The Benefits Of The Ocean Economy

“The health of our nation’s economy is tied to the health of the oceans and Great Lakes. The economic benefits that flow from our coasts are immense”. This quote from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a scientific agency in the United States Department of Commerce that monitors the conditions of the oceans and atmosphere, perfectly explains why the ocean influences the economies all over the world. It affects the way people live their lives and the way we are connected to each other. So the way the ocean is treated affects people all over the world. When thousands of animals are trapped and killed by the 640,000 tons of debris left in the ocean each year, we are destroying valuable resources and negatively impacting supply and demand. The world needs to protect this wonderful gift. The ocean impacts the tourism and recreation, living resources, and marine transportation in an economy.

The fact that 50 percent of the U.S.

population lives within 50 miles of the coast shows, without a doubt, the economy is going to revolve around the ocean. During the hot summer days, countless Americans have had the same thought, “Let’s go to the beach!” So numerous amounts of people swarm to the beach to cool off. Even though tourism and recreation is a fraction of the regional economy, it is still the largest sector of the ocean economy. Meaning, the benefits that region receives are specific and go directly to that region. each region must depend on its own advertising and landscapes to produce enough money to sustain itself. The Ocean Health Index, creates scores on the capacity of oceans to produce resources, stated that there are massive amounts of money being poured into ocean tourism each year. They published an article that states the

following,
“Tourism is the largest and fastest growing industry in the world, with coastal and marine tourism being one of its most important sectors and a major component of thriving coastal communities. The Tourism & Recreation goal measures how successfully a region’s marine and coastal areas maintain their attractiveness as destinations for people to experience and enjoy priced activities, such as paid boat excursions, visits to coastal parks with entrance fees and ocean-view hotels, as well as unpriced activities such as free days at the beach and hikes on public trails” (Goals).
As can be observed, there are countless activities available to everyone near the ocean that benefit not only the economy of the coastal regions but also the people who visit.
There are massive amounts of resources, living and nonliving, just waiting to be harvested from the ocean.The benefits received from these living resources are irreplaceable. Living resources are crucial to the economic systems because they assist in sustaining much of the human life. Rob Quinn, of Newser, explains living resources in our economy,
“The oceans, with more than 90% of the habitable space on Earth, still contain most of the life on our planet, but there's a lot less of it than there was just 45 years ago, according to a deeply dispiriting report from the World Wildlife Fund. The group, which surveyed 10,000 populations of more than 3,000 species, says marine life—including mammals and birds as well as fish—has declined by 49% between 1970 and 2012, the BBC reports” (Sea). The declining numbers in living resources are results from inclining numbers of tourism and the recreation they enjoy. Rob goes on to explain how this impacts the economy,
“The WWF says humans have caused the decline in marine species through overfishing, destruction of habitats like seagrass beds and mangrove swamps, and through climate change, which has caused ocean acidification. Experts warn the latter could cause a "Great Dying" even worse than what has taken place over the last few decades” (Sea).
People need to find ways to help preserve the irreplaceable resources that we have. Federal regulations could help prevent overfishing and damage to habitats, They could save the species and resources for many generations to come see and enjoy.
With all this fantastic marine life, and the resources they provide, we also need transportation systems to import it into the countries that need them. There must be ways to transport the living resources to the ports for the tourists to buy and enjoy.The NOAA stated the following on marine transportation, “In 2012, over $430 billion in goods moved through California ports to or from international markets. Imports accounted for three-fourths of that total. The vast majority of this trade occurred with countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia” (Story). Overall, transportation has one of the largest impacts on the economy because it is the means of all other trades and recreation.
The ocean has a great impact on the economy of the world and how it is all connected. Every society has the opportunity to take care of the resources that the ocean provides; there are so many ways to savor the water and the resources it brings to the world. When most of the population lives within 50 miles of the ocean, there are endless possibilities to what can be done. Whether fishing or on a cruise, people impact the ocean and it impacts them.