Ocean Health Index Provides First-Ever Global Benchmark of 171 Coastal Regions

Conservation Intl., The National Geographic Society, the New England Aquarium and the Pacific Life Foundation recently unveiled the Ocean Health Index—the first comprehensive measure of ocean health for 171 coastal regions worldwide.

The new index is a quantitative measure of ocean health that considers human beings as part of the ocean's ecosystem. It assesses ocean health in terms of the benefits from the ocean, organized as 10 goals that are enjoyed by people in a sustainable way.

Findings from the Ocean Health Index, published August 16 in the journal Nature, revealed a global score of 60 out of 100. Scores farther from 100 mean that we are either not maximizing the benefits from the oceans or we are not accessing those benefits in a sustainable way.

Global and U.S. scores for each of the goals:

The Index provides an important tool to policy-makers for making decisions in the future. Resource management decisions can be examined across the suite of goals allowing policy-makers to assess trade-offs.

The Index is a framework that can be used at scales from global to very local—wherever quality data exists.

Steve Katona, managing director of the Ocean Health Index, said, "The Ocean Health Index website is unique because it is a portal to the Index; it's a direct route to the methodology, goal scores and the components within those scores for every country with a shoreline."

Scientists from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, the University of British Columbia's Sea Around Us, Conservation Intl., the National Geographic Society and the New England Aquarium collaborated with ocean experts from universities, non-profit organizations and government agencies to develop this approach and digital platform. It has been designed to raise awareness of ocean issues, guide policy priorities and facilitate a more inclusive and proactive approach to managing the oceans.

By re-envisioning ocean health as a portfolio of benefits, the Ocean Health Index highlights the many different ways in which a coastal area can be healthy. Just like a diversified stock portfolio can perform equally well in a variety of market conditions, many different combinations of goals can lead to a high Index score. Consistent with this idea, the Ocean Health Index highlights the many options that exist for strategic actions to improve ocean health.

William Wrigley, Jr., former chairman and CEO of the William Wrigley Jr. Company and board member of Conservation Intl., co-chair of Marine Strategy and co-founder of the Ocean Health Index, said, "It is our intention to see that [the Index] is used to influence people who have the ability to alter policy for the oceans to make the right choices for our future before it is too late. We know what to do to save the oceans; we just need to convince people to change their behaviors. We can indeed co-exist in a way that benefits both humans and the oceans at the same time."

More than 40% of the world's population lives along the coast and as the world's population grows from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050, people are growing more and more dependent on the ocean for their food, livelihoods, recreation and sustenance. However, approximately 84% of monitored marine stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited or even depleted. The capacity of the world's fishing fleets is estimated to be 2.5 times sustainable fishing levels.

"The global score of 60 is a strong message that we are not managing our use of the oceans in an optimal way," said Bud Ris, president and CEO of the New England Aquarium and co-author of the paper in Nature. "There is a lot of opportunity for improvement, and we hope the Index will make that point abundantly clear."

"The Ocean Health Index is like a thermometer of ocean health, which will allow us to determine how the patient is doing," said National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Enric Sala. "The Index will be a measure of whether our policies are working or whether we need new solutions."

The lead scientific partners of the Ocean Health Index are the University of Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Synthesis and Analysis in collaboration with the University of British Columbia's Sea Around Us. The founding partners are Conservation Intl., New England Aquarium and National Geographic Society. The Founding Presenting Sponsor is the Pacific Life Foundation. Darden Restaurants Foundation was a founding donor. The founding grant was given by Beau and Heather Wrigley.

Dr. Ben Halpern, lead author and scientist on the Ocean Health Index, said, "We recognize the Index is a bit audacious. With policy-makers and managers needing tools to actually measure ocean health—and with no time to waste—we felt it was audacious by necessity."