Oceana seeks protections for sharks and swordfish at ICCAT meeting at Turkey

Oceana, the largest international advocacy group working solely to protect the world’s oceans, is seeking protections for sharks and swordfish at the 22nd Regular Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which begins today in Istanbul, Turkey. Without immediate action, Oceana believes that international demand and illegal fishing threaten the existence … Read more

Oceana recommendations for a sustainable management framework for Mediterranean swordfish

Management of Mediterranean swordfish has repeatedly been neglected to the detriment of the species. The ICCAT Standing Committee for Research and Statistics has assessed this stock as overexploited, with spawning biomass below sustainable levels and with 50-70% of catches comprised of juvenile fish. The complete absence of real management measures makes the Mediterranean swordfish fishery … Read more

Remember Vidal?

Remember Vidal? Despite their well-known illegal activities since the nineties and the blacklisting of several IUU fishing vessels, linked to Vidal Armadores, Vidal companies have received millions of Euros of fishing subsidies from the local government of Galicia, the Spanish fisheries ministry and the European Union, since 2002. Oceana has been tracking his activities for … Read more

Closing September with a bang!

Last week was a good week for us at Oceana as we closed the month of September with a bang! It’s been a month of victories and good for our work here in Europe, and there is nothing more rewarding than realizing that our efforts are actually making a difference. We therefore thought we’d highlight … Read more

Court Rules in Favor of Oceana on Bycatch

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of Oceana in a suit that will require commercial fisheries from North Carolina to the Canadian border to monitor and report the amount of bycatch, or untargeted marine life, they discard. The decision is a triumph against one of the biggest problems … Read more

Court Rules in Favor of Oceana on Bycatch

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of Oceana in a suit that will require commercial fisheries from North Carolina to the Canadian border to monitor and report the amount of bycatch, or untargeted marine life, they discard. The decision is a triumph against one of the biggest problems … Read more

Fish for Thought

Imagine if Spaniards only ate fish from their own waters. Yesterday, Spain ran out of its own fish stocks, and now will have to depend on imports from other countries – for the rest of the year. May 8th marked Fish Dependence Day in Spain, about two months ahead of Fish Dependence Day for the … Read more

Mediterranean fisheries management meeting concludes without adopting any management measures

Inaction of decision makers and open access fisheries, called to question by Oceana. The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) closed its 35th Session in Rome on Saturday. According to recent scientific advice, 22 of 23 Mediterranean stocks are overexploited, including highly valuable commercial species like red shrimp (Aristeus antennatus), hake (Merluccius merluccius) and … Read more