[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 93 (Thursday, June 8, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S8046]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                            OCEANS DAY 1995

 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, Oceans Day is celebrated annually to 
draw attention to the critical need to cross national and political 
boundaries to protect and preserve the oceans which are among our vital 
resources. This year it is celebrated today, June 8, 1995.
  Oceans, coastal waters, and estuaries cover over 70 percent of the 
Earth's surface and contain over 90 percent of the world's plants and 
animals. The world's oceans provide ceaseless beauty and recreational 
pleasure, but very importantly, they are an essential economic resource 
for transportation and tourism, a reservoir of biological diversity, 
and a vital source of food, raw materials, and even new medicines. Yet 
tragically, our oceans are in peril from pollution, over-use of coastal 
and marine resources and habitat destruction.
  As the president of the U.S. chapter of Global Legislators' 
Organization for a Balanced Environment [GLOBE], a coalition of 
international legislators dedicated to creating an international 
environmental agenda, I recently co-chaired a bipartisan conference in 
Washington, DC on the state of our oceans. The conference brought 
together leading ocean researchers, advocates, and government officials 
to examine pressing environmental challenges related to the health of 
our planet's oceans. This was the first effort in the 104th Congress to 
seriously examine an environmental issue of international significance 
in a nonpartisan, nonconfrontational setting, and I believe it was a 
great success.
  This year, on the fourth annual Oceans Day, a national conservation 
collaborative, including the New England Aquarium, is launching a 
campaign to preserve and restore the populations of large ocean fish 
such as tuna, sharks, and swordfish, and marlin. Over the past two 
decades, as demand has increased, the populations of these fish have 
plummeted due to overfishing, poor management, and the killing of 
immature fish and nontarget species. This is devastating news for the 
estimated one billion people, mostly in developing countries, who 
depend on fish as their sole protein source. Developing sustainable 
international fisheries as a shared goal of GLOBE and the conservation 
collaborative because the survival of our world's growing population 
may depend on success in that endeavor.
  I wholeheartedly agree with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 
scientist Robert Ballard's assessment that, today, the oceans are more 
important to our survival than ever before. I hope that Oceans Day can 
raise the Nation's awareness of our dependence on the health of our 
world's oceans, the current state of the oceans and the imperative to 
act rapidly and effectively to ensure their preservation.


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