Environment Minister Neletha Butterfield has warned of ?a rising tide of rubbish and waste from our throwaway society? and said Government intended to take action with the tabling of a white paper on the fishing industry and marine resources.

On Friday Ms Butterfield told she intends to put the white paper before Parliament by November and by the end of the year, will ban two additional anti-fouling paints for boats proven to be harmful to the marine environment.

?Amendments will be brought forward to the Clean Air Act to deal more effectively with harmful emissions,? she said.

Speaking on World Environment Day, Ms Butterfield said: ?We have a choice ? act now to save our marine resources, or watch as the rich diversity of life in our seas and oceans declines beyond the point of recovery.?

Ms Butterfield said the United Nations encouraged Bermudians to think globally, but act locally.

?The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan warns that no society can no longer view the world?s seas as a convenient dumping ground for our waste or an unlimited source of plenty,? Ms Butterfield continued.

?This year?s theme asks that we make a choice as to how we want to treat the Earth?s seas and oceans. It also calls on each and every one of us to act,? she said.

The Minister brought a global problem down to a local scale by bringing the problem closer to home with some ?staggering facts and figures?.

*Climate change threatens to destroy most of the world?s coral reefs and wreak havoc on the fragile economies of small island states.

*35 percent of the Atlantic?s shorelines are receding at a rate of one metre per year.

*Every year, trash that ends up in the sea kills one million seabirds, 100,000 sea-mammals and 100,000 turtles.

*Three quarters of the world?s commercial fish stocks are being over fished.

*Seventy percent of the world?s fisheries are being fished beyond their sustainable limit.

*The source of 90 percent of all sea pollution is land based.

*By 2010, four billion, eight hundred million people will live within 60 miles of a coastline (80 percent of global population).

*Some 21 million barrels of oil run into the oceans each year from street run-off, factory effluent and from ships flushing their tanks.

*Coral reefs, mangroves and sea grass beds ecosystems are under threat.

*Ninety percent of all marine species are directly or indirectly dependent on coral reefs that grow over less than 0.5 percent of the ocean floor and 60 percent of the world?s remaining reefs are at significant risk of being lost in the next 30 years.

?Do we want to keep seas and oceans healthy and alive or polluted and dead?? Ms Butterfield asked.