These 10 organizations work tirelessly to protect the world’s oceans and all of the life they contain from overfishing, global warming and other threats.

Global fisheries are on the verge of collapse, global warming is raising ocean temperatures, coral reefs are dying at an alarming rate and runoff from farms and neighborhoods is fouling the seas with fertilizers and other pollutants. For Ocean Week here at EcoSalon, we want to show our love of oceans and how we can’t live without them – we need serious action to protect them from these threats and many more, and we need it now. Thankfully, we have these 10 inspiring ocean conservation groups that are influencing public policy, drumming up public support, researching solutions, and even going out there and stopping illegal activities that harm wildlife.

Blue Ocean Institute

The Blue Ocean Institute doesn’t just work to preserve the world’s oceans and all of the biodiversity they contain, it also aims to inspire a love for the ocean in all of us. Engaging the public with science, art and literature to foster a deeper connection with nature, the Blue Ocean Institute provides an invaluable reminder of what we’re trying to save in the first place. Founder Dr. Carl Safina believes that focusing on the positives rather than the negatives is more likely to inspire change. “When people defend their fishing, their fishing gets worse; when they defend their fish, their fishing gets good.”

Oceana

The largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation, Oceana focuses on a limited number of highly specific campaigns that can achieve measurable outcomes, like reducing turtle death from scallop fisheries and petitioning retailers to stop selling unsustainable marine animal products. In addition to accepting donations that help them achieve these goals, Oceana enlists a vast team of “e-activists” referred to as “Wavemakers” who send out letters and petitions in support of conservation initiatives.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Not one to shy away from controversy, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) takes bold action in its fight to protect oceans and marine life. Starring on Animal Planet’s reality TV series Whale Wars, Sea Shepherd uses direct and sometimes violent means to stop whaling vessels from engaging in species-endangering whaling and fishing practices. Their methods may be controversial, but they work: Sea Shepherd has helped to decrease the number of whales killed each year, and they get lots of attention for the plight of these beautiful creatures.

Greenpeace

Known for a wide range of environmental activism, Greenpeace is among the most successful organizations working in the area of oceans, whales and seafood. Greenpeace has set three goals for the next three years: continuing to change seafood choices made at a wholesale level by supermarket retailers, convincing governments and the United Nations that marine reserves are critical to our oceans’ future, and ensuring that the Obama administration uses their diplomatic leverage to close the loopholes that enable commercial whaling.

Ocean Conservancy

Educating the public and advocating for policy changes are the core of Ocean Conservancy’s work to prevent activities that threaten oceanic and, by extension, human life. In addition to organizing an annual international ocean clean-up, Ocean Conservancy has partnered with a popular multi-platform campaign called One World, One Ocean that aims to inspire millions of people worldwide to join the movement to restore and protect the world’s oceans. Its four top priorities include restoring sustainable American fisheries, protecting wildlife from human impacts, conserving the world’s most beautiful oceanic spots and reforming government for better ocean stewardship.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

This non-profit research and higher education facility is dedicated to marine science, with five departments focusing on ocean life, coastal oceans, climate change and deep ocean exploration. Because it’s training and employing some of the world’s top marine researchers and scientists, Woods Hole is considered one of the most influential ocean conservation organizations in the world. These people are on the forefront of the battle to protect the oceans, with three large research vessels carrying scientists out into the field to study erosion, water circulation, pollution and other events that impact marine life.

Blue Frontier Campaign

Made up almost entirely of individual citizen activists, the Blue Frontier Campaign is all about grassroots (which it refers to, naturally, as “seaweed”) actions from a local level up to an international level. Bringing together a wide variety of voices, Blue Frontier organized a four-day Blue Vision summit in 2009, drawing hundreds of leaders in ocean conservation to Washington, D.C. to develop strategies for protecting oceans. It also organizes regional meetings, produces public education campaigns and has published books including 50 Ways to Save the Ocean and The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide.

Scripps Institute of Oceanography

UC San Diego’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography is one of the oldest, largest and most influential centers for oceanic research, education and public services in the world. Located in La Jolla, California, Scripps is another group on the front lines of the battle to protect the oceans, training and deploying highly educated scientists to study biological, physical, chemical, geological and geophysical aspects of the ocean. Scripps heads up the world’s largest privately-funded network for observing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and also runs the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (CMBC).

Marine Fish Conservation Network

The largest national organization dedicated to promoting the long-term sustainability of marine fish, this conservation network is a coalition of hundreds of individual local and national conservation, fishing and scientific organizations. Coming together to share in this common goal, the organizations work to advance national policies that promote marine biodiversity. By adding the voices of fisheries and fishermen across the United States to the sustainability discussion, the Marine Fish Conservation Network aims to come up with workable goals that can end overfishing and prevent the decimation of threatened species.

Deep Sea Conservation Coalition

The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition is not just one organization, but dozens. This alliance of over 70 smaller international organizations bands together to influence legislation that can protect and preserve the oceans, like calling on the United Nations General Assembly to place a moratorium on trawling the bottom of the high seas to protect vulnerable species and ecosystems. In just a short period of time, they have already convinced a number of nations to commit to protecting the deep seas from the harmful impact of fishing. The organizations that are a part of the coalition include Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Oceana.

Photo: josh-n

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Tired of hearing about global warming? I don’t think you’re alone. According to a Pew survey taken this fall, fewer Americans (35%) see global warming as a very serious problem (down from 44% in April 2008). Only 57% think there is solid evidence of warming (71% did in April 2008).

My hunch is that people are feeling fatigue from the daily dire environmental news and the fact that all the proposals on the table for CO2 emission reductions are nowhere near where we need to be to begin to halt (let alone reverse) environmental catastrophe. The U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says developed countries would have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid runaway climate change. Lots of people think that binding agreements for those targets are unlikely.

The climate disaster we’re told is coming is just too much to think about, perhaps. It’s much easier to convince ourselves that it’s really not as bad as we think, hence those numbers in the Pew survey. (Add to that the immediate pressures of a recession and it’s even less of a surprise.)

But here’s another major reason we should stop burning dinosaurs:

This reason is even less disputed than global warming, and it is more rapidly approaching: Ocean Acidification. Scientists have only begun to uncover the full implications of ocean acidification for the past five years or so, and it’s only been in the news with any prominence this year. Most people still don’t know about it.

The oceans of the world act like a giant, watery carbon sponge, soaking up about one-fourth of all the carbon dioxide emitted by our fossil-fuel burning. As reported by The Guardian, that’s something like six million tons a day.

The carbon in the oceans causes the pH of the water to drop and the normally alkaline ocean becomes less so – in short, it becomes more acidic. Studies show that the pH of the world’s ocean has dropped about 0.1 pH units over the past several decades. If emissions continue at their present rate, scientists estimate that the pH will drop another 0.3 to 0.5 pH units by the year 2100.

What happens when the ocean pH decreases? It makes it more difficult for animals with hard outer shells like mollusks, corals, sea urchins and other tinier organisms to form their skeletal structures. It may also change the way these organisms breathe and reproduce. The chemical changes in sea water that accompany acidification can prevent their shells from forming and extremely altered water can actually eat away at already-formed shells.

This is a devastating situation for the entire food web. And I’m not just talking about oyster and scallop shortages. Higher predators like whales and salmon eat tiny shelled creatures called pteropods. If the pteropods can’t survive acidification, we can add starvation to the list of troubles that our fish stocks face, including overfishing, destructive fishing methods and good old-fashioned pollution.

All right, so it’s so long, fish – setting aside the ocean’s place in our ecosystem for a minute and thinking of it only as a source of food. We’ll still survive, right? We can just eat other things, but a great many people will not be so lucky. The very places where famine is already a problem are the places where people depend most heavily on seafood for their protein needs.

“Small island nations, already threatened by climate change via sea level rise, often depend entirely on seafood for their protein,” says Sarah Cooley, a Postdoctoral Investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

According to some sources, more than 1.5 billion people depend on fish for 20 percent of their average per capita intake of animal protein. Nearly 3.0 billion additional people depend on seafood for 15 percent their protein. In developing nations such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Ghana, people depend on fish for as much as 50 percent of total animal protein. These are the places that are already poised to be the most affected by the rising sea levels, drought and extreme weather patterns caused by climate change, so it’s likely that fish could become an even more important part of diets in these places as agricultural crop yields fall even further.

“Usually, the most vulnerable human communities are the ones that contributed least to climate change,” says Cooley. “This is true for ocean acidification also. Populations in tropical developing nations will swell in the next 50 years, but at the same time, ocean acidification plus global temperature rise will likely alter the coral reef ecosystems that provide subsistence fishermen with their dinners. Where will these people find their protein? This doesn’t even include the fact that as countries become wealthier, they eat more protein.”

Studies that predict increases in hunger due to overfishing do not even take into account the likely effects of ocean acidification because scientists are still determining how the problem will affect entire marine food chains. Other studies warn of devastating effects.

For the audio-visual learners among us, this 20 minute video narrated by Sigourney Weaver explains the whole process very well.

If the news alone weren’t troubling enough, you should also know that it’s impossible to reverse the existing acidification.

We must stop emitting so much CO2 now to avoid further damage.

The effects of acidification are already being seen. Knowing all we have at stake, it makes me sick to watch some of our lawmakers in action. Resisting climate change legislation over the worry that it will hurt coal state economies is completely irrelevant when we’re talking about the collapse of an entire ecosystem, possibly in our own lifetimes.

What can you do about it?

Pressure companies like Toyota to stop lobbying against clean energy and support those companies, like Apple Computers, that quit The Chamber of Commerce in protest of its retrograde climate legislation policies. When the final bill comes up for a vote, pressure your representatives to do the right thing. It may seem hopeless, but hopeless is not an option.

Image: Wonderlane

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