Help to save world's seas

[caption id="attachment_34616" align="alignright" width="300"] SHARK SOS: Children take part in yesterday's World Oceans Day celebrations. Picture: FREDLIN ADRIAAN[/caption]

NOW is the time to start protecting the ocean to prevent foreign vessels from leaving behind foreign organisms.

So said Port Elizabeth marine biologist Dr Shirley Parker-Nance, one of the organisers of the World Oceans Day celebrations at the Shark Rock Pier in Port Elizabeth yesterday.

Parker-Nance, of the ProDive Watersport, Conservation and Marine Education Centre, said people needed to know the ocean was not a dumping site.

"The ocean is important. It is not just a bin where you can discard things. It needs to be protected from foreign organisms," she said.

"Like the red tide: it is a foreign organism that was brought in by a ship. It had never occurred here before, and now we will always have it and it will never disappear again because it has taken a foothold." - Thulani Gqirana