Critical Review of Duarte et al. Rebuilding Marine Life

Critical Review of Duarte et al. Rebuilding Marine Life
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Critical Review of Duarte et al. Rebuilding Marine Life
Summary of the Paper
The Rebuilding the Marine Life by Duarte et al. (2020) explains how marine life has been threatened to the degree of extinction, the measures taken to control it in the past, and the other measures that can be employed to attain outstanding results. The article highlights that most species, habitats, and ecosystems have experienced a series of catastrophic declines due to the human activities that have been happening. In addition, climate change has also been causing a reduction in ocean productivity and biodiversity (Wassmann et al., 2011). For example, there have been instances where individuals have engaged in overfishing. Moreover, there have been other scenarios where they have polluted the coastal ocean, where the marine life suffers from eutrophication and oxygen depletion. Furthermore, using fertilizers has negatively affected marine life since the fertilizers harm marine life. These practices have, therefore, harmed marine life.
Since marine life has been negatively affected by a huge margin, it has caused some international bodies such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 and United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 to look for measures to protect marine life. For example, there have been different initiatives looking to minimize the hunting of endangered species while protecting the habitat in which they breed (Duarteet al., 2020). Furthermore, there is management of fisheries that restrict individuals from fishing in the closed areas to increase the number of fish (Costello et al., 2016). The other measure employed is improving water quality by reducing nutrients and sewage while minimizing eutrophication and hypoxia. Other instances have negatively affected habitat protection and restoration to restore oyster reefs, salt marsh, seagrass, and mangrove habitats.
There have been measures to remove the removal of stressors after successfully restoring the habitat. This is why there have been measures to control the negative climate impact (Duarteet al., 2020). Some measures have shifted the communities and habitats to a friendlier area, such as shifting it from subtropical-tropical to temperate-arctic and intertidal boundaries (Gattuso, 2015). The individuals can also employ measures such as conserving and restoring vegetated coastal habitats to defend the existing shorelines from experiencing the risks of sea-level rise while controlling climate change.
The article acknowledges that some roadblocks have also prevented these measures from succeeding. For example, there have been instances where the increase in population would likely increase the demand for seafood, causing a further risk to marine life (Duarteet al., 2020). Furthermore, a lack of alternative employment would cause the individuals to continue to fish despite the measures being employed since they do not have another source of income. Moreover, unregulated and unreported fishing is acting as an obstacle to the measures to protect fishing. Moreover, there is a problem of recovering intertidal habitats such as salt marshes and mangroves due to the hardship of transforming them into urban areas, infrastructure, or urban areas (Worthington & Spalding, 2018). The article, therefore, acknowledges that for the rebuilding of marine life to be successful, there should be a global partnership between the various parties, such as governments, resource users, businesses, and civil society. There should be leadership that will offer socioeconomic and scientific knowledge and offer the required technology for this rebuilding.
Significance of Work
Even though there were many findings, one of the most important findings is that human activities have been one of the leading causes of the risk to marine life. This finding is proven by various research over the years. For example, Doney (2010) has explained that more than a third of the fish stock has been overstocked, causing a risk to marine life. Moreover, the individuals are the ones who engage in marine pollution, which has threatened the extinction of the ocean species. For example, Breitburg et al. (2018) highlight that this pollution is likely to cause oxygen depletion, which could likely cause the depletion of most marine life.
The other important finding is that marine life's recovery period w...