Oceana (non-profit group)

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Oceana
Founded	2001
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Key people	Andrew Sharpless, CEO James Simon, EVP Herbert M. Bedolfe, III, Board Chairman Ted Danson, Board Member
Area served	Global
Focus	Oceans, Overfishing, Habitat Destruction, Pollution
Method	Campaigns
Slogan	Protecting the World's Oceans
Website	www.oceana.org

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).

1 Campaigns
2 Donors to Oceana
3 External links
4 Notes

[edit] Campaigns

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 ocean creatures from certain fishing gears and practices.

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.

Oceana's Campaign to Stop Seafood Contamination has 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. However, other companies such as Costco, Walmart, Giant Eagle, Publix and others have refused to take this action. A complete updated list of grocery stores that post the FDA advice is available here.

In the summer of 2007, Pittsburgh area billboard firm Lamar and other local billboard agencies refused to carry billboards and posters sponsored by Oceana that named local grocer Giant Eagle. The advertising companies believed that the Oceana campaign materials unfairly implied that Giant Eagle did not do enough to educate customers about mercury in some species of seafood.^[1] The ads were rejected by Clear Channel Communications and Heffner Outdoor Advertising in addition to Lamar Advertising. A Heffner representative said the ad "seemed to be an attack on a single company more than a statement on an industry problem."