The enormous human pressure on the ocean, through the combined action of excessive inputs of nutrients, organic matter and pollutants, the occupation of the coastline, hunting and overfishing, the destruction of coastal habitats and climate change, are profoundly altering the ocean ecosystem, endangering many species and destroying vast areas of the most sensitive ecosystems. In the cradle of life, the conditions for life are deteriorating in a way that is challenging, but not yet impossible, to reverse. The ocean of the twenty-first century will, if it continues in this way, be a progressively impoverished and depleted ocean, precisely at the moment in human history when we will be most dependent on the services it provides us. It is time to change our interaction with the ocean as well as the paradigm that underpins it, from a conservation ethic to one that strives further at regenerating the ocean.