The global ocean conservation organization has some major ocean campaigns ready for protecting the world's most vast bodies of water. With leading marine scientists, economists, activists, lawyers, advocates, and policymakers from all over the world on its side and important projects for conservation like dirty fishing, climate change, and shark and sea turtle conservation, it's taking full charge with its campaign!
We had the amazing opportunity to speak with lead Oceana blogger and Online Editor Fellow Emily Fisher on some of the group's strongest programs and most important contributions to protect the world's oceans. Read Emily's choice worsds below, then log onto their official site to find out how you can help!
Give me a rundown of Oceana and some of its major ocean campaigns. What’s Oceana’s take on ocean and marine conservation?
Oceana is the largest international organization focused 100 percent on ocean conservation. We believe that change is best effected through concrete, policy-oriented goals and targeted campaign work.
Our major campaigns right now are Responsible Fishing (which includes destructive trawling and bycatch), Safeguard Sharks, Stop Seafood Contamination, Save Sea Turtles, and Stop Climate Change. We have offices in North America, South America and Europe, and we have more than 300,000 members and e-activists in over 150 countries.
We’ve only been around since 2001 – we’re fairly young -- but I must say we’re a very effective organization. In less than ten years we’ve achieved many victories for marine life and habitats.
What does it mean to become an Oceana Wavemaker?
Becoming a Wavemaker simply means officially joining Oceana as a supporter online at http://oceana.or/join. You stay in the know by receiving e-mail alerts that tell you the latest news about our campaigns and ways you can take action to help us protect the oceans.
In the dirty fishing campaign, Oceana's approach is the three C's: Count, Cap, and Control. Explain.
“Dirty fishing” is another word for bycatch, which refers to fisheries’ untargeted catch. Every year millions of tons of fish, as well as sea turtles, marine mammals and seabirds are caught unintentionally and thrown back to the sea, dead or dying, by fisheries around the world.
Count means that fisheries should have observers on-board fishing vessels whose job is to record the amount of bycatch.
Cap means that fisheries managers should set real limits, or "hard caps," on the bycatch of marine life, including fish, marine mammals, sea birds and endangered species.
Control refers to enforcement -- fishing should not be allowed to occur in fisheries that do not have monitoring for bycatch and relevant management plans, and hard caps on fishing mortality must be enforced.
In the destructive trawling section, you mention that you work with the US government to protect deep sea coral communities and other aspects of ocean environment from destructive fishing gear. Can you give an example?
Sure, a good example was a few years back in June 2006. In response to Oceana and other groups, the government agency NOAA Fisheries protected many of Alaska's rare deep sea corals by closing important areas of the Aleutian Islands to bottom trawling. Currently we are urging the US government to finalize protection for 23,000 square miles of known deep sea coral reefs in the Southeast.
What ways is Oceana promoting awareness of shark conservation?
Our shark campaign is currently focusing on getting legislation through Congress that would stop shark finning in all U.S. waters. The bill is called the Shark Conservation Act of 2009, and it would require sharks be landed with their fins attached. It has already passed the house and we’re hoping for fast passage in the Senate.
In addition, just a few weeks ago, we announced our new spokesperson for the shark campaign, actress January Jones. (If you watch the show Mad Men on AMC, she plays Don Draper’s wife, Betty Draper.) She has loved sharks since she was young, and she wanted to get involved in protecting them, so she recently went to the Bahamas with Oceana to swim with sharks and learn about shark research. We’re excited to have her on board with us to get the word out about the importance of the ocean’s apex predators.
How successful is the seafood contamination campaign? Do grocery store owners pay attention to Oceana’s cries of mercury poisoning and put warning signs where there is a concern?
I’m proud to say that our Stop Seafood Contamination Campaign has been extremely successful. For example, In January 2008, both Kroger and Harris Teeter supermarket companies decided to post the FDA’s advice about mercury in seafood, and in August 2008, after two years of campaigning, we convinced Costco to post the guidelines. That means that 36% of major grocery stores nationwide are now providing important information to consumers about mercury. You can check out our green list to see which other stores post the guidelines.
The other part of our campaign is getting the few remaining chlorine plants that use mercury to switch to cleaner technology. There’s a bill in Congress right now, in fact, the Mercury Pollution Reduction Act of 2009, that would do just this by eliminating mercury from chlorine production. You can help out by telling your Senator to the support the bill! What are the main threats to sea turtles?
One of the biggest threats to sea turtles, and the one that our sea turtle campaign focuses primarily on, is commercial fishing gear. Longlines, trawls, gillnets and other types of gear catch sea turtles unintentionally, as bycatch. Fishing gear is especially dangerous when it is used in important sea turtle habitat where high numbers of turtles forage or migrate. Sea turtles caught as bycatch in a fishery can be injured or even killed.
Climate change is also a problem. Changing currents, hotter sands, rising sea levels and more severe storms add up to another major threat to sea turtles. Vessel strikes, coastal development, plastic marine debris and pollution also threaten sea turtle survival.
You can learn more about what we are doing to protect sea turtles here.
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