The Pollution and Exploitation of the Marine Environment

This report discusses the ethical problem related to pollution and exploitation of the marine environment. Loss of biodiversity is a major factor that needs to be addressed. The report also focuses on the use of the utilitarianism theory to address the ethical problem and concludes with the objective of sustainability.

Running head: THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE
ENVIRONMENT
The Pollution and Exploitation of the Marine Environment
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
Abstract
This report discusses about the ethical problem related to the pollution and the increasing level of
exploitation of the life within the marine environment. The loss of biodiversity within the marine
environment is a major factor that needs to be addressed within the marine life. The report also
focusses on the use of the utilitarianism theory, which would be helpful in addressing the
mentioned ethical problem. The topic concludes with the addressing of the problem with the
objective of sustainability.

2THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
Table of Contents
1. Introduction of the Ethical Problem............................................................................................2
2. Analyzing of the Ethical Problem................................................................................................2
3. Relevance of Marine Pollution with respect to Sustainability.....................................................5
4. References....................................................................................................................................7

3THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
1. Introduction of the Ethical Problem
Human existence has mainly relied on the marine environment for several needs such as
food, recreation, economic opportunities and various other purposes. Marine pollution occurs
when some form of harmful chemicals, residential waste or invasive organisms would enter into
the ocean, leading to pollution (Vernberg & Vernberg 2013). With the increase in the level of
population there are several activities that are placing a major impact on the marine environment.
The influences placed by humans have increased with the rapid growth of the population (Do Sul
& Costa 2014). The considerable amount of development in the field of technology and the
changes within the use of the land has also increased the level of pollution of the marine
environment. In addition, the air pollution is another contributing factor that may carry dirt or
pesticides into the ocean. The air and land pollution have hence proved to be harmful to the
marine life and their habitats.
2. Analysis of the Ethical Problem
The ethical problem that would arise due to the increase in the level of marine based
pollution is the loss of biodiversity. There are many species of animals and plants that are mainly
threatened with extinction. This would mainly occur due to the spread of deadly diseases, direct
exploitation and the destruction of the habitats (Wood, Stedman-Edwards & Mang 2013).
Although the possible threats to the biodiversity are not bound within terrestrial ecosystems,
there are many serious concerns that have raised about the future of the marine and coastal based
wildlife species. This has been resulted due to the over-exploitation, acidification of the seas and
oceans and increase in the level of population (Gerland et al. 2014). Therefore, it could be said
that the human based activities have a direct impact over the marine environment, which leads to
loss of biodiversity.

4THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
The Utilitarianism act is based on the belief that an action would be morally right when it
would be beneficial for a great number of people. This act is also based on the belief that the
moral based correctness of any kind of action would primarily depend on the correctness of the
several rules that would be highly essential to achieve the goodness for the society. The proper
framework for the Utilitarian approach could decide upon the fact that the ethical based action
could be able to provide the maximum benefit or the least amount of harm and thus would
maintain a balance between both of the consequences. The theory believes in the basic purpose
of morality in order to improve the betterment of the quality of life (Mulgan 2014).
With the provided theory of Utilitarianism, it is highly crucial to analyze the positive and
negative aspects of the above ethical problem for the purpose of consideration whether it could
be justified ethically. The Utilitarian approach could be applied to the theory of ethics within the
provided scenario that could also lead to the decline of the marine life. This would lead to the
effect on the human population. The approach and the implementation of the new laws in
relation with the marine pollution would allow for the construction of marine structures. This
would result in the low level of pollution and would eventually lead to a healthy human
population (Pearson 2016).
The marine life within the oceans could be considered as the major stakeholder in the
mentioned scenario. They suffer the most due to the high level of pollution within the oceans.
The different types of pollution occur due to the entry of several forms of toxic chemicals that
are allowed within the oceans. This results to the spread of different kinds of vital diseases. In
most of the cases, the cruise liners cause the majority of the negative effects that includes the
dumping of their sewage into the oceans. This shows a direct relationship between tourism and
action based on the related industries and environmental damage (Eriksen et al. 2014). However,

5THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
with the rise in the level of pollution, the countries and the cruise liners that are mainly being
affected by the pollution levels would lose their share of the revenue. This could be seen as a
consequence that would be able to adapt the Utilitarian Approach. There would also be some
negative consequences such as the destruction and other kinds of negative effects on the coral
reefs. Other negative consequences include the severe degradation of the water resources and the
excessive pollution of the sea floor (Kennish 2017).
Based on the Utilitarian Approach, there could also be some positive consequences of the
approach on the marine life. With the application of the ethical approach, there are some laws
that should be implemented. The new laws that would be implemented would establish for the
creation of marine structures. These structures would create such safe places where no such
human activities could affect the dump of sewage. The laws would also put some limitation on
the cruise liners to some designated places and limiting the industries of fishing (Elenwo and
Akankali 2015).
Based on the comparison of the positive and the negative consequences of the theory of
utilitarianism, it could be considered that the net utility would hence rise as the result of the
implementation of the Utilitarianism theory. This would be helpful in deciding the later course of
actions, which would be beneficial for reducing the pollution level within the marine life. Based
on the theory, it could be said that the proper approach of the Utilitarian theory would help in the
overall better quality of life within the marine environment. This would enhance the productivity
of the marine life and thus help in decreasing the level of pollution. However, there should also
be some measures that needs to be taken. Hence the use of the theory would be helpful for
several organizations in order to enhance the quality of life within the marine environment. This

6THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
theory would also help in deciding the good acts, which would be highly useful for deciding the
rightness or wrongness of a particular kind of action.
3. Relevance of Marine Pollution with respect to Sustainability
The marine environment provides a lot of opportunities and threats for the long term
sustainability of the environment. To achieve the objective of sustainability, the economic,
cultural, social and environmental dimensions need to be taken into account. Humans have been
extracting and polluting marine resources for the main purpose of food at a demanding rate in
recent years due to globalization of the marine industries.
According to a study conducted by Emanuelsson et al. 2014, it has been found that the
environmental dimension needs to be considered for the purpose of sustainability as the issues of
overexploitation and pollution will lead to decreased harvests of particular fishes. The
exploitation will disturb the normal food chain which will lead to unintentional capturing of non-
targeted fishes like endangered and protected animals. To maintain the balance of marine
ecology, every aquatic animal and plant have their role in it. Exploiting and polluting these
environments can disrupt the food chain. For example, in the Shetland Islands, the sand eels were
devoured by the seabirds. But in the late 1990s, the overexploitation of the sand eels led to the
disappearance of the seabird colonies from the Shetland Islands. The overexploitation can lead to
the breakage of a particular food chain which can have a domino effect on the rest of the marine
organisms.
The social dimension for sustainability of the marine environment is to consider the fact
that with the increased demand for seafood, the prices will rise subsequently. Due to the high
demand for the wealthy nations, a huge number of people will not be able to afford seafood and

7THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
the local communities will be outnumbered by the commercial fleets. This will lead to the loss of
income for the local communities (Pitcher and Cheung 2013). However, the heavy exploitation
of a particular spot in the marine environment will result in the total disappearance of the
biodiversity from that area. This will affect the fisheries and the local community in the long run
resulting in malnutrition and food scarcity.
The cultural dimension of the overexploitation of the marine environment is that it can
lead to conflicts between certain communities who are affected by it. There are several
communities around the world such as the Aborigines of Canada who rely on the marine
environment for their livelihood. Exploiting a particular fish species can affect them directly
which can lead to conflict between the communities. To address these, species size and limit and
fishing seasons have been imposed. Due to lack of food, these communities can migrate to other
areas which can affect their cultural wellbeing (Burgess, Polasky and Tilman 2013).
The economic dimension to this scenario is that with over exploitation of the marine
environment, the high demand will result in international tensions over the sharing of resources.
The high demand will result in high prices especially from the countries like Japan and
Bangladesh. Unsustainable exploitation of these resources can lead to the collapse of the local
food chain. The disappearance of a productive fish from an area will lead to the loss of income
for the people living in that area who are dependent on the marine environment for their
livelihoods (Kearney 2013). Businesses will close down and trade wars will start between
competitive nations.

8THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
4. References
Burgess, M.G., Polasky, S. and Tilman, D., 2013. Predicting overfishing and extinction threats in
multispecies fisheries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, p.201314472.
do Sul, J.A.I. and Costa, M.F., 2014. The present and future of microplastic pollution in the
marine environment. Environmental pollution, 185, pp.352-364.
Elenwo, E.I. and Akankali, J.A., 2015. The Effects of Marine Pollution on Nigerian Coastal
Resources. Journal of Sustainable Development Studies, 8(1).
Emanuelsson, A., Ziegler, F., Pihl, L., Sköld, M. and Sonesson, U., 2014. Accounting for
overfishing in life cycle assessment: new impact categories for biotic resource use. The
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 19(5), pp.1156-1168.
Eriksen, M., Lebreton, L.C., Carson, H.S., Thiel, M., Moore, C.J., Borerro, J.C., Galgani, F.,
Ryan, P.G. and Reisser, J., 2014. Plastic pollution in the world's oceans: more than 5 trillion
plastic pieces weighing over 250,000 tons afloat at sea. PloS one, 9(12), p.e111913.
Gerland, P., Raftery, A.E., Ševčíková, H., Li, N., Gu, D., Spoorenberg, T., Alkema, L., Fosdick,
B.K., Chunn, J., Lalic, N. and Bay, G., 2014. World population stabilization unlikely this
century. Science, 346(6206), pp.234-237.
Kearney, R., 2013. Australia’s out-dated concern over fishing threatens wise marine
conservation and ecologically sustainable seafood supply. Open Journal of Marine
Science, 3(02), p.55.
Kennish, M.J., 2017. Practical handbook of estuarine and marine pollution. CRC press.
Mulgan, Tim. Understanding utilitarianism. Routledge, 2014.

9THE POLLUTION AND EXPLOITATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
Pearson, Richard G. "Reasons to conserve nature." Trends in ecology & evolution 31, no. 5
(2016): 366-371.
Pitcher, T.J. and Cheung, W.W., 2013. Fisheries: hope or despair?. Marine pollution
bulletin, 74(2), pp.506-516.
Vernberg, F.J. and Vernberg, W.B. eds., 2013. Pollution and physiology of marine organisms.
Elsevier.
Wood, A., Stedman-Edwards, P. and Mang, J., 2013. The root causes of biodiversity loss.
Routledge.