Usage

Fishing, algae farming, wind energy, shipping, beach vacations – seas and oceans are used in many different ways. They serve as a source of food, transportation routes, suppliers of energy and raw materials, as places of recreation and inspiration. At the same time, in addition to its natural climate-regulating function, the sea is supposed to help us solve the climate crisis by injecting sequestered carbon dioxide into deep layers of rock or artificially increasing the sea’s natural carbon dioxide absorption.

For a long time, people lived with and from the sea without destroying it. But that changed with industrialization. Today, its strength and ability to regenerate itself are steadily declining. The ever-increasing use of the oceans’ diverse resources is accompanied by dramatic losses of marine habitats, ecosystems and biodiversity. In addition, the problems of the oceans resulting from overexploitation are being further accelerated by pollution and climate change.

In order to solve these problems, we need to change the way we think and act – towards a sustainable approach to coasts, seas and oceans that combines the protection and restoration of marine ecosystems with their sustainable use and is viable both for today’s society and for future generations. The DAM research mission sustainMare is investigating how this can be achieved.

Dive deeper?

Concentrated knowledge from marine research on the topic of “usage” is available in the DAM information portal Meere Online:

more about Ocean Use