Sustainable Development Goals UNDP SDG Booklet, 7x5inches for DG_final | Page 48

GOAL 14: life below water
Conserve and sustainably use the
oceans, seas and marine resources
for sustainable development
Fishermen coming back to the shore, Dumaguete, Philippines (Credit: Lyka Cabatay / UNDP Philippines)
The oceans make human life possible. Their temperature, their chem-
istry, their currents, their life forms. For one thing, more than 3 billion
people depend on marine and coastal diversity for their livelihoods.
But today we are seeing nearly a third of the world’s fish stocks over-
exploited. That’s not a sustainable way of life. Even people who live
nowhere near the ocean can’t live without it. Oceans absorb about 30
percent of the carbon dioxide that humans produce; but we’re produc-
ing more carbon dioxide than ever before and that makes the oceans
more acidic—26% more, since the start of the industrial revolution.
Our trash doesn’t help either—13,000 pieces of plastic litter on every
square kilometer of ocean. Sounds bad, right? Don’t despair! The Sus-
tainable Development Goals indicate targets for managing and pro-
tecting life below water.
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