Oceana calls for complete closure of industrial bluefin tuna fishery in Mediterranean; urges for protections of spawning grounds

Oceana, the world’s largest international ocean conservation organization, joined Greenpeace, WWF and PEW today in urging for stronger protection measures for bluefin tuna at the 17th Special Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in Paris, France. The human appetite for sushi and sashimi has created a market where a … Read more

Joint Policy Statement on Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Management

November 2010. Greenpeace, Oceana, the Pew Environment Group and WWF call upon member governments of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) to immediately protect the severely depleted Atlantic bluefin tuna. Over 30 years of mismanagement and illegal fishing, along with negligent reporting, fraud, and a disregard for science has resulted in … Read more

Oceana calls for protection of ocean’s top predators at upcoming international fisheries meeting

Oceana, the world’s largest international ocean conservation organization, is calling for the protection of the ocean’s top predators at the 17th Special Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in Paris, France, November 17 to 27. Specifically, Oceana is seeking protections for several vulnerable and overexploited species vital to maintaining … Read more

Biodiversity Summit week 1 recap

The Biodiversity Summit in Japan is kicking off week 2 and we thought we’d give you a recap with some highlights and news stories from last week. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity released a report highlighted the enourmous (but necessary) cost of altering the global economy to put value on forests, reefs and other … Read more

Biodiversity

Today, delegates from over 190 nations are converging at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan. For 2 weeks, they will be discussing ways to curb the erosion of biodiversity on the planet. Ryo Matsumoto, Japan’s Environment Minister said “we are now close to a ‘tipping point’ – that is, we are … Read more

An Education on Overfishing

A lot of people often ask what they can do to learn about the state of the oceans – there is so much information out there, it can certainly be a daunting task to sort through it all. That’s why we decided to pull together some of our favorite books and movies on marine issues. … Read more

The race for threatened sharks

Sharks are extremely vulnerable species which have been fished by European Union vessels at home and around the world without any management for decades. Globally, 21% of shark, ray and chimaera populations are threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List. In the Northeast Atlantic the figure is even higher with 26% threatened and … Read more

Learn more: More information about driftnets

Drift nets are made of nylon and they have a mesh size between 18 and 24 centimetres (although they can exceed 40 cm in some cases), a height of 35 meters and a length of up to 20 kms (the nets are comprised of panels that are attached to each other to reach the desired … Read more

Our Position and Recommendations

During the last few years, Oceana has carried out campaigns to control and report the use of illegal drift nets, both through our observers in ports and through our high-seas campaigns on board the Oceana Ranger and the Marviva Med. During this time, we have located and reported French and Italian netters that continue fishing … Read more