MONTEREY, Calif. (Reuters) - President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore will meet worried scientists and environmentalists this week to discuss the world`s oceans, an irreplaceable global resource clearly in crisis. The National Ocean Conference, held in this coastal California city on Thursday and on Friday, will address the crucial role oceans play in human life, and the growing evidence the seas may be struggling for their very survival. "In the 21st century, the world will look increasingly to the oceans for food, fuel, new medicines and other resources," Gore said in a statement welcoming the conference. "The oceans` bounty is vast, but finite. Already we see troubling signs that marine resources are over-stressed." The Monterey conference is part of a series of events around the world organised in 1998, the official United Nations "The Year of the Ocean." It will also mark the first time in more than 30 years that the United States has embarked on a nationwide, comprehensive study of the needs of the seas - where pollution and overfishing are now more dangerous than ever. The last such initiative, a White House conference known as the Stratton Commission in 1967, led to the creation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), now the ocean research and weather forecasting branch of the Commerce Department. But things have changed drastically since the NOAA was founded, and now many are calling for new efforts to protect the Earth`s oceanic resources. Now, half the population of the United States lives along the coastlines, and their sewage and garbage have closed beaches about 19,000 times over the past decade. Overfishing has depleted cod, swordfish and blue tuna in the Atlantic Ocean, while some salmon species in the Pacific have been placed on the nation`s endangered species list. The status of many of the 723 other marine species in U.S. coastal waters is simply unknown. Marine scientists say that in some ways we know more about the moon than we do about our own oceans, even though they fill 71 percent of the planet. The oceans continue to surprise us. Just seven years ago, scientists found new species hidden in the ocean depths off Mexico and some two miles down in a channel of Monterey Bay. Clams, worms and plants thrive in those black depths without sunlight or oxygen - always believed essential to life on Earth - by absorbing toxic sulfites that pour through hot seeps in earthquake faults on the ocean floor. But news of the oceans` newest treasures is often overshadowed by that of oceanic disasters, with devastating oil spills, mass dolphin kills in tuna nets, and medical waste washing ashore on beaches grabbing the national headlines. Gore, who has made the environment one of his key interests, opened the conference on Thursday as panels discuss the disappearance of fish from the oceans, the dangerous increase in pollution levels, threats from major oil spills and overdevelopment along the coastlines. Government programmes and policies for the oceans were addressed Friday, before Clinton delivered a keynote speech to underline his administration`s commitment to rescuing the seas. Hopes for the conference are riding high. A coalition of more than 100 environmental and research groups have asked Clinton to commit $200 million to research, and to move the ocean to the top of the nation`s research agenda.