Ocean Conservancy believes it is time to look beneath the surface – to see where the health of our planet really begins. Ocean Conservancy is working to protect the source that sustains us day to day with the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe.

Here is a list of the issues that Ocean Conservancy is currently working on:

It’s Time to Stop Warming the Planet
As the engine that drives our planet’s climate, our ocean is on the front lines of global climate change.  It absorbs half of the carbon dioxide we’ve pumped into the sky and more excess heat from greenhouse gases than all rainforests combined.  The ocean is the unsung hero in this battle.  But it’s also the most vulnerable victim.
Right now the warming of the Arctic – the earth’s air conditioner – is the greatest conservation challenge we face.  Home to whales, seals, polar bears, and more than four million people, the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet.  The consequences are massive, and will have impact across the planet and threaten Arctic peoples’ way of life. Ocean Conservancy is fighting for a time-out on rapid expansion, until we have the science and the structure we need to guide decision-making.

It’s Time to Stop Trashing Our Beaches
Grocery bags, bottles, cigarette butts, wrappers and straws…they don’t fall from the sky; they fall from human hands.  And what’s washed up on the shore is only a fraction of what ends up in the water.  From Baltimore to Bangladesh, Ocean Conservancy leads the world’s most astounding grassroots cleanup effort.  Every year in September, nearly 500,000 volunteers in more than 100 countries remove millions of pounds of trash from beaches and waterways all over the world during the International Coastal Cleanup.  Ocean Conservancy analyzes the data collected by their volunteers to produce the Marine Debris Index, the only global snapshot of trash in the world’s ocean.

It’s Time for Sustainable Fishing

Around the world, billions of people rely on fish as a source for the nutritious protein they need.  But the ocean’s supply can’t keep up with our demand for wild fish, and they’ve begun to disappear.  Taking fish out of the ocean faster than they can reproduce is bad for fish, fishermen, coastal economies, and the marine ecosystems on which they all depend.  Ocean Conservancy is taking a broad, bait-to-plate approach to fixing things, which we call “From fishery to fork.”

It’s Time to Set the Standard for Safe Fish Farming Fish farming is one of the fastest-growing responses to our declining wild fish supply and it now accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s seafood consumption.  In the United States alone, the industry is expected to grow five-fold by 2025.  Without thoughtful planning and regulation, fish farming can severely harm ocean ecosystems.  Ocean Conservancy is leading the charge to ensure that aquaculture develops only under strong environmental standards.

It’s Time to Save Marine Wildlife

Each year, thousands of whales, dolphins, seals, and sea turtles die as “bycatch” – animals accidentally injured or killed in fishing operations.  Speeding ships in some of the busiest marine highways also pose a huge threat to endangered whales.  On top of this, pollution and trash are poisoning and choking animals along our coastlines, from New England to Hawaii.  Ocean Conservancy is integrating the protection of ocean wildlife and their habitats into all of their programs.

It’s Time to Protect Our Yosemites of the Sea

While 12 percent of the land on Earth has been set aside as parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas, less than one percent of the ocean has been similarly protected.  Just like Yellowstone and Yosemite on land, Ocean Conservancy believes that our planet’s most spectacular and ecologically important underwater treasures deserve lasting protection.  Ocean Conservancy has made significant progress in protecting some of the ocean’s most extraordinary places, including in Florida and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  In California Ocean Conservancy helped pass the landmark Marine Life Protection Act, creating a system of marine protected areas along the state’s coastline.  Now, they are working with fishermen, divers, scientists, and others to implement this watershed California law.

It’s Time for Order in the Ocean

Like urban sprawl, today we have marine and coastal sprawl, as the ocean faces an era of unprecedented activity.  As each day passes, the ocean resembles more and more the Wild West on water.  Wind farms, whale watchers and shipping superhighways are each competing to stake their claim to our ocean homestead.  We need law and order to balance and coordinate commercial and recreational activity while protecting ocean ecosystems.  By educating Congress and the Obama Administration, Ocean Conservancy is working to make ocean management more efficient and effective for the good of all.

Ocean Conservancy is a recognized nonprofit by the IRS and donations may be tax-deductible. To learn more about donating, click here.  For their homepage, click here.