CURIOUSITY
You are curious about what is around you. If you want to learn more about marine life secrets. When you are swimming in your favorite beach during your vacations, do you have any ideas of what kind of fish is around you and why are they behaving this way? Do you want to know more?
ADVENTURE
You love adventure and get excited to discover secrets. Do you want to explore with me your favourite places and discover which species are living there?
ECOLOGY
You love nature and you want to protect and preserve it. You want to learn more to be able to decide which actions you need to implement in your life, to start making a difference at your own scale.
Why should we care?
The marine environment is an essential component of the global life-support system.
Covering 71% of the Earth’s surface, our oceans hold some of the highest biodiversity on the planet. It provides a source of food and habitat for more than 80% of Earth’s inhabitants. Just alone, our oceans provide us humans with food, oxygen and jobs. The oceans cultivate and house an abundance of life which make up intricate and vital ecosystems. It is both sad and ironic that our oceans, the most important of environments here on Earth, is the least understood and the most undervalued.
Did you know that our oceans…
Provide us with more than 50 million jobs
Supply a staple food source for more than 60% of the world’s population
Host more than 80% of the planet’s diversity
Contribute to over 80% of the oxygen we breath
An ecosystem is a system of living organisms which interact with one another and their surrounding environment.
This includes all of the plants, animals and other living things that make up the communities of life in an area. An ecosystem also includes non-living materials—for example, water, rocks, soil, and sand.
A balance in the various ecosystems around the world is what is vital for a sustainable and healthy planet.
Marine ecosystems provide us lots of goods and services like food provision, nutrient cycling, gas and climate regulation, … Looking at ecosystems in terms of the goods and services they provide, allows us to realize their full value and our dependency on those systems in the broadest sense.
In order to protect life in and around the sea and to exploit the sea sustainably, we need to understand how the marine ecosystem is functioning.
Marine biodiversity includes coastal and marine plant and animal species, their genetic variety, the habitats and ecosystems they form part of, and the ecological processes that support all of these.
The marine environment includes a far greater diversity of animal groups than the terrestrial environment, which is not surprising since living organisms first appeared in the seas several hundred millions years before life on land evolved. Whether in the sea or on land, most plant and animal species are grouped into assemblages or communities characteristic of recognisable habitats.
What kind of amazing creatures you could see underwater or on the beach?
When you go diving, walking on the beach or swimming during your vacations and you see some fish or other animals you have no idea what species they are or why they have some weird behavior. Maybe you spend time watching them because you find them beautiful and full of mysteries. You might want to know more about them: knowing their name, how they live, what do they eat?
“No water, no life. No blue, no green” – Sylvia Earle
Where do those amazing creatures living? In what kind of habitats?
The coastal-marine environment has several different habitats with a set of specific physical factors: ocean tides, wave action, sea temperature, ocean currents, levels of light, wind, type of topography, climate.
For example, the eastern African coast includes mangrove, seagrass and coral reef habitats. Each of these requires specific environmental conditions for its development. In the case of the mangrove habitat, shelter from wave action and soft mud or sand are the basic conditions that allow the community to flourish. The combination of habitats forms the marine ecosystem. This ecosystem, the various habitats, communities and species they comprise, constitute the marine biodiversity of the eastern African region.
