Almost 50% of these long-living ecosystems have disappeared from European waters. Some coral formations date back more than 8,000 years. The Oceana Ranger research vessel has discovered deep-sea white coral in the Aviles Canyon. The deep-sea coral was identified using an underwater robot, which can work down to 600 meters. The first colonies of white … Read more
After Oceana showed that some fishing ships continued to use illegal fishing gear, the European Court of Justice rejected further requests by the French government for exemptions from the EU ban on driftnetting in the Mediterranean Sea. This ruling spares 25,000 juvenile bluefin tuna caught annually in the driftnets, along with thousands of other types … Read more
Thousands of Oceana supporters contacted the Vermont Country Story, a leading catalog retailer, to convince it to stop selling a skin enhancer containing squalane. The oil is obtained from the livers of deep-sea sharks threatened by extinction. In an ironic note, the product was marketed under the name “Oceana.”
Under pressure from Oceana and other conservation groups, the National Marine Fisheries Service denied an Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP) proposed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which would have allowed the use of drift gillnets in the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area off the coast of California. Since the closure was established in 2001, not one … Read more
Oceana supporters bombarded online retailer Amazon.com with requests to stop selling shark fin soup. Within hours, Amazon.com had pulled the item from its virtual shelves. Tens of millions of sharks are killed each year for their fins. According to scientists, shark populations are crashing around the world.
Oceana and other members of the Shark Alliance scored a major victory for sharks in the European Parliament when the Parliament decided to reject a recommendation from its own Fisheries Committee to increase the allowable ratio of shark fins to bodies from 5 percent to 6.5 percent.
Oceana had access to military declassified documents which highlighted the damage that the use of active sonar produces in cetaceans and marine wildlife.
After two years of intensive lobbying by Oceana in Brussels and Madrid, the European Union prohibited destructive fishing practices, including bottom trawling, which destroys important marine habitat, in over 160 million acres around the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands. The area protected covers an area larger than France.
In a historic conservation move, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council adopted the Oceana approach and closed nearly 95,5 million hectares of ocean, including recently discovered deep sea coral gardens, to bottom trawling, industrial fishing’s version of clear cutting. The area protected is roughly twice the size of the state of California.
After campaigning by Oceana, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council voted to protect deep-sea coral communities in New England and Mid-Atlantic submarine canyons from destructive monkfish bottom trawling gear.
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We have already protected nearly 4 million square miles of ocean and innumerable sea life - but there is still more to be done.
Oceana in Europe gratefully acknowledges EU funding support.
