Fate of oceans depends on sewage and waste control, experts and diplomats warn

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BRASILIA — The world's oceans are suffocating form a lack of oxygen caused by global warming and human pollution from sewage and industrial waste, and we are running out of time to fix the problem, experts and diplomats warned on Wednesday.

At a preparatory meeting in Brasilia for the United Nations Ocean Conference in June, they stressed that saving the oceans requires solving drinking water and sanitation needs on land to stop uncontrolled dumping in the sea.

"The life of one depends on the health of the other," said Catarina de Albuquerque, head of Sanitation and Water for All, a UN-hosted partnership dedicated to achieving availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation.

Rising water temperatures are accelerating the loss of oxygen that sustains marine life, she warned.

Besides global warning, increasing loads of nutrients from agriculture, sewage and industrial waste, including pollution from fossil fuel power generation, are speeding up the reduction of oxygen in coastal areas that become "dead zones" for fish.

Sewage and waste management are essential to save oceans from catastrophe, but governments still do not see the inter-relation with the fate of the oceans, said Albuquerque, former United Nations special rapporteur on water and sanitation.

"Coastal ecosystems have become reservoirs of wastewater and nutrients, creating vast dead zones. Plastic waste is choking the seas," Silvia Rucks, UN resident coordinator in Brazil, said at the meeting organized by Portugal's embassy.

The UN Ocean Conference will be held in Lisbon from June 27 to July 1, and will be co-hosted by Portugal and Kenya.