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Cleaner seas: reducing marine pollution

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Abstract

In the age of the Anthropocene, the ocean has typically been viewed as a sink for pollution. Pollution is varied, ranging from human-made plastics and pharmaceutical compounds, to human-altered abiotic factors, such as sediment and nutrient runoff. As global population, wealth and resource consumption continue to grow, so too does the amount of potential pollution produced. This presents us with a grand challenge which requires interdisciplinary knowledge to solve. There is sufficient data on the human health, social, economic, and environmental risks of marine pollution, resulting in increased awareness and motivation to address this global challenge, however a significant lag exists when implementing strategies to address this issue. This review draws upon the expertise of 17 experts from the fields of social sciences, marine science, visual arts, and Traditional and First Nations Knowledge Holders to present two futures; the Business-As-Usual, based on current trends and observations of growing marine pollution, and a More Sustainable Future, which imagines what our ocean could look like if we implemented current knowledge and technologies. We identify priority actions that governments, industry and consumers can implement at pollution sources, vectors and sinks, over the next decade to reduce marine pollution and steer us towards the More Sustainable Future.

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Fig. 1

source of the pollutant (at the source), once the pollutant is released (along the way), once the pollutant has entered the ocean (at the sink) or at multiple points along the system (bottom arrow). * indicates actions that could be successfully implemented well before the next decade to significantly reduce pollution

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Acknowledgements

We thank Lola, Rex and Vanessa Greeno for sharing their knowledge of the impacts of pollution on their art and culture. Thank you to Animate Your Science, JB Creative Services and Annie Gatenby for assistance with the graphical aspects of this project. Thank you to Rupert the Boxer puppy for deciding authorship order. This paper is part of the ‘Future Seas’ initiative (www.FutureSeas2030.org), hosted by the Centre for Marine Socioecology at the University of Tasmania. This initiative delivers a series of journal articles addressing key challenges for the UN International Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030. The general concepts and methods applied in many of these papers were developed in large collaborative workshops involving more participants than listed as co-authors here, and we are grateful for their collective input. Funding for Future Seas was provided by the Centre for Marine Socioecology, IMAS, MENZIES and the College of Arts, Law and Education, the College of Science and Engineering at UTAS, and Snowchange from Finland. We acknowledge support from a Research Enhancement Program grant from the DVCR Office at UTAS. Thank you to Camilla Novaglio for providing an internal project review of an earlier draft, and to guest editor Rob Stephenson, editor-in-chief Jan Strugnell and two anonymous reviewers, for improving the manuscript. We acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners and custodians of sea country all around the world, and recognise their collective wisdom and knowledge of our ocean and coasts.

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P.S. Puskic and K. Willis share equal lead authorship on this paper. All authors wrote sections of this manuscript and contributed to concept design and paper discussions. N.F and H.P. wrote the narratives for Table 4. D.G. wrote Table 3. All authors provided edits and feedback to earlier drafts.

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Correspondence to Peter S. Puskic.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest. This work is original and has not been submitted for publication anywhere else.

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Willis, K.A., Serra-Gonçalves, C., Richardson, K. et al. Cleaner seas: reducing marine pollution. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 32, 145–160 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-021-09674-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-021-09674-8

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