Oceana has received a 1 million euro donation to support its activities focusing on reducing illegal fishing and plastics pollution, expanding  and improving the management and protection of marine protected areas (MPAs) and ensuring sustainable fisheries. The announcement was made at the annual Dutch Postcode Lottery Charity Gala (Goed Geld Gala) held in Amsterdam last Wednesday.

Pascale Moehrle, Executive Director of Oceana in Europe said: “We are so very grateful to the Dutch Postcode Lottery for this chance to further our crucial ocean conservation work. We will use this generous donation to maximise our effectiveness in achieving impact at scale for ocean conservation in Europe”.

More specifically, Oceana will use the money received to focus on four campaigns from 2020-2022. This will include:

• Improving transparency and the availability of public information that can be used to expose and stop illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
• Urging countries to transpose the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive into national law and ensuring it contains best-practice provisions to drastically reduce plastic waste reaching European seas.
• Tackling marine ‘paper-parks’ in Europe by developing and advocating minimum, enforceable management standards for MPAs and securing new designations for biodiversity hotspots to protect sensitive marine life.
• Promoting sustainable fisheries and ensuring that catch limits for shared stocks between the EU and the UK are sustainable and that any UK post-Brexit regulation maintains standards at least similar to those of the EU.

Notes to the Editor:

This is the third donation Oceana in Europe has received  from the Dutch Postcode Lottery to advance marine conservation. The previous grants, in 2016 and 2017, funded two at-sea research expeditions to the North Sea and provided the results for seven proposals to build a stronger network of marine protected areas in that sea.

The Dutch Postcode Lottery has been raising funds since 1989 in support of organisations focusing on people and the planet. Supporting more than 105 non-governmental organisations, it gives half of its annual turnover to charity, amounting to over 6 billion euros since its foundation.

#Sustainability #MPAs #IUUWatch #PlasticFreeSeas