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“when humanity exhausted nature’s budget for the year” and began “drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”. This year it was on 20 August, the earliest date yet.

“so misleading as to preclude their use in any serious science or policy context,” it says in a paper in PLoS Biology.

The footprint analysis does not really measure our overuse of the planet’s resources at all. If anything, it underestimates it.

Coral ecosystems are a source of food for millions; protect coastlines from storms and erosion; provide habitat, spawning and nursery grounds for economically important fish species; provide jobs and income to local economies from fishing, recreation, and tourism; are a source of new medicines, and are hotspots of marine biodiversity. They also are of great cultural importance in many regions around the world, particularly Polynesia.

They are also found along the coasts of over 100 other countries.

one recent estimate gave the total net benefit of the world's coral reef ecosystems to be $29.8 billion/year.

Humans began to mine the ocean floor for diamonds, gold, silver, metal ores like manganese nodules and gravel mines in the 1950's when the company Tidal Diamonds was established by Sam Collins.

Diamonds are found in greater number and quality in the ocean than on land, but are much harder to mine. When diamonds are mined, the ocean floor is dredged to bring it up to the boat and sift through the sediment for valuable gems. The process is difficult as sediment is not easy to bring up to the surface, but will probably become a huge industry once technology evolves to solve the logistical problem.

Metal compounds, gravels, sands and gas hydrates are also mined in the ocean. Mining of manganese nodules containing nickel, copper and cobalt began in the 1960's and soon after it was discovered that Papua New Guinea was one of the few places where nodules were located in shallow waters rather than deep waters. Although manganese nodules could be found in shallow waters in significant quantities, the expense of bringing the ore up to the surface proved to be expensive. Sands and gravels are often mined for in the United States and are used to protect beaches and reduce the effects of erosion.

Approximately 1,100 linear miles of coastal wetland were affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.In areas where roots survived the impact, little to no long-term impairment is expected

where the oil destroyed vegetation and root systems, sediment erosion c

nverted the marshland to open water.Since storm mitigation is directly related to the total area of wetlands, the change in area is the most practical measurement of change in ecosystem services.The service can be valued in monetary terms by estimating the cost of storm damage that would be incurred in the absence of the wetlands.