.

« The coverage of reefs (coraliens) has almost halved in 150 years », alerts the report later, which also points to human activities, which, by rejecting in the atmosphere of greenhouse gas emissions, aggravate « Loss of oxygen, acidification and threatens marine life». And thus lead « A historic record»From the rise of the oceans.

« It is a 2025 barometer that says: be careful, we are really on a pressure trajectory that increases, the ocean is changing quickly », Summarizes Pierre Bahurel, Managing Director of Mercator Ocean International who co -edited the project. « It has no trouble listing all the pressures that are exercised, it’s quite frightening », he adds.

This indicator, which was supervised by the International Scientific Committee of One Ocean Science Congress this week in Nice, will be from this year updated every June 8 for World Ocean Day. He « Will allow to measure in a quantitative way » If the measures taken during oneoc « Produce positive effects on the ocean », concludes Marina Lévy.