Currently, it is practically legal to vacuum marine life in international waters non-stop 24/7/365. There is plenty of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing as well.

Industrial Fishing fleets sail from distant nations and can stay all year round because their governments subsidise them with our taxpayer money.

The current legal framework to protect the ocean is slow and unwieldy. By the time the laws are in place, the species or ocean they are designed to protect have disappeared!

WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT?

By identifying the national laws of each country, we take civil action to sue nations to get them to protect their natural resources on behalf of their citizens or nature. This is a cascade action that will ricochet around the world; One case at a time.

Currently we are taking civil action in Argentina and Ecuador to pressure them to do MORE to protect their marine resources from:

•   Overfishing
•   Shark finning
•   Bottom trawling
•   Illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing
•   Incursions into their protected waters
•   Human rights abuses

Nations that do not take adequate precautionary measures to protect the natural heritage of their people are targets.

Nations can protect their natural heritage by:

•   Protecting their marine ecosystems
•   Taking the lead to protect sustainable artisanal fisheries
•   Challenging the international status quo on fishing practices
•   Spread awareness on the benefits of protecting these ecosystems

We are also looking at other tangential and creative legal ways to slow down the process of ultraefficient over extraction from the ocean without regard to sustainability.

• ITLOS (International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea
• Coalitions with other organisations to protect shark fishing and finning

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

To bring about the needed change to save our ocean and allow fishes to recover in a healthy manner will require more than one organization. We need your support to pressure the nations of the world to make the drastic changes necessary. You can support by:

• SIGNING our Open Letter to Argentina and Ecuador
• JOINING the campaign as an
  • organisation
  • or individual
• DONATING to WTF to help us take further action
• EATING LESS fish and fish products - and buy sustainably sourced products

WHAT IS BEING ASKED?

• Governments to defend their marine resources for their civilian sustainable fishing efforts
• Call out nations that are causing extreme damage to ocean biodiversity
• For all to stand up and speak out for the Ocean – our collective heritage and our future
• We are NOT asking for money