MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/. The land on Earth can feed no more than 10-15 billion people, so development of the World Ocean's resources is vital for humanity, said Academician, the Russian Academy of Sciences' Vice-President Yury Kulchin at a meeting of the Academy's presidium on the World Ocean study.
"Land can support no more than 10-15 billion people on the planet. Therefore, significantly increasing is the role of the ocean, which covers 70% of the Earth's surface and which is a stock a huge amount of minerals, biological resources, energy and its carriers, as well as primary mineral and organic raw materials for chemical and pharmaceutical industries," he said.
The World Ocean's resource "in many ways will be able to replace eventually the depleting reserves of land resources," he added.
"The World Ocean's current study is not more than 10%. We know about the World Ocean less than we know about the Moon," the academician noted.
Russia's Far Eastern seas, the Pacific Ocean and the Eastern Arctic's seas are a source of a huge amount of marine resources, and by developing them Russia will "effectively solve food, energy, production and transport problems that it is facing while developing the Russian Far East and Arctic," the expert said in conclusion.