2009.In honor of World Environment Day on June 5th and to implement the European Union’s commitment with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Spanish government announced the creation of ten new Marine Protected Areas in Spain’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Oceana has played a key role in identifying and proposing protection for marine areas of interest in an effort led by the Spanish government to implement the European Union’s biodiversity goals.

Oceana has managed to eliminate driftnets in  France, and it is working to do away with them in Italy, Morocco, Tunisia or Turkey. Driftnets have been banned in the Mediterranean since 2002.

July 2006. After months of persistent campaigning by Oceana, the U.S. House of Representatives passed  a bill  that maintains an important deadline for protecting tens of thousands of dolphins, whales and other beloved ocean creatures from being killed by wasteful commercial fishing gear and practices.

November 2005: The Spanish Ministry of Defence approved a moratorium for military exercises in the Canary Islands. Oceana had access to military declassified documents which highlighted the damage that the use of active sonar produces in cetaceans and marine wildlife.

September 2005: Limiting Destructive Trawling in Europe.  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  protected  area is larger than the territory of  France.