Oceana Magazine Spring 2023

Stewards of the Sea

Dr. Daniel Pauly and Dr. Rashid Sumaila receive top environmental honor

The global trade endangering the ocean’s top predator

Meet Hugo Tagholm, Oceana’s new leader for the UK

Sharks Under Threat Q&A

Board of Directors

Sam Waterston, Chair

María Eugenia Girón, Vice Chair

Diana Thomson, Treasurer

James Sandler, Secretary

Keith Addis, President

Gaz Alazraki

Herbert M. Bedolfe, III

Ted Danson

Nicholas Davis

Maya Gabeira

César Gaviria

Loic Gouzer

Jena King

Sara Lowell

Kristian Parker, Ph.D.

Daniel Pauly, Ph.D.

David Rockefeller, Jr.

Susan Rockefeller

Simon Sidamon-Eristoff

Rashid Sumaila, Ph.D.

Valarie Van Cleave

Elizabeth Wahler

Jean Weiss

Antha Williams

Ocean Council

Susan Rockefeller, Founder

Kelly Hallman, Vice Chair

Dede McMahon, Vice Chair

Anonymous

Samantha Bass

Violaine and John Bernbach

Rick Burnes

Vin Cipolla

Barbara Cohn

Ann Colley

Edward Dolman

Kay and Frank Fernandez

Carolyn and Chris Groobey

J. Stephen and Angela Kilcullen

Ann Luskey

Peter Neumeier

Carl and Janet Nolet

Ellie Phipps Price

David Rockefeller, Jr.

Andrew Sabin

Elias Sacal

Regina K. and John Scully

Maria Jose Peréz Simón

Sutton Stracke

Mia M. Thompson

David Treadway, Ph.D.

Edgar and Sue Wachenheim, III

Valaree Wahler

David Max Williamson

Raoul Witteveen

Leslie Zemeckis

Editorial Staff Editor

Sarah Holcomb

Designers

Alan Po

Addi Bauer

Senior Communications Manager

Gillian Spolarich

Creative Director

Patrick Mustain

Contributing Writer

Emily Petsko

Oceana Magazine is published by Oceana, Inc. For questions or comments about this publication, please call our membership department at +1.202.833.3900 or write to Oceana’s Member Services at 1025 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036 USA.

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Oceana Staff

Andrew Sharpless

Chief Executive Officer

Jim Simon President

Jacqueline Savitz

Chief Policy Officer

Kathryn Matthews, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist

Matthew Littlejohn

Senior Vice President, Strategic Initiatives

Janelle Chanona

Vice President, Belize

Ademilson Zamboni, Ph.D.

Vice President, Brazil

Joshua Laughren

Senior Vice President, Oceana Canada

Liesbeth van der Meer, DVM

Senior Vice President, Chile

Pascale Moehrle

Executive Director and Vice President, Europe

Renata Terrazas

Vice President, Mexico

Daniel Olivares

Vice President, Peru

Gloria Estenzo Ramos, J.D.

Vice President, Philippines

Hugo Tagholm

Executive Director and Vice President, United Kingdom

Beth Lowell

Vice President, United States

Nancy Golden

Vice President, Global Development

Abbie Gibbs

Vice President, Institutional Giving

Dustin Cranor

Vice President, Global Marketing and Communications

Susan Murray

Deputy Vice President, U.S. Pacific

Vera Coelho

Senior Director of Advocacy, Europe

Christopher Sharkey

Chief Financial Officer

Kathy Whelpley

Chief of Staff, President’s Office

Michael Hirshfield, Ph.D.

Senior Advisor

Cover Photo: © Kim Bellavance

FSC Logo

© Oceana/Mario Gomi

CEO Note

Notably, Daniel has served on our board since shortly after Oceana’s founding just over 20 years ago, and he has personally attended all but two meetings over more than two decades. Whenever the board faces a strategic choice, everyone wants to know the views of these two extraordinary scholars. To learn more about them, and why they are being awarded the “Nobel Prize for the Environment,” turn to page 18.

Oceana’s campaigns are science-led. Our board chooses campaign goals that are rooted in the best available science about what is happening to the world’s oceans. This practice is one of the chief reasons why we successfully and steadily deliver national policy changes that protect and restore abundant and biodiverse oceans.

Oceana has won eight important policy victories in the short time since I sat down to write you my introduction to our last issue of this tri-annual magazine. The articles inside this issue report on new advances in ocean conservation policymaking around the world (turn the page for an overview). Our effectiveness depends on the integrity of our conservation science. This issue makes that connection especially vivid.

The two scientists on our cover recently received the Tyler Prize, one of the world’s most distinguished recognitions for environmental science. Both Dr. Daniel Pauly and Dr. Rashid Sumaila are Oceana Board Members.

Oceana’s leader for Chile, Dr. Liesbeth van der Meer, has also made effective science her life’s work. Trained as both a veterinary doctor and a fisheries biologist, Liesbeth, and our Chilean team, have convinced Chile’s leaders to restore their fisheries (now mandated by law); protect key ocean habitat (44% of the country’s ocean is now protected, of which 24% belongs to no-take zones); require transparency (Chile’s vessel monitoring data is published on the Global Fishing Watch map); reduce plastic pollution (Chile achieved Latin America’s strongest law on single-use plastic); and protect biodiversity (stopping, in January 2023, the construction of a huge industrial port adjacent to one of the world’s jewels of marine abundance). Turn to page 20 to read about her team’s latest accomplishment — reforming the salmon farming industry — and how this victory closely connects with Liesbeth’s own life story.

Lastly, if you want an abundant and biodiverse ocean, you need to worry about the shark fin trade.

The appetite for fins — driven largely by China — is depleting shark populations at alarming rates. The fins from as many as 73 million sharks end up in the global trade every year. Sharks reproduce slowly — unlike most fish, the majority of shark species do not lay eggs — and many live very long lives. They are, as a result, highly vulnerable to overfishing. In overdue, but highly welcome decisions late in 2022, sharks all over the world won new protections from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and in the United States, the inhumane shark fin trade was banned by law. Turn to page 10 for details on these two very important advances for shark conservation.

If you are reading this magazine, you are most likely someone who wants a healthy ocean. You may be a financial contributor to Oceana. Every year we count on your generosity to provide the resources needed to drive us forward. If you are already helping, THANK YOU! If you are not yet on our team, please join us now. Your gift is taxdeductible in the U.S.

For the Oceans,

Andrew Sharpless CEO Oceana

© Oceana/Carlos Minguell

For the Win

New rule in the United States requires traceability through the US supply chain

How do you know if the seafood at your local market is correctly labeled? Often consumers can’t know for sure. The U.S. currently imports up to 85% of its seafood, and that seafood often follows a complex path from boat to plate, creating multiple opportunities for seafood fraud. Seafood fraud can occur at any point in the supply chain, and it cheats consumers and puts public health and the oceans in jeopardy. Each year in the United States, around 260,000 people get sick from contaminated fish alone, and fish are the most common food category implicated in foodborne illness outbreaks. Without tracking the seafood from the fishing boat or farm to the dinner plate, illegally caught or potentially unsafe seafood can gain a new identity.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring that most of the nation’s seafood supply, both domestic and imported, is safe and honestly labeled. Oceana and its allies campaigned for a strong traceability rule from the FDA including securing support from members of Congress and Wavemakers. In November 2022, the FDA issued a final rule that will

require traceability for high-risk foods, including most seafood. With this rule, businesses will now be required to track most seafood from the point of landing through the supply chain to the final point of sale.

New law in Chile increases transparency in salmon farming

A new law in Chile will regulate the destructive impacts of the salmon farming industry, following campaigning by Oceana and its allies, including artisanal fishers. The law, enacted in January 2023, requires Chile’s fisheries service to regularly publish data on the use of antibiotics and antiparasitics, mortalities, and the number of salmon produced by company — data that was previously difficult to access. Waste, generated by enormous numbers of fish packed into pens and extensive use of antibiotics, leaks into the ocean and harms marine life, which can lead to the development of bacterial resistance and threatens marine and human health. The new law imposes substantial fines for salmon releases.

Pike Place Market, a seafood market in Seattle, Washington, U.S. Campaigning by Oceana and its allies was instrumental in securing a new federal rule in the United States that requires traceability for high-risk foods, including most seafood.

© Shutterstock/Esteban Martinena Guerrer

United States protects whales, dolphins, sea turtles from deadly drift gillnets

Following campaigning by Oceana and its allies, the U.S. passed a law in December 2022 to end the use of large-mesh drift gillnets in its federal waters. These are mile-long, nearly invisible nets set overnight to capture swordfish. In the U.S., large-mesh drift gillnets are currently only in use off the coast of California, where they entangle, injure, and kill thousands of other ocean animals each year. This victory follows the completion of a multi-year transition program in California, partially funded by Oceana and its supporters, which compensated swordfish drift gillnet fishermen for turning in their permits and nets and incentivizes the use of more selective gear to catch swordfish. Through this program, roughly 50 miles of these deadly nets have been permanently removed from our ocean and all remaining federal permits will be phased out over the next five years, allowing safe passage for whales, dolphins, and sea turtles as they swim off our shores.

New international rule requires countries to investigate and deter companies from engaging with illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing vessels

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), an inter-governmental organization that oversees the management of fishes such as tunas and swordfish in the Atlantic Ocean, adopted a new rule in November 2022 that will prevent companies from providing services to fishing vessels known to be engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the ICCAT regulatory area. The 52 member countries of ICCAT will be required to take effective and deterrent action against citizens and businesses that engage with and support IUU fishing. Campaigning by Oceana in Europe was key to securing this victory. This achievement builds on Oceana’s ongoing campaign to get companies that do business with the fishing sector to avoid supporting illicit fishing activities.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna is one of the species managed by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). ICCAT’s new rule aims to prevent businesses from providing services supporting illicit fishing activities.

Humpback whales (pictured here) and other marine mammals are now protected from drift gillnet entanglements in the United States.

© Shutterstock/Nico Faramaz

© Shutterstock/ jurgal photographer

Shark fin trade banned in the United States

The U.S. banned the buying and selling of shark fins in December 2022, officially removing the U.S. from the cruel and unsustainable global shark fin trade. Global oceanic shark and ray populations have declined by more than 70% over the last 50 years, with overfishing as the primary cause. By making it illegal to buy or sell shark fins in the U.S., Oceana and its allies helped bring the world one step closer to ending the devastating trade. Read “Sharks Under Threat” (page 10) for a closer look at this victory and the global shark fin trade.

Brazil’s leading food delivery service commits to new single-use plastic reductions

Brazil’s largest home food delivery service, iFood, committed to reduce additional single-use plastic packaging throughout its operations in October 2022, expanding earlier reduction targets to include polystyrene foam containers, condiment sachets, and plastic bags. The company plans to eliminate 2.7 billion single-use plastic items by 2025. These ubiquitous singleuse plastic items can harm marine life and ecosystems if they enter the oceans. This victory follows campaigning by Oceana and the United Nations Environment Program’s Clean Seas Campaign. In 2021, iFood publicly committed to an 80% reduction in napkins and plastic cutlery, plates, cups, and straws included in orders by 2025.

© Shutterstock/PW.Stocker

Oceana and its allies, including Dusky the shark, campaigned for U.S. Members of Congress to support an end to the U.S. shark fin trade.

© Oceana/Patrick Mustain

Former U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) was one of the Members of Congress to first introduce the bill to ban sales of shark fins in 2016. This bipartisan bill, which passed in December, will remove the United States from the global fin trade.

© Oceana/Vincent Ricadel

Polystyrene foam, as pictured here, and other single-use plastic packaging products are unlikely to be recycled and often make their way into our oceans. 33 billion pounds of plastic pollution flood into the ocean every year.

Amazon publicly reports on plastic packaging footprint for first time

For the third year, Oceana analyzed e-commerce packaging data to estimate Amazon’s plastic packaging footprint, finding that the company’s plastic waste grew from 599 million pounds in 2020 to 709 million pounds in 2021 (an 18% increase). Up to 26 million pounds of this plastic waste will end up polluting the world’s waterways and seas, Oceana found. Historically, Amazon has not responded to Oceana’s requests for data about its plastic use. The week Oceana’s report was set to launch in December 2022, however, Amazon disclosed in a blog post that it used over 214 million pounds of single-use plastic in 2021 to ship orders to customers. This is the first time the company has ever released data on its plastic packaging use. While Oceana estimated Amazon’s total plastic packaging footprint, the figures Amazon released exclude plastic used in Amazon orders that are fulfilled through third-party sellers.

In its report, Oceana urges Amazon to publicly report on its total plastic packaging footprint, take responsibility for the climate impact of its products, and make a company-wide commitment to reduce the total plastic packaging it uses. Support for company-wide

action is growing. At Amazon’s Annual General Meeting in May 2022, a resolution asking the company to be transparent and address its growing plastic packaging problem received 49% of the vote — the most support for any shareholder-led resolution in Amazon’s history.

Peru protects sharks, seahorses, and other marine species from illegal trafficking

In November 2022, Peru’s Congress enacted a law that now includes illegal wildlife trafficking in the country’s Law Against Organized Crime. Oceana and its allies were instrumental in achieving this victory, which will help protect hundreds of aquatic and terrestrial species, including sharks. Thirty tons of shark parts were seized in Peru in 2018 alone. Peru is now the first South American country to declare illegal wildlife trafficking as a form of organized crime. This victory will give Peruvian authorities more legal tools to enforce the law and penalize those operating criminal networks.

Illegal trafficking of seahorses, sharks, and other marine and terrestrial species is now considered a form of organized crime in Peru.

© Oceana/Andre Baertschi

Oceana has estimated Amazon’s plastic packaging footprint for the last three years. In 2021, the company’s plastic packaging footprint grew by 18% to 709 million pounds. That’s enough plastic to circle the Earth more than 800 times in the form of air pillows.

News & Notes

Oceana premieres documentary in Chile featuring Kawésqar community and expedition to Katalalixar

In January 2023, Oceana premiered a documentary, “Katalalixar: The Ancestral Ocean,” featuring footage from a cultural expedition to Katalalixar, the ancestral homeland of the Indigenous Kawésqar people, located west of Chilean Patagonia. On the 15-day journey to Katalalixar, Oceana staff members traveled with a Kawésqar family, who shared their intimate knowledge of the local land and sea. The goal of the documentary is to bring national attention to the Kawésqar and their home in Katalalixar, and to grow public support for banning any industrial project in this area that would devastate the marine ecosystem.

After premiering in Santiago and showing in Coyhaique, the documentary was made available to the public during the Santiago Wild Festival in March 2023. The film was released in Spanish, along with an English subtitled version.

Political, Indigenous, and community leaders gather with Oceana in Canada to chart course for rebuilding wild fisheries

Indigenous leaders, policymakers, journalists, fishing industry leaders, and oceans and fisheries experts from across Canada — as well as special guest Oceana Board Chair Sam Waterston — gathered in late October 2022 for Oceana Canada’s symposium, “Rebuilding Abundance: Priorities for a Resilient Ocean.” The goal: chart a course to rebuild Canada’s depleted fish populations and ensure the longterm health of coastal communities, seafood economies, and oceans.

Following the symposium, Oceana Canada released its sixth annual Fishery Audit, which found that Canada continues to overfish depleted stocks and has failed to support rebuilding wild fish populations or adapt to climate change, despite progress since Oceana’s first symposium in 2016. At the event, the Honorable Joyce Murray, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard, voiced a commitment to strong rebuilding plans delivered on time.

Oceana’s crew was at sea for 15 days, documenting the unique connection between the Kawésqar people and the waters and lands of Katalalixar.

© Oceana/Valeria Fuentes

Ken Paul, member of the Wolastoqey First Nation, speaks on a panel titled “An Abundant Ocean is our Legacy.”

© Oceana Canada/Evermaven

Stopping the expansion of offshore drilling can make a big climate impact, new report finds

Nearly 30% of the world’s oil and gas comes from offshore drilling, a dirty and dangerous practice that threatens marine life and coastal communities, all while exacerbating the climate crisis. Ahead of the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt in November 2022, Oceana released a new analysis, “Beyond Expectations: Ocean Solutions to Prevent Climate Catastrophe,” which found that stopping the expansion of offshore drilling would reduce emissions more than any other ocean-based solution. This move, combined with reduced fossil fuel demand as cleaner energy comes online, would deliver up to 13% of the annual greenhouse gas emission reductions needed to prevent the worst effects of the climate crisis.

COP27 leaders failed to agree on a phasedown of fossil fuels and are not keeping pace with the goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, despite the fact

that many countries including Costa Rica, Belize, and Denmark have already stopped granting licenses for offshore oil and gas exploration.

Dr. Kathryn Matthews, Chief Scientist at Oceana, said, “This

June Diane Raphael wins big for Oceana on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune

June Diane Raphael, actress, writer, and Oceana supporter, played “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune” battling fellow contestants Jamie Camil and Michael Rapaport in an episode of the U.S. word puzzle-solving game show that aired in November 2022. Raphael chose to play on behalf of Oceana — and won! Raphael’s impressive gameplay earned Oceana $160,000, including $75,000 during a highstakes bonus round, that will support Oceana’s campaigns to protect and restore the world’s oceans.

report makes it clear that ocean solutions are climate solutions. If we’re serious about preventing catastrophic climate change, protecting the ocean is essential.”

Actress June Diane Raphael spun her way to victory in the U.S. game show “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune,” benefiting Oceana.

© Carol Kaelson/Wheel of Fortune®/© 2022 Califon Productions, Inc. ARR

Stopping new offshore drilling, combined with other ocean-based solutions, can deliver nearly 40% of the global emission reductions needed to keep the planet from warming to catastrophic levels, Oceana found.

© Oceana/Juan Cuetos

Sharks Under Threat

The Global Trade Endangering the Ocean’s Top Predators

By Sarah Holcomb

© Oceana/Perrin James 10

When a policy advisor from a United States Representative’s office arrived at Oceana headquarters in Washington D.C. the evening of the December Board Reception, he wasn’t just there to socialize. Instead, he delivered big news, fresh from Capitol Hill, to Oceana’s Vice President of the U.S., Beth Lowell and her team. It was official: After years of campaigning by Oceana and its allies, the U.S. was exiting the global shark fin trade.

Leading up to the announcement, reports about whether the ban on the shark fin trade — officially known as the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act — would be included in the soon-to-beapproved National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) changed by the day. Lowell and her team, who campaigned for this goal for nearly seven years, wanted to see the text with their own eyes. So, after the reception, they escaped to an empty local bar and scrolled the 879-page NDAA document on their phones to find the bill. “There it was,” Lowell remembers. “It felt like a scene from a movie.” Two weeks later, President Biden signed the act into law.

The United States has played an important role in the shark fin trade, even after the U.S. outlawed shark finning — the cruel practice of cutting off a shark’s fins and

throwing it back into the water to face certain death — and required that sharks be landed with their fins attached (an earlier Oceana victory). Fins from as many as 73 million sharks end up in the global shark fin market every year. And, until now, shark fins were still legally bought and sold in many U.S. states.

“Almost two decades of work at Oceana has focused on protecting sharks,” Lowell says. Oceana’s campaigns have targeted shark finning — the biggest threat to shark populations’ survival. Just as the demand for ivory horns and tusks endangered rhinos and elephants, the shark fin trade endangers sharks. Nine of the top 10 shark species in the fin trade are at risk of extinction.

In 2019, Oceana and its allies successfully campaigned to ban the import and export of shark fins in Canada, becoming the first G20 nation to do so. The U.S. is now joining Canada. The new law will not only protect millions of sharks in U.S. waters; its effects will be felt worldwide. Yet this victory is hardly the end of the story. A pervasive and fraught trade for shark fins — as well as shark meat and other products — persists across the planet. And it poses a threat to sharks, ecosystems, and everyone who relies on healthy oceans.

A shark swims in West End, Bahamas.

Behind the global shark fin trade

Sharks have been around for over 400 million years, even longer than trees. Today over 450 species of sharks roam the world’s oceans, from the shortfin mako shark that can swim as fast as 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) per hour and traverse entire oceans, to the graceful, slowmoving whale shark that eventually can reach the size of a school bus.

Sharks are not just an incredible assortment of species; they play a pivotal part in ocean ecosystems. Often considered apex predators, sharks keep populations in check and the environment in balance. “The oceans need healthy shark populations,” reminds Gib Brogan, Campaign Director at Oceana. Compared to other fish, sharks grow slowly and only have a few young at a time. These biological factors work in favor of the food chain, but they make sharks especially vulnerable to overfishing. Over one-third of sharks and rays are threatened with extinction, mostly due to overfishing.

While popular movies like “Jaws” have shaped the public imagination by depicting sharks as bloodthirsty monsters, it’s humans who endanger sharks, not the other way around. Globally, oceanic shark and ray populations have declined over the past 50 years by as much as 70%, according to a 2021 study in Nature. Sharks are often fished for their fins, and fins are primarily used for one thing: a sought-after delicacy known as “shark fin soup.”

Shark fin soup has long symbolized status and wealth in East Asia, tracing back over a thousand years to ancient emperors. Essentially chewy cartilage, the shark fins themselves are tasteless; it’s the broth that gives the soup its flavor. According to Chinese

tradition, the fins offer health benefits. But recent studies have found fins contain mercury and methylmercury, making them unsafe for human consumption.

China is the world’s top consumer of shark fin soup, despite decreasing demand over the last decade. Demand for the soup remains strong in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau, and is increasingly popular in other parts of Asia including Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, according to a 2018 report. Dried fins are stocked on market shelves, while soup is served at restaurants, weddings, and events.

Shark fin soup may not be on most menus in the United States, but the U.S. still exports shark fins to Hong Kong and China. Until now, exporting the fins has been legal; the Shark Finning Prohibition Act passed in 2000 banned shark finning in U.S. waters, not the trade of fins with other countries. From 2016 to 2022, the U.S. imported

over 200,000 kg (more than 440,000 lbs) of shark fins worth nearly $1.7 million and exported over 300,000 kg (more than 660,000 lbs) of shark fins worth $4.1 million. That’s according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) foreign trade data — the number could be higher given unreported activity.

“It’s already illegal to cut off the sharks’ fins, so it shouldn’t be legal to sell them either,” reasons U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-TX, who championed and co-sponsored the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act in the House of Representatives.

McCaul and his wife Linda, an oceanographer and philanthropist, have gone swimming with sharks — an experience that reinforced to McCaul that the animals are “clearly misunderstood” and misrepresented in threatening media depictions. A documentary opened his eyes to the cruelty of the fin trade.

Globally, oceanic shark and ray populations have declined over the past 50 years by as much as 70%.

Often considered apex predators, sharks keep populations in check and the environment in balance.

© Oceana/Carlos Suarez

“I took up the bill after Rep. Ed Royce [R-CA] — who first introduced it back in 2017 — retired,” McCaul recalls. “By that point, Texas had already banned the fin trade, but our federal highways could still be used to traffic fins through the state. So I knew it was up to Congress to eradicate this gruesome practice from our nation.”

Del. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, D-MP, co-sponsored the bill in the House. Meanwhile, Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, and Sen. Shelley Capito, R-WV, introduced the bill multiple times in the Senate and were essential to its success. As a result of the bipartisan effort, the U.S. will no longer participate in the trade, which involves countries on nearly every continent.

Regulations and rule breakers

In 2018, environmental prosecutors stopped a truck bound for Lima, Peru. The truck was loaded with 51 bags of wrapped shark fins — representing more than 2,000 sharks — smuggled from Ecuador. The final destination: Hong Kong.

“Today’s wildlife crimes use

the same channels and mode of operating as drug trafficking,” says Dr. Alicia Kuroiwa, Oceana’s Director for Habitats and Endangered Species in Peru. “Most of the time you know there’s a criminal organization behind it.” Yet only those who were caught transporting the wildlife in Peru are typically investigated, instead of the entire chain, Kuroiwa explains.

In Peru, Oceana has been training law enforcement authorities to identify when fins are illegally traded. During the four-year investigation of the crime, Oceana helped identify the fins and found that many belonged to at least six threatened species that have trade restrictions, including the smooth hammerhead, pelagic thresher, and shortfin mako sharks. On Feb. 2, 2022, the buyer and seller were convicted in Peru’s first ever shark fin trafficking conviction.

To effectively go after these crimes in the future, though, judges and prosecutors needed better investigative tools. To access them, illegal wildlife trafficking had to be included in the Law for Organized Crime — and Oceana launched a successful campaign to do just that. The victory, secured in November 2022, empowers prosecutors with more strategies to dismantle criminal

wildlife trafficking networks, like intercepting communications, working with undercover agents, accessing bank and tax information, performing monitoring and surveillance, and more.

Yet a trade of this scale cannot be fully addressed at the national level. Because laws around shark finning and shark fishing vary dramatically, with some countries banning shark finning and others putting little to no regulations in place, contraband seems inevitable. That’s why the multilateral treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), exists: to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of international trade. CITES is made up of 184 Parties — 183 countries and the European Union — that meet every two to three years and vote on regulations.

CITES lists specific “Appendices” that determine what level of protection a species will receive. Most sharks protected by CITES are listed under Appendix II. This means that in order to legally trade them, export permits are required, and the sharks must be shown to come from sustainably fished stocks.

Bags of shark fins at a customs warehouse in Tumbes, Peru. Oceana has been training Peruvian law enforcement authorities how to identify fins that are illegally traded.

Shark fins are primarily used for shark fin soup, a sought-after delicacy in East Asia.

© Oceana/Alicia Kuroiwa © Oceana

Seven Sharks, Illustrated

About one-third of the world's shark and ray species are considered threatened with extinction, classified as "Vulnerable," "Endangered," and "Critically Endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Another 10% are "Near Threatened," meaning they may become threatened in the near future.

Shortfin

Shark Isurus oxyrinchus Endangered

Sphyrna zygaena Vulnerable

Species assessment from the IUCN Red List.

Whale

Rhincodon typus Endangered

Smooth Hammerhead Shark

Mako

Shark

Tiger Shark

Galeocerdo cuvier

Near Threatened

Pelagic Thresher

Alopias pelagicus

Endangered

Blue Shark

Prionace glauca

Near Threatened

Bull Shark

Carcharhinus leucas

Vulnerable

Since the first sharks were added to the list — the basking shark and the whale shark — in 2003, many other shark and ray species have joined them. In 2019, the Parties voted to add the shortfin and longfin mako shark, giant guitarfish, and wedgefishes to Appendix II.

But the biggest wave of shark species additions happened in November 2022, when the Parties voted to add over 60 species, including blue, tiger, and bull sharks — the most targeted by the fin trade. This groundbreaking moment means that nearly all shark species in the fin trade will be protected under CITES.

When it comes to implementing and enforcing the new CITES listings, however, challenges await.

“Once passed by vote under the CITES convention, particularly for species listed on Appendix II, there’s a lot of work still to be done. Every country must go through the legal and administrative procedures to incorporate the new listings into law, new regulations may need to be crafted, and enforcement agencies have to be trained to recognize what’s illegal,” Philip Chou, Senior Director of Global Policy at Oceana, explains.

In 2021, Kuroiwa analyzed all CITES export permit files issued by the CITES Management Authority in Peru and found that four metric tons of shark fins, representing over 5,000 sharks, were traded illegally. Sometimes traders reused supporting documents for different permits. Sometimes they used supporting documents from a species different than the one listed on the permit.

If a country does not follow regulations, CITES does have one strict measure — Article XIII — which would punish the country by closing trade for all CITES species (including everything from plants to other wildlife — not just sharks). Kuroiwa and others are in the process of appealing to Article XIII to drive Peruvian authorities to comply.

Meanwhile, outside of national jurisdictions, some shark species are swimming on the high seas. One of them, the blue shark, is the most traded shark of all.

Blue sharks are not just “bycatch”

Reproducing more quickly than other sharks, blue sharks are known for their abundance and resilience. These curious, openocean predators are named for their unique, metallic blue backs, but it’s their long pectoral front fins that frequently make them a fishing target. The other main reason blue sharks are targeted: their meat. Unlike most other sharks, processed blue shark meat doesn’t taste too bad (we’ve been told). Often mislabeled in dishes, shark meat can even be found in pet food disguised on product labels with generic names like “white fish” or “ocean fish.”

Blue sharks not only have desirable fins and meat; they can be caught in high numbers. Blue sharks make up a whopping 60% of all reported global shark catch and 36% of all traded shark meat (an increasing market, especially in Brazil). That’s according to a first-of-its kind report on blue sharks in 2022,

Blue sharks make up a whopping 60% of all reported global shark catch and 36% of all traded shark meat (an increasing market, especially in Brazil). That’s according to a first-of-its kind report on blue sharks in 2022, commissioned by Oceana.

commissioned by Oceana. Fortyone percent of all traded shark fins come from blue sharks, and Oceana estimated the global annual blue shark catch at more than seven million individuals.

Oceana found that 90% of the blue shark catch is brought in by largescale commercial fleets, mostly longliners, and distant-water fishing nations account for nearly threequarters of the catch. Spain and Taiwan alone are responsible for roughly half the total catch.

The sheer volume of catch makes blue shark a high-value industry. Based on data from point of sale, Oceana estimated the value of blue shark fisheries at $411 million, which surpasses that of any of the prized bluefin tuna species served at high-end sushi joints.

Despite all of this, the blue shark is largely unmanaged. Blue sharks are fished without any limit, except for a 2019 catch limit set under the jurisdiction of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), a regional fisheries management organization.

Tuna fisheries catch much of the blue shark as “bycatch,” but Oceana’s study found that some fleets were bringing in suspiciously more sharks than tuna — a trend that didn’t hold true for other fleets fishing in the same waters.

“For years, the fleets catching blue sharks have been claiming they are bycatch. This way, these fleets avoid the responsibility they have to do right by the species,” explains Oceana Chief Scientist Dr. Kathryn Matthews. “You can’t have it both ways. For too long, those commercial fleets got to have their cake and eat it too.”

If we do not change course, blue sharks could be exploited to the point of extinction. “Given these numbers, we need to put some guardrails into place now,” Chou says. Oceana’s report calls for fisheries management bodies to stop managing blue sharks simply as bycatch and put in place sciencebased fisheries management plans specifically for blue sharks.

Since CITES recently up-listed blue shark to Appendix II,

countries seeking to export blue shark internationally will need to show that these sharks come from sustainably fished stocks — hopefully catalyzing much-needed change.

Though possible — perhaps — for blue sharks, sustainable shark fisheries are elusive at best and an impossibility at worst, in light of widespread illicit activity and the fact that most shark populations reproduce and grow more slowly than other fish. Given the difficulty of implementing and enforcing regulations to keep shark populations sustainable, some countries — like Palau and Honduras — banned not only shark finning, but fishing sharks altogether.

A world without sharks

Most shark species simply cannot support ongoing commercial exploitation. And a world without sharks is a terrifying thing to imagine.

Sharks may seem “cool” or “special,” but that’s not the only reason we protect them, Matthews reminds us. “Sharks are important from a systems perspective. As awesome as they are to look at, they’re scientifically important because they’re keystone species that regulate the ecosystem... and in the absence of them, things start breaking down.”

No other fish can be cast to fill sharks’ crucial role in balancing ocean ecosystems. Declining shark populations will not only impact the health of ocean habitats already at risk from climate change and biodiversity loss; it will impact the communities who rely on a healthy ocean to survive. Saving sharks requires global protections and dedicated enforcement of them. Thankfully, it’s not too late.

Blue sharks are targeted for their fins and meat. Oceana estimated the value of blue shark fisheries at $411 million.

© Shutterstock/wildestanimal

Stewards of the Sea

Oceana’s Board Members Dr. Daniel Pauly and Dr. Rashid Sumaila were honored in February as the co-recipients of the prestigious 2023 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, which honors leading scientists and researchers for innovative contributions in the fields of environmental science, environmental health, and energy.

The Tyler Prize Committee honored Pauly with the award for his “critical contributions to fisheries ecology and conservation through the development of new ecosystem-based analytical approaches to assess global effects on world fisheries, and for helping the public visualize the decline of global fish stocks through The Sea Around Us and FishBase.”

Sumaila received the award in recognition of his “integration of economics, ecology, and other disciplines to sustainably manage ocean fishery resources for the benefit of current and future generations."

We asked Pauly and Sumaila to reflect on their work and what this award means to them.

Receiving an award as respected as the Tyler Prize has forced me to reflect on my career. In contrast to my usual ruminations — which tend to be focused on mistakes — I’ve decided I should concentrate on the things that worked, bringing us to this wonderful award.

Since the beginning of my career, I’ve aimed to empower my colleagues in the Global South, who had little access to the methods developed to study fisheries and draw inferences about the effects of exploitation on fish populations in the Global North. I programmed existing methods and invented new ones on programmable calculators, and later on microcomputers, which were widely adopted in the early 1980s.

This desire to empower colleagues eventually drove me, working with numerous others, to create and make relevant fishery data available through CD-ROM and later via the internet. For a long time, we didn’t have enough information about tropical fishes or a simple way to access that information. Starting in the late 1980s, I worked with Rainer Froese, a German colleague, and Filipino colleague M.L. “Deng” Palomares to initiate a database of basic information on fish that has since grown into FishBase (fishbase.org), which now covers all the fish of the world and is consulted daily by millions of users.

In the mid-1990s, when I moved from the Philippines to Canada, I began to document that the pathologies of fisheries I had observed throughout the Global South also occurred with the heavily subsidized fisheries of wealthy countries. I became involved with civil society, leading me to become a member of Oceana’s Board of Directors in

Dr. Daniel Pauly

© Kim Bellavance

Dr. Daniel Pauly and Dr. Rashid Sumaila receive top environmental honor

2003. I saw the need to address the lack of reliable information on industrial and artisanal fisheries everywhere, including in wealthy countries. This led us to create the Sea Around Us (seaaroundus. org), a database and website that presents fisheries catch data and related statistics for all countries of the world, including subsidies that I worked on with Rashid Sumaila, my friend, colleague, and fellow recipient of this award.

I hope that the Tyler Prize will help us raise the funding required to maintain FishBase and Sea Around Us database and website, which, like Wikipedia, are used by many but require resources to remain free public services.

Moving forward, my own research will increasingly focus on why fish and other animals that breathe water are extremely sensitive to the warming and deoxygenation of their world. Understanding this

understudied topic will be crucial to mitigating, to the extent possible, the effect of global warming on the world’s oceans and freshwaters, and I hope to spread this message in the years ahead.

Dr. Rashid Sumaila

Consider the basic model of the relationship between people and the ocean. When we go to the ocean, we do essentially two things. First, we take the things we want or need and bring them into our economic, social, and cultural systems, and do what we will with them. Then at the end, we generate waste and pump it back into the ocean. So, from the ocean good things come and to the ocean bad things go! Clearly, if we don’t use wisdom in how we take the good and dispense the bad, we can end up with a dead ocean with little or no life, which will undermine the mission to “save the oceans, feed the world.”

I won this award for my contributions to the development of what I call “interdisciplinary ocean and fisheries economics,” which seeks, through the integration of economics with other disciplines, to ensure that we do not end up with a dead ocean but rather “Infinity Fish.” I work at local, national, and global scales, since the ocean is present at all of them. Simply put, the whole world is my workplace. I have experience working in fisheries and natural resource projects in North America, Europe, Southern Africa, West Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific region, and the South and East China Seas.

My work has challenged today’s approaches to marine governance, generating exciting new ways of thinking about our relationship to the marine biosphere (e.g., protecting the high seas as a “fish bank” for the world); removing harmful subsidies, as estimated in collaboration with Daniel Pauly and Sea Around Us; and using “intergenerational discount rates” to evaluate natural resource projects based on the costs and benefits to future generations.

Winning the Tyler Prize is humbling, as it puts me among a select group of scientists. I am also pleased to receive this award during Black History Month because I hope that it can inspire Black people and others who have been historically excluded to keep pushing for a place under the sun to reach their own potential. Finally, this award is a recognition of excellence in interdisciplinary ocean and fisheries economics, a field that I hope will get a boost because the world needs more of it.

Oceana Board Members Dr. Rashid Sumaila, Diana Thomson, Dr. Daniel Pauly, and Board Chair Sam Waterston.

© Oceana Canada/Evermaven

Beneath the Fjords The Campaign to Protect Patagonia from Chile’s Salmon Farming Industry

By Sarah Holcomb

Oceana/Eduardo Sorensen

©

Salmon aquaculture pens in Southern Chile.

A young veterinary student embarking on her thesis, Dr. Liesbeth van der Meer was faced with a decision: What type of animals did she want to work with? The way she saw it, her options were large animals like horses and cows or small animals like cats and dogs. But then she heard about something new called “salmon aquaculture” that piqued her interest.

“I love animals, and it was very hard for me to deal with people,” she remembers, laughing. “So I said, why don’t I go into fish?” An extra perk: working in aquaculture would mean relocating to Chilean Patagonia, famous for its glacial fjords, temperate rainforest, and pristine waters.

Today, van der Meer is Senior Vice President at Oceana in Chile. Salmon aquaculture has grown into Chile’s second-largest industry. Chile is also home to the second-largest salmon aquaculture operation in the world, behind Norway.

But in 2002, salmon aquaculture was still nascent. Van der Meer decided to do her thesis at the country’s first major salmon aquaculture production facility, and after finishing it, joined the company’s staff as a veterinarian.

Van der Meer saw aquaculture — essentially breeding fish and other marine organisms — as a positive thing for the world. Because salmon are not endemic to Chile, however, they have no natural predators, which means that when a fish leaves the pen where it is growing, the salmon can cause great ecological harm in the surrounding waters. As van der Meer learned more, the then-24year-old had questions. Soon after, the fish started dying.

Telling the truth

Salmon are among the few fish considered “anadromous” — born into fresh water, they stay in fresh water for anywhere from a few months to a few years (varying based on species) before migrating to the ocean. Then they return to the fresh water to spawn, famously traveling upstream hundreds or even thousands of miles.

Aquaculture mimics this natural process. In the southern regions of Chile, far from the places where wild salmon swim in the Global North, salmon start out in land-based freshwater farms. The fish are then moved into a calibrated mixture of fresh and saltwater, and finally transferred to pens just off Chile’s southern coast in the Pacific Ocean.

But something was off at the facility where van der Meer worked. Stressed by the tight pens and suffering from a flesh-deteriorating fungus, the salmon started getting sick and dying off.

The solution? Antibiotics.

“We used this product called ‘malachite green,’” van der Meer

says. In Europe, the substance had been banned after research showed the chemical could cause cancer in humans. Chile prohibited malachite green starting in 2001. But when other treatments didn’t work, “we kept using it quietly,” van der Meer says. She didn’t feel right about it, now knowing the health risks.

When a manager arrived at the facility from Norway, van der Meer didn’t hide this information. She told him directly that they continued to use malachite green. Her boss was not pleased. “And of course,” she says, “I was fired.”

Van de Meer was angry. As a veterinarian, it was her responsibility to analyze and warn about risks of disease or chemical misuse. She stood by her decision to tell the truth, even though it meant losing her well-paying job, leaving her “house in paradise,” packing up her life and moving with her baby daughter back to Santiago.

“Remember me — someday I’ll be back,” she told her boss the next day. She spoke the words in frustration, but fate would make something more of them.

© Dr. Liesbeth van der Meer

Dr. Liesbeth van der Meer (middle) worked for the salmon aquaculture industry at the age of 24.Now she is working to protect the oceans from the threats posed by the industry and its antibiotic use.

Underwater factory farms

Salmon aquaculture production has nearly tripled since 2000. The fastest growing food production sector, aquaculture has cornered 70% of the global salmon market. Previously a luxury food, salmon is now part of the popular diet in Japan, the United States, and Europe. In 1982, Chile’s salmon production amounted to just over 300 metric tons. In 2021, Chile produced nearly 1 million metric tons, most of which was exported.

Unlike factory farms for poultry or pork, which create massive eyesores on land, salmon aquaculture can hardly be noticed from above. Looking out at the fjords of Patagonia, just a trace of the tops of cages are visible; the real impact reaches six stories below the water’s surface, where a million fish can live in each salmon farm.

The cages extend deep down to the seabed, home to species such as sea stars, sea cucumbers, crustaceans, coral, and microorganisms. For years, the lack of visibility meant few understood

what was happening in the waters below salmon farms, but divers and scientists have since delivered disturbing portraits of declining marine life.

For 10 years, marine biologist Vreni Häussermann, who dedicated her career to exploring the biodiversity of Chilean Patagonia, and a team of researchers surveyed marine life at a site in the Comau Fjord and found the ecosystems deteriorating. Oxygen levels dropped due to contamination and pollution of the waters.

Although more than 40% of Chile’s national waters are under some kind of environmental protection, concessions have been granted that allow access to the salmon farming industry. Thirty percent of these concessions lie in marine protected areas, including many sites in biologically rich Chilean Patagonia.

Salmon farming has created severe problems for these local ecosystems. In 2008, the infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus created a social and ecological crisis. In 2016,

© Oceana/Mauricio Altamirano

Salmon aquaculture in the Los Lagos region of Southern Chile. In the waters below, pollution from the farm flows onto the biodiverse seafloor.

15-20 meters

harmful algal blooms in southern Chile killed about 27 million salmon and trout. Other devastating algal blooms followed, and many raised concerns on the local and national level.

Some aquaculture, when properly located and managed, can benefit society and pose minimal threat to ocean ecosystems. But unlike the aquaculture of organisms like seaweed and bivalves, carnivorous ocean pen aquaculture — the salmon farming kind — requires chemicals, releases pollution, threatens the country’s artisanal fishing, and risks fish leaving pens and destroying local ecosystems. Simply put, it can be toxic. reports have found. When scientists tested these sites, they found antimicrobial-resistant bacteria and antimicrobial resistance genes.

The trouble with antibiotics

Van der Meer’s early career experience didn’t turn her away from aquaculture; instead it put her on a path to studying resource management and sustainability. This journey took her to Canada, where she learned more about how pesticides and antibiotics used in aquaculture can pose dangerous problems to the health of oceans — and humans.

Chilean salmon has earned a reputation, not for its flavor but for its antibiotics. Chilean salmon aquaculture uses large amounts of antimicrobials — primarily the antibiotic Florfenicol, used to treat bacterial diseases. Antibiotics are formulated as pellets and dropped in the water, but the fish aren’t able to effectively metabolize them and then eliminate the antibiotics into the water.

Moreover, some antibiotic feed goes uneaten, sinks into the seabed, and spreads out into the environment. The majority of antimicrobials administered to the fish end up in nearby environments,

In 2009, Chile’s salmon industry was using roughly 385 metric tons of antibiotics, 600 times more than Norway, the top producer of farmed salmon in the world. Chile’s antibiotic use reached a peak in 2015, when researchers found up to 600 grams of antibiotics were used per one metric ton of salmon produced in Chile, compared with .39 grams per metric ton used in Scotland and Norway.

Companies have since reduced the amount of antibiotics they use per metric ton of salmon in Chile. Because the industry is growing, however, total antibiotic use has climbed according to the latest report from Sernapesca (Chile’s National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service). These antibiotics have affected other animals close to aquaculture sites, such as shellfish.

The effects don’t end in the water. There’s a potential link between antibiotics used in aquaculture and increased bacterial resistance in humans — a public health threat that can lead to dangerous virus outbreaks and increased mortality.

© Oceana/Rio Puelo

Chilean salmon has earned a reputation, not for its flavor, but for its antibiotics.

© Oceana/Edmundo Gómez

Carnivorous ocean pen aquaculture requires chemicals, releases pollution, threatens the country’s artisanal fishing, and risks fish leaving pens and destroying local ecosystems.

See you in court

In Canada, van der Meer started working with Oceana Board Members Dr. Daniel Pauly and Dr. Rashid Sumaila, whom she credits with helping to shape her own thinking. “How they saw the whole picture was amazing to me, and I fell in love with fisheries,” van der Meer says. She embraced the scientists’ “systems approach,” looking not just at fisheries, but economics and consumer decisionmaking.

After working with Pauly and Sumaila, she returned to Chile and joined Oceana, initially the only NGO working on salmon aquaculture issues in Chile, as Fisheries Campaign Director. She was eventually paired up with Javiera Calisto to work on a new salmon aquaculture campaign.

Calisto was a young lawyer at the time. Together with van der Meer, she filed the first claim in 2014 to require Chile’s salmon aquaculture industry to make its antibiotics data public through Sernapesca. Companies resisted, claiming that this was proprietary information and releasing it would hurt their bottom line. Calisto set out to prove otherwise.

“Most companies use the same antibiotic. It wasn’t a secret. We weren’t asking for details on how they were used,” she says. “We proved accessing this information is important for the public interest because the excessive use of antibiotics can affect local communities and the environment.” She also pointed out that the aquaculture companies were already providing this information to the fisheries service, in line with legal requirements.

Calisto and Oceana lost the civil court case. They took it to the court of appeals — and, against the odds, won in 2015. “This was the first big win in accessing information on environmental issues,” explains Calisto, who is now Marine Pollution Campaign Director at Oceana in Chile. “We realized that politically and legally, we created jurisprudence. This was a big deal.”

Now required to make their antibiotics figures public, the companies changed their tactic: delay, delay, delay. By delaying the court, they ensured that by the time Oceana and the public could access the information it would be less relevant.

In 2017, Oceana finally received the data originally requested in 2014. With that information, Oceana showed that some companies were using 14 times more antibiotics than others in Chile — which led the government to set rules around density of salmon farms and put pressure on companies to reduce the use of antibiotics. But they needed more timely transparency to affect change.

“We decided to go to the root of the problem,” Calisto says. “We needed to change the law.” In 2023, Oceana did exactly that.

A full-circle victory

Oceana campaigned for Sernapesca to publish data on antibiotics usage every month. The team worked with lawmakers, fellow nonprofits, and even groups within the Chilean salmon aquaculture industry to secure their support. By now, some aquaculture companies published data in their own sustainability reports — though the numbers, unlike the official ones published by Sernapesca, weren’t verified. Oceana campaigned to require Sernapesca to publish data on the use of antibiotics and antiparisitics, mortalities, and the number of salmon produced by company and by facility.

Oceana used not only an environmental argument, but an economic one: The lack of environmental standards is driving down the value of Chilean salmon and damaging Patagonia, a beautiful tourism destination. Meanwhile, with Calisto, van der Meer, and Senior Oceana Fisheries Campaigner Cesar Astete leading the way, Oceana campaigned to create more awareness among the public, explaining why antibiotic resistance impacts health.

© Oceana/Claudio Almarza

The lack of environmental standards is driving down the value of Chilean salmon and damaging Patagonia, famous for its beauty and biodiversity.

Transparency is important, but the team didn’t stop there. They wanted to penalize salmon releases — or, as many call them, "escapes" — which happen due to aquaculture companies' negligence. Although bad weather is common in Southern Chile, some companies are not using salmon pens designed to withstand it. The storms cause pens to tear apart and sink to the bottom of the sea. Companies also fail to maintain the steel pens, which wear out and crack over time. As a result of these circumstances, salmon are released, introducing threats to the surrounding ecosystem.

“Proving this damage is very complicated — how do you prove that the specific salmon that left the farm harmed the environment? In the new legislation we established a system where if a salmon is introduced into the natural environment, a fine is given because a risk is produced," Calisto says. “For example, this logic is used in traffic regulation. If you pass a red traffic light but do not cause an accident, you still pay a fine because you’re creating risk.”

Not only did the transparency requirement pass in Chile’s congress, but for the first time, the law considers salmon releases to cause direct environmental damage. The new law will make the industry pay approximately $28 for every salmon that is released. The last major event in 2019 involved 690,000 farmed salmon entering the marine environment, which now could incur a fine of $19 million.

Farms that allow releases must suspend their operations. The law also allows local artisanal fishers to catch these salmon, which will further reduce the threat of damage to the marine environment. “We’re happy for this chapter to

Meanwhile in Maine

Oceana is campaigning to protect the U.S. state of Maine’s Frenchman Bay, located next to Acadia National Park, from a massive industrial salmon farm. Proposed by Norwegian-backed company American Aquafarms, this would be the largest marine salmon farm in the United States. Two sites would house 15 salmon pens each, with up to 742,000 fish per pen.

end,” van der Meer says, “but it’s not over yet.”

What comes next? “I think our main worry now is how to decrease [salmon] biomass,” van der Meer says, because “the industry’s expectation is to keep growing.” She and her team are focused on protecting pristine places for good in Chilean Patagonia, such as Katalalixar, ancestral homeland of the Kawésqar people, “so that their great-grandchildren will never see salmon aquaculture there.”

For van der Meer, the latest victory marks a full-circle moment, as she remembers the conversation when she was fired at the aquaculture company years ago. “Little did my boss know that he would see me many years later winning big battles against salmon aquaculture,” she says.

She feels grateful. “I get to fulfill my dreams, work on saving what I’m passionate about, and make that conviction I had when I was 24 years old worthwhile.”

The farm would pump 4.1 billion gallons of untreated wastewater per day from the pens into the bay, including large amounts of nitrogen, threatening the area’s fragile ecosystem.

American Aquafarms’ permit was rejected by Maine’s state government in April 2022 due to egg sourcing issues, but the company has not given up. American Aquafarms has repeatedly told the press that it intends to refile its permit applications.

Frenchman Bay supports many fishermen, lobstermen, and small-scale aquaculture farmers and provides habitat for important species including eelgrass, sea scallops, blue mussels, and lobster. Oceana and its allies are calling on decision-makers to enact clear limits on the biomass, stocking density, and location of marine finfish farms to protect the state’s coastal ecosystems and economies.

© Oceana/Herederos del Mar Claudio Almazara

© Oceana

Dr. Liesbeth van der Meer, Senior Vice President at Oceana in Chile, has spent her career working to protect the oceans from threats including salmon aquaculture. This victory marks the achievement of a life goal for van der Meer.

To 30x30 and Beyond

Countries around the world are working to protect 30% of their land and sea by 2030. Oceana is contributing to this goal and working with allies to protect even more marine habitat.

By Emily Petsko

Red rockfish swim around a yellow tree coral. This photo was taken during a 2018 expedition to Canada’s seamounts in British Columbia.

© OET, WHOI MISO, Northeast Pacific Seamount Expedition Partners.

Off the western coast of Canada in the Northeast Pacific, an underwater mountain range looms large. These submerged peaks — once active volcanoes — are now hotbeds of marine activity.

Strong currents flank these seamounts, delivering a steady flow of food to local fauna.

Ancient sponges and corals cling to cliffs, nourished by the nutrientrich waters that well up from the ocean’s depths. Migrating humpback whales and orcas drop in to get their fill. And an array of other animals, from octopuses to crabs to rockfish, all have a part to play in this intricate underwater web.

Despite the importance of these waters to marine life and local communities, less than 6% of the Northeast Pacific Seamounts are protected. Oceana, along with the Canadian federal government, academic partners, and First Nations partners, explored the area in a 2018 expedition. Oceana has supported the call to establish a marine protected area (MPA), co-managed by First Nations, that safeguards over 133,000 square

kilometers (over 51,000 square miles) of ocean from all industrial activities, including the kinds of bottom-contact fishing gear that destroy healthy habitats.

This MPA would cover more than 2% of Canada’s marine territory, moving the nation closer to preserving 30% of its ocean — a commitment made by Canada’s federal government as part of the history-making global 30x30 initiative to protect 30% of the planet’s land and sea by 2030. Only 8% of the world’s oceans are currently protected, but calls for more sweeping conservation measures are growing louder.

During the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Canada in December 2022, nearly 200 countries approved an ambitious agreement that includes the 30x30 target, better methods of measuring progress, and an acknowledgement of the importance of working closely with Indigenous peoples and other local communities whose history and connections to the land and sea must be respected.

Oceana and its allies have successfully campaigned to create MPAs in critically important waters around the world. Oceana also pairs these protections with other policy changes that improve the overall health of the ocean.

“If you have a tightly protected area surrounded by an extremely degraded ocean, it won’t stay healthy for long because the ocean is so interconnected,” explains Joshua Laughren, Senior Vice President for Oceana Canada. “Meeting 30x30 will be a tremendous achievement, but there are other habitat actions and protections that are necessary to ensure that the areas we protect through 30x30 are — and remain — healthy.”

Oceana’s “all-of-the-above” approach to 30x30 includes not only creating new MPAs, but also strengthening the management of existing ones, working with local communities and Indigenous Peoples to protect coastal waters, and limiting destructive activities such as bottom trawling and oil and gas drilling.

© OET, WHOI MISO, Northeast Pacific Seamount Expedition Partners.

© OET, WHOI MISO, Northeast Pacific Seamount Expedition Partners.

Oceana researchers documented the trumpet-shaped bugle sponges (left) and a shortspine thornyhead (right), among many other species, in the Canadian seamounts.

Biodiversity boosters

To date, Oceana and its allies have protected more than 10 million square kilometers (nearly 4 million square miles) of ocean habitat around the world. This includes both MPAs and bans against bottom trawling, a form of fishing that drags a heavy net across the seafloor, bulldozing everything in its path.

Delegates at COP15 enshrined the 30x30 goal in the international agreement, but did not specify how that target should be reached. Tools include strict “no-take” zones where all fishing is prohibited, areas co-managed with communities or Indigenous Peoples, and multi-use areas. The intention is for these areas to provide longterm, enforceable protection and conserve biodiversity.

When created in the right places and under the right management conditions, MPAs and other marine reserves have been proven to preserve biodiversity, help overfished species recover, and make habitats more resilient to climate change. These protections also yield numerous human benefits. For example, a study in Nature found that strategic ocean protection could improve the health of fish populations, resulting in an increase in the global fish catch by 8 million metric tons.

“When we leave areas protected so fish can reproduce, it means more fish in surrounding waters, too, where local fishers are free to catch them,” says Dr. Kathryn Matthews, Chief Scientist at Oceana.

This is crucial to countries like the Philippines, where more than 100

million people are nutritionallydependent on fish. Oceana is campaigning to create a protected seascape, connecting MPAs in the coral-rich waters surrounding Panaon Island, a small island in the Philippines. Healthy coral reefs are bustling with biodiversity, and in many parts of the world they play an outsized role in a community’s food security and nutrition.

Oceana surveyed 188 fishing households on Panaon Island and found that over one-third of respondents rely on nearly all of their catch to feed their families. In addition, 79% of households believe that marine sanctuaries have a positive impact on their livelihoods.

Places like Panaon Island can only offer a range of benefits if they are properly protected. In Europe, Oceana is campaigning to strengthen the management of “paper parks” that are protected on paper, but not in practice. Oceana found that destructive fishing methods like bottom trawling were occurring in 86% of “protected” areas that were specifically created to safeguard seabeds.

In fact, the average intensity of bottom trawling in MPAs across the European Union was 1.4 times higher than in non-protected areas, according to a 2018 study co-authored by Dr. Boris Worm, an Oceana Science Advisor and professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

“Achieving some form of legal protection for 30% of the ocean’s area is critical — and ensuring that those protected areas receive proper management and enforcement is too,” says Matthews.

When we leave areas protected so fish can reproduce, it means more fish in surrounding waters, too, where local fishers are free to catch them.

–Dr. Kathryn Matthews, Chief Scientist at Oceana

© Oceana/Danny Ocampo

Oceana is campaigning to protect Panaon Island, a rich coral reef in the Philippines that, if protected, would benefit marine life and the people there who depend on the ocean.

Coasts with the most

In addition to establishing and improving MPAs, Oceana also focuses on protecting coastal waters for the benefit of local communities and small-scale fishers.

Peru has some of the most productive seas in the world, including the world’s biggest fishery for anchovies. The majority of this enormous offshore fishery is exported and used as fishmeal to feed livestock or in the aquaculture industry. On the other hand, coastal waters are especially important to artisanal fishers and local communities.

On paper, artisanal fishers are given exclusive fishing rights up to five nautical miles from the coast, where they can catch coastal fish and invertebrates without worrying about interference and unfair competition from industrial trawlers (though industrial trawlers do not always respect these rights). The coastal zone provides livelihoods and income for coastal communities who often have few other options.

Some small-scale fishing methods are better for the oceans than others, however. Some local fishers are using long fishing nets called purse seines to ensnare anchovies. Because these nets are designed for deeper waters, they can drag along the seafloor and cause damage in much the same way a bottom trawl would.

These nets are responsible for higher rates of bycatch and can also snag the lines of other artisanal fishers who use hooks to catch fish. In extreme cases, they can even pose a safety risk to divers searching for shellfish and octopus.

“Sometimes divers see these long nets and feel threatened because they could become trapped in them,” says Juan Carlos Riveros, Oceana’s Science Director in Peru. “At the very least, long purse seine nets can displace their equipment and close off certain areas to fishers.”

Oceana is campaigning to ban this type of fishing gear up to three miles from Peru’s coast and ensure these regulations are enforced by using satellites to monitor the location of vessels.

Riveros said artisanal fishers tend to take the least from the ocean, but suffer the most from the consequences of overfishing, bycatch, and habitat destruction. Fishers in Peru have had no choice but to bring smaller and smaller fish to market over the years — a biological consequence of placing too much fishing pressure on populations of larger fish.

“In most cases, fishers are fully aware of the problems they have, but in some ways they are trapped in their situation,” Riveros reflects. “One fisher told me, ‘Ten years ago, I would not take this small fish with me. I would release it. But now I have to take it because it’s the only fish that I have to feed my people.’ And that’s a problem.”

Oceana’s team in Peru is campaigning for new, national fisheries legislation that would better protect the artisanal zone by banning damaging fishing gear, increasing surveillance of illegal fishing, and enforcing regulations that keep fish stocks healthy.

© Qualtagh Visuals

© Oceana/Sebastián Castañeda

Artisanal fishers on Santa Rosa Beach, Peru, unload their catch. Oceana is campaigning to better protect the five nautical miles from the coast that is reserved exclusively for artisanal fishers.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, Oceana is also campaigning for healthier coasts and mangrove habitats. These hardy trees act as nurseries for baby fish, sequester large amounts of carbon in their roots, and even form a natural buffer that protects coastal residents from typhoons, which have increased in frequency and severity due to climate change. However, aquaculture companies and developers have already wiped out more than half of the country’s mangroves, leaving marine life and communities vulnerable. Now Oceana is campaigning to conserve and restore mangroves before they are lost to industry.

Coastal protections like these achieve many of the same goals as “formal” MPAs: stopping activities that jeopardize the health of the oceans and livelihoods of local populations.

a combination of science, law, policy, grassroots organizing, and communications to protect locally important waters — is designed to halt destructive activities in their tracks.

Artisanal fishers in Chile teamed up with Oceana to create the Juan Fernández Archipelago Marine Park — the largest marine park in the Americas — which protected the area from threats such as bottom trawling while allowing lobster fishers to continue their centuriesold sustainable fishing practices. They have also been central to Oceana’s successful campaign to protect the waters off of Pisagua Bay, where the abundance of phytoplankton, krill, and prawn are a major draw for commercially valued fish and other species.

protections against bottom trawling in their municipal waters. In Brazil, artisanal fishers flooded their state representatives with WhatsApp messages and successfully convinced them to vote for a bottom trawling ban in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. Coastal communities across the U.S. have rallied against the expansion of offshore drilling.

All of these habitat campaigns support the global 30x30 goal — either directly or indirectly — by winning habitat protections, coast by coast and country by country. For 30x30 to truly be global in scope and successful in the longterm, local communities must continue to be part of the process, Laughren emphasizes.

Oceana’s approach — partnering with local communities and using

Around the world, other communities are also organizing. Belizeans banded together to stop bottom trawling and offshore drilling — which threatens the health of ocean ecosystems and exacerbates the climate crisis — in all of their country’s waters. Filipinos achieved similar

"We want to make sure that the protections we’re creating are for the benefit of local people and Indigenous communities so that they can continue to benefit from the ocean’s resources in a sustainable way,” Laughren says. “Only then can we claim that 30% of the ocean is protected.”

Local partners, proven results

© Oceana/Eduardo Sorensen

Following campaigning by Oceana and its allies, Chile recently created a new marine protected area, Pisagua Sea, that will protect marine life and artisanal fishers in Northern Chile.

Q+A Meet Hugo Tagholm, Oceana’s new leader for the UK

You grew up mudlarking (the urban version of beachcombing) on the shores of England’s River Thames. How did your earliest memories on the water impact you?

Hugo Tagholm is the Vice President and Executive Director of Oceana’s newly expanded policy campaigns in the United Kingdom. A seasoned campaigner, leader, ocean advocate, and surfer, he previously served as Chief Executive of Surfers Against Sewage, one of the U.K.’s top marine conservation and campaigning charities. Tagholm founded the Plastic Free Communities movement, the Million Mile Beach Clean, and the Plastic Free Awards.

HT: As a youngster I was endlessly fascinated by all things wild, especially life on and under the water. Exploring the shoreline of the Thames, which people often forget is tidal, exposed me to debris washing up — coins, clay pipes, pottery, and more. That was a strong precursor to my extensive campaign on plastic, which is a much more insidious pollutant. Years later, I’m proud to regularly speak in the Houses of Parliament not far from where I scoured the banks of the river, helping to deliver meaningful policy changes on plastic pollution, water quality, and the climate.

Prior to joining Oceana, you led the U.K. advocacy and campaigning organization Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) for 14 years. How did you mobilize the surfing community to protect the oceans?

HT: As we grew Surfers Against Sewage into one of the most influential environmental voices in the country, much of our impact was driven by passionate supporters — volunteers, members, donors, citizen scientists — all of whom connected to the ocean in one way or another. We worked with surfers, swimmers, beach lovers, wildlife watchers, and vacationers and created campaigns that inspired, empowered, and

connected them in action. We mobilized over 150,000 beach clean-up volunteers annually, developed a powerful network of local leaders, used digital technology to enable citizens to lobby policymakers, and much more. We reached millions of people every year with our work thanks to a shared love of Planet Ocean. (And a fantastic team of campaigners, communicators, and fundraisers!)

Surfing is my passion. Particularly getting in the water with my 14-year-old son, Darwin. I believe an authentic connection with the ocean is a powerful motivator. That‘s why I live and work from Cornwall, where many brilliant ocean activists and leaders reside. The wild, rugged coastline of Cornwall motivates me every day. Connecting with the ocean has helped me take an authentic and powerful story to Parliament, the United Nations, meetings with Royalty, and other corridors of power.

At SAS, you campaigned to institute and enforce policies in the U.K. that eliminate singleuse plastics, decrease sewage pollution, and more. What victory are you most proud of?

HT: There are many across our campaigns. I’m proud to have campaigned successfully for the plastic bag charge in the U.K., which has reduced plastic bag circulation by billions. I also successfully campaigned for a deposit return scheme, to be introduced this year, which will

© Nick Pumphrey

stop hundreds of millions of plastic bottles from entering the ocean annually. Our team’s work on water quality has helped ensure proper funds are allocated to stop sewage spills in the coming decades. We used technology and data to expose the scale and extent of sewage pollution, then connected our supporters with policymakers to express their discontent almost daily through the Safer Seas & Rivers Service.

I’m also proud that we brought influential people into the organization including His Majesty King Charles III, who supported Surfers Against Sewage while he was still the Prince of Wales. I’ve worked with leading environmentalists, broadcasters, politicians, business leaders, and NGOs throughout my career, and I’m grateful for the opportunities to create positive change for the ocean with so many over the years.

What drew you to Oceana?

HT: Oceana stands out in this space, particularly on policy change, where I believe we can have some of the biggest wins for our oceans. The U.K. has incredibly productive, biodiverse seas, so the opportunity to lead the expansion of Oceana in the U.K. to forge punchy campaigns for thriving seas piqued my interest. I look forward to helping establish our team and develop new campaigns to protect U.K.’s waters.

What do you see as the most urgent issue facing the oceans in the U.K.?

HT: Overfishing and the lack of properly enforced marine protected areas (MPAs) are huge issues facing our seas, as is the expansion

of oil and gas in the North Sea. The climate emergency looms large over our coastline, seas, and communities. We already see communities in planned retreat from the encroaching waters in some parts of the country. Plastic pollution is sadly endemic on all U.K. beaches, as it is around the world. We need bold and progressive policies to stop the plastic pollution crisis at the national and international levels.

What can we expect to see from Oceana in the U.K. in the next few years?

HT: With a general election looming, this is a fantastic time to campaign for policy change in the U.K. We’re planning big campaigns on offshore MPAs, pushing for a complete ban on bottom trawling and dredging, the most damaging types of fishing, which decimate marine ecosystems. We want to see 20% of our seas fully protected from bottom-towed fishing gear by 2026.

We also want to ensure commercial fish stocks are not fished beyond sustainable levels. According to Oceana’s 2021 U.K. Fisheries

Audit, just 36% of fish populations in the U.K. are considered healthy of the 104 stocks studied. The over-industrialization of our seas is already decimating fish populations and ripping apart ecosystems. Policymakers too often ignore scientific guidance as they set fishing limits and rubber stamp the industrial development of our waters, legalizing the destruction of biodiversity and pristine ecosystems. Governments consistently disregard legal obligations to restore fish populations and safeguard important areas of the ocean. They collectively fail to provide the conditions needed to allow threatened and endangered species to come back from the brink.

Oceana will also launch a campaign to stop new oil and gas development in the North Sea, working closely with the Uplift climate movement. We aim to stop new developments in this important marine environment.

To reach these goals, we’ll continually collaborate with NGOs, connect the public with policymakers, run media campaigns, and seek new scientific evidence as we move forward.

Hugo Tagholm hosts the former Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, in St Agnes, Cornwall as part of the Ocean Plastics Solutions Day organized by Surfers Against Sewage in July 2018.

© Ian Lean

Oceana’s victories over the last year

With the help of its allies, Oceana has won 20 victories in the last 12 months

New Chile law increases transparency in salmon farming and reduces threats to marine life

United States protects whales, dolphins, and sea turtles from deadly drift gillnets

Shark fin trade banned in the United States

Amazon publicly reports on plastic packaging footprint for the first time

New international rule requires countries to investigate and deter companies from engaging with illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing vessels

Peru protects sharks and other marine species from illegal trafficking

New rule in the United States requires seafood traceability through the U.S. supply chain

Brazil’s leading food delivery service, iFood, commits to additional single-use plastic reductions

Chilean court orders salmon farming company to release antibiotics data

U.S. state of California enacts boldest plastic pollution reduction policy in the nation

Canada eliminates production, sale, and export of six types of ocean-polluting single-use plastics

U.S. national parks protected from single-use plastics

U.S. state of Maine rejects permit for harmful fish farm that would pollute the ocean right outside of Acadia National Park

New at-sea monitoring requirements will strengthen accountability and abundance of groundfish fishery in Northeast United States

New safeguards set by Canadian government will help rebuild fish stocks

Spain curbs ocean-polluting single-use plastics through new waste law

Fisheries and Oceans Canada protects two critically depleted forage fish

Coca-Cola pledges to reduce single-use plastic bottles, increase refillables

Norwegian insurance company Hydor ends coverage of three blacklisted fishing vessels

Philippines government protects marine ecosystems and fishers from harmful coastal development projects

Amanda Lechenet and New York Life Investments are investing in our oceans

When you think of the stock market, social and environmental impacts are likely not the first things that come to mind. Many people in the financial world, including Amanda Lechenet of New York Life, are trying to change that. “We’ve increasingly seen that consumers are using their dollars to influence change, with nearly 70% of U.S. consumers saying that a company’s social reputation affects their decision to buy its product,” Lechenet said. “This trend is carrying over into how people want to invest their money.”

Lechenet first witnessed this trend early in her career while working as a commodity analyst in the retail grocery and food service industries. She learned quickly that buyers wanted access to responsibly managed seafood, among other sustainable products. Lechenet collaborated with companies working through seafood certification processes that were trying to decrease or eliminate unsustainable practices like bycatch, i.e., the incidental catch of non-target species. “I know that it doesn’t happen with all companies, but I found it encouraging to see how much the companies’ workers cared for the ocean and its creatures.”

Now, as New York Life’s Corporate Vice President of ESG (environment, social, and corporate governance) and Corporate Responsibility, Lechenet has once again found herself supporting sustainability initiatives, including an initiative by New York Life Investments (New York Life’s global asset management business) to create a new suite of investment products aligned with leading nonprofit organizations like Oceana. These are called the IQ Dual Impact ETFs.

“ETF stands for exchange traded fund, which is similar to a mutual fund ― it invests in a basket of securities, but an ETF can be purchased or sold on a stock exchange the same way a regular stock can, making them widely and easily available,” Lechenet explained. “Think about the Dual Impact ETFs as having ‘mefocused’ returns and ‘we-focused good.’”

One of the Dual Impact ETFs that New York Life Investments created is the IQ Clean Oceans ETF (OCEN). It invests in companies that help “protect and/

or achieve cleaner oceans through reduced pollution and increased resource efficiency.” Oceans not only perform essential roles like absorbing carbon dioxide and providing food to billions of people; they play an important role in the economy too, Lechenet pointed out. “Ninety percent of trade uses sea routes and it’s a source of jobs for millions of people. The ocean will continue to play a bigger role in meeting people’s needs through trade and food.” The blue economy is growing at twice the rate of the mainstream economy and already contributes $2.5 trillion annually to the global economy.

In connection with OCEN, New York Life Investments contributes an amount based on the ETF's management fee to support Oceana's campaigns, including the campaign to reduce the flood of plastic pollution entering the oceans. “It’s fantastic that we can see the impact of our support for Oceana through their successful campaigns,” Lechenet added, pointing to major victories last year including bold new legislation in California to reduce single-use plastics and a commitment from Coca-Cola to sell 25% of its products in reusable packaging. “It’s clear that we can achieve great things when we work together toward a shared goal.”

A tramboyo swims within the first five miles of the Peruvian sea, an area that represents the first link in a chain of life where fish spawn, grow, and reproduce.

© Oceana/Denisse Sotomayor

A whale shark off the coast of Mexico. Whale sharks were one of the first shark species to be protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).