About Oceana

OCEANA CAMPAIGNS TO PROTECT AND RESTORE THE WORLD'S OCEANS.

Our team of marine scientists, economists, lawyers and advocates win specific and concrete policy changes to reduce pollution and to prevent the irreversible collapse of fish populations, marine mammals and other sea life. Global in scope, Oceana has campaigners based in North America (Washington, DC; Juneau and Anchorage, AK; Portland, OR; Monterey, CA; St. Petersburg, FL; Boston, MA; New York City, NY), Europe (Madrid, Spain; Brussels, Belgium) and South America (Santiago, Chile). More than 300,000 members and e-activists in over 150 countries have already joined Oceana.

Oceana's major campaigns and projects include dirty fishing, destructive trawling, sharks, seafood contamination, sea turtles, fishing subsidies, and global warming.

The dirty fishing campaign works to stop wasteful bycatch, which is the massive quantity of fish and other ocean life that is thrown back, dead or dying, by commercial fisheries. In a nutshell, Oceana's approach to the problem is the three C's: Count, Cap, and Control. We are calling on the federal government to address dirty fishing as is required under existing law and immediately implement these three critical measures to end wasteful fishing practices.

The destructive trawling campaign works with scientists, lawyers, commercial and recreational fishermen, U.S. ocean policy managers at the regional and federal levels, the White House, U.S. Congressional members, state public officials, and other interested private organizations to protect deep sea coral communities and other critical ocean environment from destructive fishing gear including bottom trawlers and dredgers.

The sharks campaign is working worldwide to protect sharks, increase awareness on the need for shark conservation, and promote international cooperation on these highly migratory animals. To protect sharks in U.S. waters, Oceana is pushing for better management of shark fisheries, encouraging the government to address shark bycatch problems, and reducing the demand for shark products, such as squalene. In South America, Oceana is pressing for a shark finning ban in Chile, and in Europe, we are working as part of the Shark Alliance to close loopholes in European policy regarding shark finning.

The seafood contamination campaign works to protect children, adults and marine life from mercury poisoning. Our campaign targets grocery stores and chlorine plants. Our campaigners call on the major grocery chains to post warning signs in the stores where the fish of concern are sold, and working to phase out mercury-emitting chlorine production in the United States.

The sea turtles campaign works to protect sea turtles from commercial fishing gear, including dredges, gillnets, longlines and trawls, which are the greatest threat to sea turtles. We have also petitioned the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of the Interior to uplist the loggerhead sea turtle population from "threatened" to "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act.

The fishing subsidies campaign works to curb overfishing by stopping global fishing subsidies, in which governments essentially pay fishermen to overfish. Working with the World Trade Organization, our campaigners are working to "cut the bait."

The climate change project works on Capitol Hill, advocating for reduced greenhouse gas emissions, the planning and mitigation of the effects of climate change on our oceans, and funding for climate change research, including research on ocean acidification.