http://www.unep.org/newscentre/Default.aspx?DocumentID=2796&ArticleID=11003&l=en

Leading Experts and Policymakers Meet to Form Action Plan to Stop Rapid
Degradation of Worlds Seas and Oceans

ma, sep 29, 2014

Meeting a Search for Solutions to Escalating Crises of Plastic Debris in
Oceans and Catastrophic Destruction of Carbon Rich Mangroves, among others

Athens, Greece 29 September 2014 - Plastic debris in the ocean,
collapsing fish stocks, ocean acidification, and the destruction of
carbon rich mangroves, are just some of the topics that will be hotly
debated today at the 16th Global Meeting of the Regional Seas
Conventions and Action Plans, as policymakers and leading scientists
convene to form a new roadmap for the conservation and sustainable use
of the world's increasingly threatened oceans.

The three day meeting is being held at a time when concern is growing
worldwide over the threat that widespread plastic waste poses to marine
life, with conservative estimates of the overall financial damage of
plastics to marine ecosystems standing at US$13 billion each year,
according to UNEP research.

This concern is set to intensify when findings from a new report to be
published by UNEP today at the Regional Seas Meeting will set out in
detail the multi-billion dollar losses that are being incurred by
developing country economies as carbon-rich mangroves continue to be
lost at rates 3 - 5 times greater than average rates of forest loss.