Can Whale Poop fight Climate Change?
Tamika Gokhool
With COP 26 taking place in early November, world leaders made ambitious goals in hopes to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. This would mean significantly reducing their methane emissions. Prime minister Justin Trudeau strengthened Canada's commitment by enhancing their target of reducing emissions by 40% to 45% from 2005 levels by 2030. Not only that, Canada has committed to achieve net zero by 2050. Meeting these ambitious targets is going to require a lot of change both systematically and behaviourally. However, there’s someone else that could help reach these goals- mother nature and more specifically whale poop!
I’ve probably lost you at whale poop so let me explain! Whale poop is a great fertilizer for marine organisms. They leave a trail of iron- and nitrogen-rich faeces behind them as they rise through the water to breathe and move around the globe. This results in excellent growth conditions for many organisms and more specifically phytoplankton! So why does any of this matter?-Phytoplankton are crucial to life on Earth, producing around half of the oxygen in the atmosphere and collecting almost 40% of all CO2 created. This process of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere is referred to as biological carbon sequestration and it’s happening all around us in the form of photosynthesizing organisms. On average, each great whale absorbs 33 tonnes of CO2. Meanwhile, a tree can only absorb up to 48 pounds of CO2 every year.
Our marine life plays a significant role in helping us fight climate change, however our negligence in waste management is hindering them from doing so. Whale species are increasingly becoming endangered, especially the great whale. There are a number of reasons why they’re becoming endangered such as human noise, injuries from ships, but the number one cause of death for a large whale is entanglement by fishing gear. According to NOAA, over 85 percent of great whales have been entangled in fishing gear at least once. Fishing gear can cause major injuries on a whale that can lead to their deaths. Even if the nets are removed from the whales, the injuries will weaken the whales and hinder them from reproducing. The current whale population is around 1.3 million, according to WWF restoring the population to roughly 5 million could significantly increase the amount of phytoplankton in our oceans and the amount of carbon we capture per year.
According to a report by WWF, there are between 500,000 and 1 million tonnes of fishing gear nets left in the oceans every year. Nets, lines and ropes from fishing and shipping make up 46% of the 45,000-129,000 tonnes of plastic floating in the North Pacific Gyre. The report also states that the number of species affected from either entanglement or the ingestion of ghost fishing gear has doubled from 267 to 557 species since 1997. This includes 66% of marine mammals, 50% of seabirds and all 7 species of marine turtles.
All this to say, protecting our marine life is an important step to take to help us reduce emissions in the atmosphere and fight climate change. With ghost fishing gear being the biggest threat to our marine wildlife, we need solutions to protect our oceans! This is what we’re here for, at Nets for Net Zero, our mission is to protect our marine wildlife and ocean biodiversity by removing ghost fishing gear from our ocean. We are helping to protect and conserve the vast array of species and many living organisms found in our oceans. We’re excited to be tackling this issue by facilitating a circular economy for ghost fishing gear through our research, innovation, education and the creation of a circular materials network. It’s time to join forces