Marine and coastal ecosystems are in decline worldwide. This decline is tied to four main factors.

Coastal Development: Burgeoning human populations along coasts and their requirements for housing, food and income create high demands and impacts on marine ecosystems. More than a third of the world's human population lives in coastal areas, and that number is growing (UNEP 1999).

Pollution: Even more distant human activities on land and in freshwaters have significant impacts on coasts and oceans. Watersheds link the land to the sea and the many harmful effects of poor land and river management decisions accumulate downstream in estuaries and oceans and in the worst cases create dead zones.

Overexploitation: It is now clear that the resources of the seas are not limitless. The most obvious direct exploitation is overfishing, but many other activities can impact our oceans from oil extraction to shipping waste, noise and accidental spills. Excessive tourism can also impact coasts.

Fractured Governance: The governance of the marine environment is usually divided among many different (sub)agencies and organizations, which have mandates to only manage for single sectors or objectives (e.g. water quality, fisheries, biodiviersity). This single sector management leads to conflicts and fractured governance as identified in the U.S. Ocean Commission report.