Established | October 2001 |
---|---|
Type | social welfare organization |
Legal status | 501(c)(3) non-profit group |
Purpose | Ocean conservation |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Methods | Lobbying, litigation, and research |
CEO | James Simon |
Revenue (2022) | $43,967,787 [1] |
Staff (2022) | 285 |
Volunteers (2022) | 18,406 |
Website | Oceana.org |
Oceana, inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit ocean conservation organization focused on influencing specific policy decisions on the national level to preserve and restore the world's oceans. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in Juneau, Monterey, Fort Lauderdale, New York, Portland, Toronto, Mexico City, Madrid, Brussels, Copenhagen, Geneva, London, Manila, Belmopan, Brasilia, Santiago, and Lima, [2] [3] [4] and it is the largest international advocacy group dedicated entirely to ocean conservation. [5]
Currently, Oceana has a staff of about 200 and 6,000 volunteers, and it has almost 50 million dollars of revenue (as of 2017). [3] Oceana takes a multi-faceted approach to ocean conservation; It conducts its own scientific research in addition to making policy recommendations, lobbying for specific legislation, and filing and litigating lawsuits. [6]
Oceana was established in 2001 by an international group of leading foundations including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Sandler Foundation, and The Pew Charitable Trusts. This followed a 1999 study they commissioned, which found that less than 0.5% of all resources spent by U.S. environmental nonprofit groups were used for ocean conservation. [7]
In 2001, Oceana absorbed The Ocean Law Project, which was also created by The Pew Charitable Trusts, for Oceana's legal branch. In 2002, American Oceans Campaign, founded by actor and environmentalist Ted Danson, merged with Oceana to further their common goals of ocean conservation. [7]
On April 19, 2024, Oceana, Inc. announced the appointment of James Simon as the new chief executive officer. Simon, previously the President of Oceana, succeeded Andrew Sharpless following an eight-month international search. [8]
In 2015, Oceana Canada was established as a legally distinct non-profit organization. It works in collaboration with Oceana, inc. and is considered part of the larger charity. [9] [10] [11] Except under very specific circumstances, Canadian charity law does not grant either legal charity status or the ability to issue tax exempt receipts to Canadian offices of non-Canadian nonprofits, making it beneficial to create an independent, Canadian charity. [12]
Concerned about declining fish catches since 1980, Oceana is committed to combating overfishing and restoring the world's fisheries. It mainly focuses on legislation for scientific based catch limits, which have led to dramatic recoveries of depleted fisheries in the recent past. It also opposes fishing subsidies, which it argues are (in their current form) contributing to overfishing. [13] [14] Oceana also focuses on reducing bycatch, especially of protected or endangered species. [15] [14]
Oceana's main focus with sustainable fishing is providing clean, plentiful food. They often cite the lack of emissions or resources, like land or fresh water, that wild fish require, and that this lack of pollution or resources would be necessary to feed the world's growing population. [14] This campaign is called "Save the Oceans, Feed the World". [16]
Oceana focuses on curbing or eliminating the use of plastics, especially single use plastics due to their harmful impact on marine ecosystem and on human consumers. The organization generally opposes focusing on recycling or cleanup, and it says this is due to inefficiencies of recycling the large amounts of plastics in the ocean. [17] [18] [19] [ non-primary source needed ]
Oceana has led the way on exposing and advocating against seafood fraud. Its opposition comes from the widespread nature of this problem, the negative health impact mislabeled fish can have (especially to people with certain seafood allergies) and their impact on overfishing by obscuring its impact. [20] [21]
Oceana is dedicated to combating the numerous threats to the world's oceans that climate change imposes. Its main focus has been the acidification of the ocean, which threatens marine life, especially shellfish and coral that are necessary to many marine ecosystems, and, consequently, sources of seafood. [22] They also focus on promoting offshore wind farms [23] and combating the use of offshore drilling [24] and seismic airgun blasting. [25] [26]
Oceana launches expeditions to gather scientific data, which is used by Oceana, other nonprofit groups, local communities, and governmental agencies to create or influence policy. [27] [28]
Recent examples of these expeditions' success can be seen in Malta, where an expedition led to the Maltese government expanding marine protected areas, [29] [27] or in the Philippines, where an expedition led to the government creating a new marine protected area in the Benham Bank. [30]
Oceana focuses on influencing specific legislation, lawsuits, or other policies, which fit under its broader goals. It calls these "victories" when successful. [3] [31] Recent victories have included protecting dusky sharks, [32] banning industrial activity in Canada's marine protected areas, [33] increasing transparency through digital tracking in Chile's fishing industry, [34] and creating the second-largest marine national park in Spain's Mediterranean coast. [35]
Over the course of its existence, Oceana has protected 4.5 million square miles of the ocean by influencing legislation and policy related to banning bottom trawling, restricting fishing, and establishing Marine Protected Areas. [36] [37] [38] [39] Oceana considers an area "protected" once it has achieved a policy victory related to protecting it. [40]
Andy Sharpless, the CEO of Oceana, and author Suzannah Evans wrote The Perfect Protein in 2013. While it mentions some of Oceana's achievements, it focuses on its main goal: to make fishing a sustainable and abundant food supply. The main recommendations and goals of the book are science based catch limits, eating fish lower on the food chain (like sardines), focusing less on more glamorous sea creatures (like whales and dolphins), protecting habitats, and reducing bycatch. [41]
Actor and Oceana Vice Chair Ted Danson, along with Michael D'Orso, wrote the book Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them in 2011. It describes Danson's early involvement with the environmental movement while also explaining the problems that face our oceans today, such as offshore drilling, pollution, ocean acidification, and overfishing. The book is scientifically grounded and was called engaging by the Los Angeles Times because it is filled with asides, charts, and photographs. [42]
The California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA), a small nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving California's wetfish industry, [43] has repeatedly criticized Oceana's attempts to temporarily halt the Pacific sardine fishery. CWPA criticized Oceana's citation of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study that reported 95% of the sardine stock had been depleted since 2006 (and the study itself). CWPA claims that these numbers are inflated and that the actual (smaller) decline in fish stock has not been caused by overfishing, but rather by environmental factors. The CWPA has specifically called Oceana's claims about overfishing "fake news." [44] [45] Although the NOAA has not fully responded to the CWPA's calls for a new study, it has not declared sardines overfished, but it has also banned commercial fishing of sardines. [46]
In 2021, a Netflix documentary Seaspiracy criticized Oceana for appearing to be unable to provide a definition for "sustainable fishing". Oceana responded by saying it was misrepresented in the film, and argued that abstaining from eating fish as the film recommends is not a realistic choice for people who depend on coastal fisheries. [47]
Various environmental news outlets have published op-eds criticizing Oceana's reports on seafood fraud, and similar criticism was included in a New York Times article. Criticism focuses on Oceana's assumption that all mislabeled seafood is intentionally fraudulent, even for species that are easily confused or have different names in different countries. The methodology of Oceana's studies has also been questioned, mainly due to its selection of historically mislabeled fish for testing instead of a more representative sample. Additionally, they criticized policy recommendations that Oceana recommended in their reports for being infeasible and bureaucratic. [48] [49] [50]
Cannery Row is a waterfront street in the New Monterey section of Monterey, California, known for formerly being home to a number of now-defunct sardine canneries. The last closed in 1973. The street name, formerly a nickname for Ocean View Avenue, became official in January 1958 to honor John Steinbeck and his novel Cannery Row. In the novel's opening sentence, Steinbeck described the street as "a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." The street borders the adjacent city of Pacific Grove.
Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place. Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both in freshwater waterbodies and the oceans. About 500 million people worldwide are economically dependent on fisheries. 171 million tonnes of fish were produced in 2016, but overfishing is an increasing problem, causing declines in some populations.
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally, resulting in the species becoming increasingly underpopulated in that area. Overfishing can occur in water bodies of any sizes, such as ponds, wetlands, rivers, lakes or oceans, and can result in resource depletion, reduced biological growth rates and low biomass levels. Sustained overfishing can lead to critical depensation, where the fish population is no longer able to sustain itself. Some forms of overfishing, such as the overfishing of sharks, has led to the upset of entire marine ecosystems. Types of overfishing include growth overfishing, recruitment overfishing, and ecosystem overfishing.
A conventional idea of a sustainable fishery is that it is one that is harvested at a sustainable rate, where the fish population does not decline over time because of fishing practices. Sustainability in fisheries combines theoretical disciplines, such as the population dynamics of fisheries, with practical strategies, such as avoiding overfishing through techniques such as individual fishing quotas, curtailing destructive and illegal fishing practices by lobbying for appropriate law and policy, setting up protected areas, restoring collapsed fisheries, incorporating all externalities involved in harvesting marine ecosystems into fishery economics, educating stakeholders and the wider public, and developing independent certification programs.
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity that takes, cultures, processes, preserves, stores, transports, markets or sells fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including recreational, subsistence and commercial fishing, as well as the related harvesting, processing, and marketing sectors. The commercial activity is aimed at the delivery of fish and other seafood products for human consumption or as input factors in other industrial processes. The livelihood of over 500 million people in developing countries depends directly or indirectly on fisheries and aquaculture.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), informally known as NOAA Fisheries, is a United States federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is responsible for the stewardship of U.S. national marine resources. It conserves and manages fisheries to promote sustainability and prevent lost economic potential associated with overfishing, declining species, and degraded habitats.
The Marine Conservation Society is a UK-based charitable organisation working with businesses, governments and communities to clean and protect oceans. Founded in 1978 as the Underwater Conservation Society, the group claims to be working towards "cleaner, better-protected, healthier UK seas where nature flourishes and people thrive." The charity also works in UK Overseas Territories.
Unsustainable fishing methods refers to the use of various fishing methods used to capture or harvest fish at a rate which is unsustainable for fish populations. These methods facilitate destructive fishing practices that damage ecosystems within the ocean, and result in overfishing.
Ocean Conservancy is a nonprofit environmental advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., United States. The organization seeks to promote healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems, prevent marine pollution, climate change and advocates against practices that threaten oceanic and human life.
Marine conservation activism is the efforts of non-governmental organizations and individuals to bring about social and political change in the area of marine conservation. Marine conservation is properly conceived as a set of management strategies for the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas. Activists raise public awareness and support for conservation, while pushing governments and corporations to practice sound ocean management, create conservation policy, and enforce existing laws and policy through effective regulation. There are many different kinds of organizations and agencies that work toward these common goals. They all are a part of the growing movement that is ocean conservation. These organizations fight for many causes including stopping pollution, overfishing, whaling and by-catching, and supporting marine protected areas.
The environmental impact of fishing includes issues such as the availability of fish, overfishing, fisheries, and fisheries management; as well as the impact of industrial fishing on other elements of the environment, such as bycatch. These issues are part of marine conservation, and are addressed in fisheries science programs. According to a 2019 FAO report, global production of fish, crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic animals has continued to grow and reached 172.6 million tonnes in 2017, with an increase of 4.1 percent compared with 2016. There is a growing gap between the supply of fish and demand, due in part to world population growth.
The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat is a book by journalist Charles Clover about overfishing. It was made into a movie released in 2009 and was re-released with updates in 2017.
Sustainable seafood is seafood that is caught or farmed in ways that consider the long-term vitality of harvested species and the well-being of the oceans, as well as the livelihoods of fisheries-dependent communities. It was first promoted through the sustainable seafood movement which began in the 1990s. This operation highlights overfishing and environmentally destructive fishing methods. Through a number of initiatives, the movement has increased awareness and raised concerns over the way our seafood is obtained.
This page is a list of fishing topics.
Sustainable seafood advisory lists and certification are programs aimed at increasing consumer awareness of the environmental impact and sustainability of their seafood purchasing choices.
Sustainable sushi is sushi made from fished or farmed sources that can be maintained or whose future production does not significantly jeopardize the ecosystems from which it is acquired. Concerns over the sustainability of sushi ingredients arise from greater concerns over environmental, economic and social stability, and human health.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to fisheries:
Saltwater fish, also called marine fish or sea fish, are fish that live in seawater. Saltwater fish can swim and live alone or in a large group called a school.
The Marine Policy of the Barack Obama administration comprises several significant environmental policy decisions for the oceans made during his two terms in office from 2009 to 2017. By executive action, US President Barack Obama increased fourfold the amount of protected marine space in waters under United States control, setting a major precedent for global ocean conservation. Using the U.S. president's authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, he expanded to 200 nautical miles the seaward limits of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument around the U.S. island possessions in the Central Pacific. In the Atlantic, Obama created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the first marine monument in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Atlantic.
Seaspiracy is a 2021 documentary film about the environmental impact of fishing directed by and starring Ali Tabrizi, a British filmmaker. The film examines human impacts on marine life and advocates for ending fish consumption.