News / Education
Oceana says “Live Green, Act Blue” on Earth Day
Ocean conservation group urges Americans to help protect the blue planet on April 22nd and beyond
“Millions of people will celebrate Earth Day by promoting greener lifestyle practices, yet few realize that 71 percent of the earth they’re celebrating is covered with water,” said Andrew Sharpless, CEO of Oceana. “As people live green, we’re asking them to act blue.”
An article in the international journal Science (November, 2006) stated that 29% of all fisheries have collapsed. “If we allow current trends to continue, we could see the collapse of all fisheries by mid-century,” Sharpless continued.
With such looming threats, Oceana has been spreading its message on various fronts leading up to Earth Day including its participation in the new book, 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth. The book is an update of the original bestselling 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth, a guide highlighting simple, step-by-step actions that empower readers to become citizen activists. Oceana’s chapter talks about steps consumers can take to help curb the impacts from overfishing. Steps include: downloading a sustainable seafood guide; joining the movement to label sustainable and healthy seafood and taking action on Oceana’s overfishing campaigns.
This Earth Day, Oceana is also activating its 300,000 online supporters (“WaveMakers”) around the growing threats to loggerhead sea turtles. Oceana will mobilize its WaveMakers to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to upgrade the status of loggerheads from threatened to endangered. Thus far, the campaign has been successful in getting the U.S. government to conduct an official review of the loggerhead sea turtle population in the Atlantic Ocean and accept public comments about whether the turtles should be declared "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act.
Oceana has been promoting the blue movement since its founding in 2001. Most recently, the organization has helped bring the oceans into mainstream awareness through several viral video public service announcements (PSAs), including two shark protection PSAs produced in partnership with the wildlife advocacy group, WildAid. The PSAs feature decorated U.S. swimmers Tara Kirk and Amanda Beard, and are scheduled to run on Chinese television during the Beijing Olympics. On Valentine’s Day of this year, Oceana also launched its highly successful viral video, “Mating Season,” which was produced by award-winning ad agency La Comunidad and to date has received over 100,000 online views.
“Along with our efforts to prevent the collapse of our oceans, we’re embarking on creative ways that get people thinking and acting on behalf of our blue planet,” Sharpless said. “On that note, perhaps we’ll work next on renaming the earth to ‘planet ocean.’”
To learn more about what you can do this Earth Day and beyond to help the oceans, visit Oceana’s Community Center at: http://community.oceana.org/act.
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Oceana campaigns to protect and restore the world’s oceans. Our teams of marine scientists, economists, lawyers and advocates win specific and concrete policy changes to reduce pollution and to prevent the irreversible collapse of fish populations, marine mammals and other sea life. Global in scope and dedicated to conservation, Oceana has campaigners based in North America (Washington, DC; New York, NY; Juneau, AK; Anchorage, AK; Monterey, CA; Portland, OR; St. Petersburg, FL and Wayland, MA), Europe (Madrid, Spain; Brussels, Belgium) and South America (Santiago, Chile). More than 300,000 members and e-activists in over 150 countries have already joined Oceana. For more information, please visit www.Oceana.org.
