"If compared to the world's top 10 economies, the ocean would rank seventh with an annual value of goods and services of 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars," says a new report released by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an international environmental organization.
The report, produced in association with The Global Change Institute and The Boston Consulting Group, analyses the ocean's role as an economic powerhouse and outlines the threats that put it in decline.
"This report clearly spells out what we all stand to lose if the mismanagement of ocean assets continues," said Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International.
Generating hundreds of millions of jobs in tourism, fishing, energy, shipping, biotechnology and many other sectors, the ocean is valued at more than 24 trillion U.S. dollars, according to the report.
"However, its actual value is likely to be much higher because many key ecosystem services are difficult to quantify," the report suggests.
The intangible values include "ecosystem services such as water filtration by mangroves, seagrass and wetlands, and the value generated by ecosystems in terms of human culture and lifestyle".
Though the ocean rivals the wealth of the world's richest countries, it is being allowed to sink to the depths of a failed economy, said Lambertini.
According to the marine Living Planet Index, an indicator of the state of global biological diversity, a 39 percent decline of marine species was seen between 1970 and 2010. Fifty percent of the world's corals have disappeared, and almost one-third of all seagrasses have been lost.
The report then attributes the decline to habitat destruction, pollution, overfishing and rapid ocean warming and acidifying.
"Yet, 70 percent of the annual value of ocean activity is dependent on the health of the ocean," the report analyses.
"As responsible shareholders, we cannot seriously expect to keep recklessly extracting the ocean's valuable assets without investing in its future," said Lambertini.
Despite all the doom and gloom, it's not too late to "hit the reset button", the report calls for 8 actions to secure ocean assets, including "ensuring ocean recovery features strongly in the UN Post-2015 Agenda".
"We must do more, much more, to protect our ocean asset base. A prudent treasurer or CEO would not wait until the next financial report to correct course. They would act now," the report appealed.
