Since 2003, Oceana has achieved dozens of concrete policy victories for marine life and habitats in Europe. From stopping bottom trawling in sensitive habitat areas to protecting sea turtles from commercial fishing gear, our victories represent a new hope for the world's oceans.
July 1, 2011
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 facing our oceans today. Tons of fish are wasted and thousands of marine mammals, sea turtles, sharks and sea birds are injured or killed every year as bycatch.
The Chilean National Congress unanimously passed a nationwide ban on shark finning. Oceana drafted the bill and campaigned for its passage. This groundbreaking decision came on the heels of a very similar ban passed by the United States Congress in December 2010, and puts both countries at the forefront of shark conservation.
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 facing our oceans today. Tons of fish are wasted and thousands of marine mammals, sea turtles, sharks and sea birds are injured or killed every year as bycatch.
Countries Release Joint Statement on Overfishing Subsidies
Following years of campaign work by Oceana, the United States, New Zealand, Argentina, Australia, Chile, Iceland and Norway released a joint statement that was submitted to the WTO calling for a reduction in fisheries subsidies.
A international delegation passed new conservation measures that will protect more than 16.1 million square miles of seafloor habitat in the North Pacific Ocean from bottom trawling and other bottom contact gear. Participating nations, including the U.S., Canada, Japan, Russia, China, Korea and Taiwan, PoC (Chinese Taipei), acted on a commitment they made at the United Nations General Assembly to enact interim conservation measures to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems, like seamounts, deep-sea corals and hydrothermal vents, in international waters. Oceana and others have been working to advance these measures since 2006.
For the second time in less than a year, Oceana helped defeat a coal-fired power plant on the coast of Northern Chile. The CAP company announced last week that it was withdrawing its plans to construct the Cruz Grande thermoelectric power plant.
Cruz Grande was slated to be a 300-megawatt thermoelectric power plant in the region of La Higuera in Northern Chile, a few miles from the Choros-Damas and Chañaral island marine reserves, and near the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve, which is home to the world’s largest population of Humboldt penguins. The region also hosts communities of bottlenose dolphins, marine otters and many marine birds and mammals, including blue whales.
February 1, 2011
Shell Cancels 2011 Drilling Plans in U.S. Arctic
In a huge triumph for the U.S. Arctic, Shell announced it would cancel plans to drill exploratory wells offshore in Alaska due to continued uncertainty over whether it would receive federal permits. Shell had hoped to drill exploratory wells in 2010 in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, but its plans were put on hold by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar after the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Oceana has been instrumental in monitoring the permitting process and holding policymakers accountable for upholding the law.
November 9, 2010
ICCAT Improves Conservation Measures for Sharks and Sea Turtles
Though failing to improve protections for bluefin tuna, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) increased the number of shark species prohibited for retention in ICCAT fisheries. Specifically, the group improved conservation measures for oceanic whitetip sharks, hammerhead sharks and shortfin mako sharks. In addition, ICCAT put in place new measures to reduce sea turtle mortality, such as the use of sea turtle dehooking and disentangling gear as well as mandatory collection and submission of sea turtle bycatch data.
June 16, 2010
Bluefin Tuna Season Cut Short Again
After continuous campaign work by Oceana, in early June the European Commission closed the bluefin tuna purse seine fishery early for a third year in a row, further confirming the overcapacity of the fishing fleet. The assigned quota was reached one week earlier than expected, and the Commission’s decision came despite the fleet reduction plans implemented and the absence of the Italian fleet in the seas.
Bluefin tuna stocks are nearing collapse due to overfishing and illegal fishing; stocks have decreased by 80% from existing levels before the industrial fishing era.
January 31, 2010
Protecting Sea Turtles
In response to a lawsuit brought last year by Oceana, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States, NOAA, has proposed designation of 181.000 km2 of ‘critical habitat’ in waters off of Washington, Oregon and California in an effort to meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act and restore depleted populations of the endangered Pacific leatherback turtle. Though NOAA’s proposal does not include the already established Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area, Oceana is confident that the protections will aid leatherback recovery, as long as adequate fishing restrictions currently in place in the Conservation Area are unaltered and the agency recognizes and acts on the fact that commercial fishing is the largest threat to the existence of sea turtles.
