COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CN) — A new report from the country’s second-largest university says seafloor animals and plants are being devastated by oxygen depletion, leaving environmental groups, researchers and politicians alike worried about the health of Denmark's waters.
Minister for the Environment Magnus Heunicke is under pressure as the report concludes that conditions have worsened in the past few years. The report portrays a critical situation for marine life.
Oxygen depletion happens when water has an overload of nutrients, and it worsens with a combination of weak wind force and high temperatures.
Now is the time for action, said Jens Würgler Hansen, senior advisor at Aarhus University’s Institute for Ecoscience and Marine Ecology. As one of the authors of the report, he called the situation a catastrophe.
“We are talking damage in massive areas underwater," Würgler said. "Imagine you drive through a landscape where the trees look half withered, everything is bare and naked, and the animals are either dead or have escaped the area. That is how it looks in the oceans.”
Würgler said that food chains and the marine ecosystem are being destroyed.
“Nitrogen makes the microplants, such as algae, in the sea grow excessively," he said. "That would not be an issue if there was enough oxygen flow to the seafloor, as seafloor animals together with bacteria then could feed on the dead plant material without risk of developing oxygen depletion. But when there is too much plant material and not enough oxygen supply due to wind or currents, we have an issue."
Würgler noted that the lack of oxygen leads to a vicious cycle: “In large areas there is not enough oxygen for the animals, and they leave or die. In turn, the plant leftovers turn into mud on the seabed, which gradually becomes uninhabitable.”
Another issue is that oxygen usually prevents hydrogen sulfide, a toxin, from leaving the seabed. In a low-oxygen environment, the toxin will make its way up through the water.
The situation presents a detrimental cocktail for Danish waters, which is why Würgler, his team of professors and nongovernmental organizations alike strongly encourage the government to impose mandatory restrictions on the use of agricultural fertilizer.
The farming industry accounts for around 70 percent of Denmark’s collective nitrogen load to the sea. Excess nutrients — nitrogen and phosphate — that aren't absorbed by crops find their way from land to the sea.
The environmental minister promised to "use all possible tools" to clean up the water in vulnerable areas such as Limfjorden and Mariager Fjord in northern Denmark. In a press statement he referred to the government’s new water area plan, which aims to lower nitrogen emissions by 10,400 tons a year.
A key part of the plan is to create voluntary collaborations with farmers, who commit to converting previously cultivated land into fallow or wild areas.
However, the Danish Society for Nature Conservation says the plans are not ambitious enough. They group sent a formal complaint to the European Commission, expressing doubts that Denmark will live up to its obligations under the Commission's Water Framework Directive and the Nitrates Directive.
The first directive says that member states must keep waterways healthy, while the second directive requires them to monitor and clean bodies of water that have low oxygen levels due to agricultural activities.
Right now, Denmark is not on track to comply with either of them, said the conservation group's public affairs advisor, Kasper Phil Møller. He argued that Denmark has failed to implement effective nitrogen-reducing initiatives.
“We are currently experiencing the worst hypoxia in the fjords and near-coastal areas in 20 years — it is a catastrophe, and it is caused by too much nitrogen from farming," Møller said. "Denmark is not even close to living up to the Water Framework directive, so we hope that the EU commission will force the Danish politicians to act."
Møller noted the issue with asking the agricultural sector for compliance: "A key problem is that voluntary actions from the farmers on reducing nitrogen have failed. That is why we now need more firm regulation,” he said.
The water area plan includes an expectation that "structural changes" in the farming sector will automatically lead to a reduction of 5000 tons of nitrogen per year. However, from 2015 to 2021, there was a similar political expectation but little signs of any reduction, Møller said.
“Denmark has a lot of exposed locations in our inner waters and fjords, where nitrogen cannot easily wash away into the greater sea," he said. "At the same time, we have one of the world’s largest agricultural sectors that takes up 60 percent of our lands, and that is dangerous for our ecosystems. We need to start taking serious measures to protect them.”
This week, several prominent Social Democrats in Denmark criticized their own government for showing a lack of political action.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
Newsom’s ‘May revise’ trims budget to $288 billion May 10, 2024 -
