Life first evolved from the sea eons ago and today it houses a greater variety of life forms than one can find on land. Surprisingly, you won’t discover this mega diversity in the deep ocean but instead living close to us on the very shores of our seas.

It is here, within the interface between land and sea that 60% of the world’s population live and play. A hungry world looks to this mass of water for sources of protein in fish and shellfish, and to its oil, gas and wind for energy. Scientists also work here investigating its genetic stock that has potential for various biotechnology and medicinal applications.

Chances are you live less than 60 miles from the ocean and you’re not alone. Globally, the number is rapidly increasing. Today, our shores are struggling from a multitude of man-made ills. Including receiving the industrial and domestic waste output of some 3 billion people.

Such threats to our coastal areas put us all at risk. The latest report on the health of our oceans is frightening and should remind us all that we can no longer afford the luxury of burying our head in the sand. The fact is, all the scientific data in the world is meaningless without public activism and support.   

Near shore terrestrial – dunes, cliffs,  rocky and sandy shores, coastal xenomorphic habitats, urban, industrial and agricultural landscapes
 

Littoral (Intertidal) – Estuaries, deltas, lagoons, mangrove forests, mudflats, salt marshes, salt pans, other coastal wetlands, ports and marinas, aquaculture beds. The communities that have adapted to live in the littoral zone are unique and of critical importance. Here, one finds a vast diversity of evolutionary adaptations with widely differing communities often within a few centimeters of one another. Such a high diversity is probably unparalleled elsewhere on the planet. Moreover, the littoral zone is a place of great value in many cultural and religious settings, as well as of great aesthetic significance. The availability of data describing patters of species richness is poor for most littoral habitats.
 

Marine benthic (Pelagic) – Open waters above the continental shelf, freestanding fish farms: e.g. plankton blooms, neutron zone, sea ice herring schools. The area between the lowest tides down to the edges of the continental shelf is one of the seas most productive zones. We have little historic and current knowledge of the status of benthic biodiversity.

Did you know?

Number of Boeing 747 airplanes that could fit on the ground in New York's Yankee Stadium..................2

Estimated value of Coral reefs per square foot just for their shore protection functions alone....$47,000

Number of pieces of live coral broken off from reefs (which are habitat to 1 million species) and purchased by Americans each year?.............................................................................................350,000

Number of pieces purchased by the rest of the world each year....................................................90,000

Percentages remaining of big game fish like tuna and cod in the world’s oceans................................10$

Number of fish caught by a single Norwegian boat in 1986.......................................................120 Million

Number of people living in Norway................................................................................................4 million

Or that.....A swallow of seawater may contain millions of bacterial cells, hundreds of thousands of phytoplankton and tens of thousands of zooplankton.