Oceana (non-profit group)
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Oceana was founded in 2001 as an international marine conservation and advocacy organization and, in 2002, merged with the American Oceans Campaign, which was co-founded in 1987 by actor/activist Ted Danson. Oceana campaigns to protect and restore the world’s oceans.
Oceana has offices based in North America (Washington, DC; Juneau, AK; Los Angeles, CA), Europe (Madrid, Spain; Brussels, Belgium) and South America (Santiago, Chile).
In 2006, Oceana led a campaign to prevent Congress from enacting any legislation that removes the deadline in the Marine Mammal Protection Act requiring commercial fisheries to reduce the injury and death of marine mammals to insignificant levels. After months of persistent campaigning by Oceana campaigners, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that maintains the dolphin deadline and protects tens of thousands of dolphins, whales, and other beloved ocean creatures from dirty fishing gears and practices.
Oceana's Campaign to Stop Seafood Contaminationhas convinced major grocery retailers including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, Wild Oats, and others to post the Food and Drug Administration’s warning on mercury in certain kinds of fish at their seafood counters. As a part of this campaign, Oceana also targeted out-dated chlorine manufacturing plants that continue to needlessly pollute the environment with huge amounts of mercury every year.
Oceana also worked to get the federal government to require shrimp fishermen to put improved escape devices on their nets so they don’t accidentally kill sea turtles. This action saves up to 60,000 endangered sea turtles every year. Oceana Europe campaigned to pass legislation to prevent the bycatch of 40,000 turtles a year by swordfish longliners.
Oceana is also known for potty training Royal Caribbean. After a year of campaigning by Oceana, Royal Caribbean agreed to install advanced wastewater treatment facilities on all of its ships.
