How can we help you? The Ocean Project is all about enabling and enhancing the conservation efforts of our Partners. We want to help you educate as effectively as possible for conservation action with your visitors!

Whether your organization needs cutting edge public opinion and communications research related to conservation, effective communications strategies and tools, specific information and tangible tips about what people can do, connections with specialists in a variety of fields - from communications and education to ocean conservation science, or the latest news, information and resources, The Ocean Project is here to help serve our Partners. Please browse our Resources for Partners or contact us today!

In order for us to better help our Partners, we conducted a survey earlier this spring, with over 400 people completing the survey. The Ocean Project would like to thank all our Partners and friends that participated! Thanks to your feedback we have already begun to improve our services.

The lucky winner of our sustainable seafood dinner for two is Diane Olsen, Curator at Moody Gardens Aquarium, in Galveston, Texas. Congratulations, Diane!
 

National Geographic Society news release - May 7, 2008

Consumers in India, Brazil Top Index; U.S. Consumers Rank Last

WASHINGTON--The National Geographic Society and the international polling firm GlobeScan today unveiled a new mechanism for measuring and comparing individual consumer behavior as it relates to the environment. "Greendex^TM 2008: Consumer Choice and the Environment -- A Worldwide Tracking Survey" looks at environmentally sustainable consumption and behavior among consumers in 14 countries. This first-of-its-kind study reveals surprising differences between consumers in developed and developing countries in terms of environmentally friendly actions. This year's results are a baseline against which results of future annual surveys will be compared, in order to monitor improvements or declines in environmentally sustainable consumption at both the global level and within countries.

The Greendex survey was conducted online earlier this year among 14,000 consumers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain and the United States. A panel of 27 international experts in global sustainability helped identify which consumer behaviors were most crucial to investigate. One thousand people in each country answered questions that measured their behavior in the areas of housing, transportation, food and consumption of goods; each respondent earned a score that reflected the environmental impact of his or her consumption patterns, which included size and energy-efficiency of residence, commuting mode and distance and use of fresh water, among dozens of other measures.

Consumers were then assigned a Greendex score (a measure of the relative environmental sustainability of their consumption patterns) out of 100. Consumers in Brazil and India scored highest; U.S. consumers scored lowest.

Unlike other measures that rank countries according to the environmental performance of their governments, businesses and other factors, the Greendex is the first to rank the performance of individual consumers, rather than countries as a whole. The results are strikingly different from existing performance rankings like the Environmental Performance Index, the Environmental Sustainability Index or Ecological Footprint.

Read the full story.
Download a full copy of the Greendex report.
Watch National Geographic's Garcia discuss the Greendex on OnPoint. 
Calculate your Greendex.
 

Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions news release - May 8, 2008

(Washington, D.C.) - More than a dozen Canadian and U.S. organizations today released steps companies can take to develop and implement a comprehensive, corporate policy on sustainable, wild-caught and farmed seafood. The "Common Vision for Environmentally Sustainable Seafood" highlights a clear path for achieving sustainability in the seafood industry.

These organizations - which all have a strong history of working with the seafood industry and policymakers on environmentally responsible seafood issues - have partnered to form the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions.

"Our Common Vision outlines an ambitious but realistic path toward sustainable seafood that businesses can follow to safeguard the future viability of their industry," said Mark Powell, vice president for fish conservation, Ocean Conservancy.

"In the past, we've heard from companies that there is too much competing information about environmentally responsible seafood," said Jennifer Lash, executive director, Living Oceans Society. "Seafood buyers and suppliers now have clear and consistent input from a broad range of conservation groups about how to move forward." The Common Vision identifies six critical areas where companies can take action to ensure a sustainable seafood supply and protect ocean environments.

A number of businesses have voiced their support for the Common Vision - and for the need to improve ocean health to maintain the long-term viability of the seafood supply. See what these companies are saying about the Common Vision.

Read the full story.

For a full copy of the Common Vision and more information about the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions visit www.solutionsforseafood.org.

Photo credit: NOAA Photo Library.
 

Monterey Bay Aquarium news release - April 17, 2008

The Monterey Bay Aquarium and ARAMARK, a world leader in professional facilities management and food services, have entered into a partnership under which ARAMARK commits to new practices that will guide its purchases of sustainable seafood for all ARAMARK operations across the United States. As part of the partnership, ARAMARK is beginning immediately to shift its seafood purchases toward sustainable sources. The company will complete the transition by 2018.

ARAMARK's action is the latest in a series of significant commitments by leading retailers and food service providers to work with the Aquarium's Sustainable Seafood Initiative and similar programs around the world.

"We're delighted to partner with ARAMARK and help the company fulfill its commitment to serving seafood that comes from sustainable wild and farmed sources," said Michael Sutton, director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Center for the Future of the Oceans, which incorporates the Sustainable Seafood Initiative and Seafood Watch program, www.seafoodwatch.org. "This decision by ARAMARK, and similar commitments by other business leaders, will have a real impact in the marketplace. By creating more demand for seafood from sources that protect the health of ocean ecosystems, we're on a path toward improving fishing practices around the world."

Read the full story.

Contact Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program for free pocket guides or contact us and we can send you some.

Photo credit: Monterey Bay Aquarium.
 

By Lauren Morello
ClimateWire - May 2, 2008

Rising temperatures are expanding oxygen-starved areas in the world's oceans, a trend that could eventually threaten fisheries and coastal economies, according to new research.

Over the last 50 years, low-oxygen zones in the equatorial Pacific and tropical Atlantic oceans -- "underwater deserts" that support little marine life -- have grown as water temperatures have risen, finds a study published today in the journal Science.

That could eventually shift habitats and migration patterns for marine life, including tuna, swordfish and other important commercially fished species that cannot survive in low-oxygen zones.

The new study, based on data collected in tropical waters since 1960, confirms predictions from several climate models, said Gregory Johnson, an author of the study and an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

One reason the low-oxygen areas are growing may be the simple fact that as water warms, it loses its ability to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere. But Johnson and his colleagues believe that in this case, the main factor at work is changes in ocean circulation patterns.

Normally, oxygen is spread through the world's oceans by cold, dense water that sinks below surface currents at northern latitudes, eventually flowing south into the tropical low-oxygen zones the scientists examined. That appears to be changing as temperatures rise, warming northern water and making it more buoyant -- and thus more prone to mix into choppy surface currents, rather than sink toward the ocean floor and flow south to the equator.

The new work comes at a time when scientists are just beginning to study how global warming is changing ocean circulation patterns that have been relatively stable for thousands of years, he said.

Read the Science Daily news release

Read the Science paper (subscription required).

Photo credit: NOAA Photo Library
 

By Patrick J. McDonnell 
Los Angeles Times - April 28, 2008

STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, CHILE -- From the earliest days of exploration, mariners in Chile's cool southern waters marveled at the abundance of whales. A Jesuit naturalist wrote of the sea "boiling" with the spouts of the leviathans.

Now, almost two centuries after the commercial carnage of Melville's era and 22 years after an international whale-hunting moratorium went into effect, some whales appear to be making a comeback off Chile's coast, where a proliferation of islands, fiords, peninsulas and straits creates tens of thousands of miles of shoreline.

In recent years, researchers combing remote crannies of this elongated coast have confirmed the presence of two seasonally resident populations of whales, including 100 to 150 humpbacks here in the glacier-rimmed Strait of Magellan.

Though encouraged, conservationists say it's too early to celebrate the comeback of a creature pursued to the verge of extinction. Oil from sperm and right whales hunted off Chile's coast was once a prized staple, a globalized commodity with parallels to today's petroleum.

With the International Whaling Commission scheduled to hold its annual meeting in Santiago in June, activists are pushing for a law that would declare a permanent whale sanctuary throughout Chile's territorial waters, where Yankee whalers once confronted Mocha Dick.

Today, scientists here are trying to unlock the secrets of the whales' migratory odysseys and assess the latest potential threats -- not harpoon-wielding Homo sapiens, but global warming and pollution. Of special concern are the salmon farms that have proliferated along Chile's dismembered coast, befouling sheltered stretches favored by whales and other sea life.

Read the full story.
Watch the video.
Photo credit: NOAA Photo Library.
 

By Felicity Barringer
The New York Times - May 15, 2008

The polar bear, whose summertime Arctic hunting grounds have been greatly reduced by a warming climate, will be placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced on Wednesday.

But the long-delayed decision to list the bear as a threatened species may prove less of an impediment to oil and gas industries along the Alaskan coast than many environmentalists had hoped. Mr. Kempthorne also made it clear that it would be "wholly inappropriate" to use the listing as a tool to reduce greenhouse gases, as environmentalists had intended to do.

While giving the bear a few new protections -- hunters may no longer import hides or other trophies from bears killed in Canada, for instance -- the Interior Department added stipulations, seldom used under the act, that would allow oil and gas exploration and development to proceed in areas where the bears live, as long as the companies continue to comply with existing restrictions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Mr. Kempthorne said Wednesday in Washington that the decision was driven by overwhelming scientific evidence that "sea ice is vital to polar bears' survival," and all available scientific models show that the rapid loss of ice will continue. The bears use sea ice as a platform to hunt seals and as a pathway to the Arctic coasts where they den. The models reflect varying assumptions about how fast the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will increase.

In prepared remarks, the secretary, who earlier in his political life was a strong opponent of the current Endangered Species Act, added, "This has been a difficult decision." He continued, "But in light of the scientific record and the restraints of the inflexible law that guides me," he made "the only decision I could make."

The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit in 2005 to force a listing of the polar bear.

Read the full story.

Photo credit: Sean Gloster/Marine Photobank.
 

Every June visitors to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher can be found scribbling down their names on huge sheets of paper. What exactly are they doing? Something very significant actually - they're making a pledge to take ocean conservation personally. By signing their names visitors promise to:

Commit to making a real difference
Conserve in their home
Consume consciously
Communicate their interests and concerns
Challenge themselves daily
Connect in their community
Celebrate our Ocean!

Coinciding with World Ocean Day, the Aquarium celebrates June as Ocean Awareness Month and uses the opportunity to introduce their visitors to the Seven C's pledge for ocean conservation. Educators explain the concept then ask visitors to sign a sheet saying they will participate in the pledge and then post the signed sheets and the pledge itself on the aquarium walls. Visitors get free conservation oriented give-aways for signing the pledge including the fun Seas the Day bookmarks with the charismatic Galapagos shark on the front and the Seven C's pledge on the back.

Aquariums are important sources of information and builders of emotional connections to the ocean. Visitors walk away with new knowledge about the ocean and marine life, and sensitized to ocean issues. What if more aquarium visitors walked away understanding that their daily actions do impact the ocean no matter where they live and pledging to take simple actions in their daily lives to protect the ocean?

The "Seven C's" is a play on words and a mnemonic device to help remember how each of us can make decisions in our daily life for the benefit of our planet's future. Partners are encouraged to use the Seven C's pledge and other resources provided through the Seas the Day initiative to help their visitors take ocean conservation personally. The bookmarks are especially useful for World Ocean Day celebrations.

Bookmarks are available to Partners in bulk essentially at cost. Please order online or contact us.

Tell us about your successful conservation communication initiatives and we'll share them with the network!

Photo credit: North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher.
 

By Mark Davis      
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - May 6, 2008

The Georgia Aquarium, never a small place, is about to get bigger. Starting this summer, and for the next two years, crews will be at the downtown fishtank, adding a salt-water wing where its newest residents will splash and roll.

Those residents? Dolphins. Aquarium officials say they will build a $110 million dolphin exhibit where people can watch the creatures -- swim with them, too.

The addition should open in November 2010, five years after the world's largest aquarium debuted to standing-room-only crowds.

"This has always been in our plans," said aquarium founder Bernie Marcus, who announced the expansion Tuesday amid a shower of silver confetti. "Keeping the aquarium fresh is very, very important to us."

The aquarium also announced a $1.5 million gift to help build a marine animal rescue, care and research facility near Marineland, outside St. Augustine. Marcus held up a surfboard-sized check to underscore the donation.

The dolphin exhibit will add two football fields' worth of space to the aquarium, which already encompasses more than a half-million square feet. The unnamed exhibit will comprise 84,000 square feet -- a 30-home subdivision, more or less.

That should be enough space for a dozen or more Tursiops truncatus, the bottlenose dolphin. The exhibit will open with four, coming from the Dolphin Conservation Center at Marineland. The Florida facility will be a partner in dolphin research and breeding, according to officials from both facilities.

Read the full story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Read the Georgia Aquarium press release.

Photo credit: Georgia Aquarium
 

By Natalie Angier
The New York Times - May 20, 2008

I was about to meet a walrus for the first time in my life, and I felt fabulous. After all, Ronald J. Schusterman of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied them for years, had assured me over the phone that to meet a walrus was to fall in love with walruses -- the mammals were that smart, friendly and playful. "They're pussycats!" he said.

In the public pantheon of marine mammaldom, dolphins are adored, whales revered, and seal pups make old Bond girls swoon. But walruses remain perversely, lumpishly obscure, known mostly for their sing-song linkage with a carpenter, an eggman and goo goo goo joob. To which Dr. Schusterman and his colleagues might well respond with a blast of a Bronx kazoo. Odobenus rosmarus is a magnificent creature, they say, behaviorally, anatomically, acoustically and taxonomically in a category all its own. The walrus belongs to the pinniped suborder, the group of blubbery, fin-footed carnivores that includes seals and sea lions.

But whereas there are 19 species in the family of so-called true seals, and 14 in the family of fur seals and sea lions, the walrus is the only living representative of the family Odobenidae, those that walk with their teeth. And though the walrus is an Arctic species and thus much harder to study in the wild than the elephant seals and sea lions that flop onto the beaches of Northern California, scientists are gathering evidence that Odobenus is the most cognitively and socially sophisticated of all pinnipeds.

"I've worked with marine mammals for a long time, and with many different species of pinniped, but I've never experienced anything like walruses," said Colleen Reichmuth of the Long Marine Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "They are fantastic."
Yet she and her colleagues despair for the walrus's future. Like the polar bear, which last week was granted protection under the Endangered Species Act, the walrus depends on the seasonal rhythms of the polar ice cap for every phase of its life, which means it is particularly vulnerable to the warming of the earth's climate and the retreat of the ice.

Read the full story.

Photo credit: NOAA Photo Library.
 

The Coastal Cities Summit being held November 17-20, 2008 in St. Petersburg, Florida will bring together coastal city leaders and managers, nongovernmental organizations, citizens, and natural and social scientists to discuss the values and vulnerabilities of coastal regions around the world. Specifically, the Summit will consider the environmental, social, economic, and public policy challenges and viable solutions.

For more information and to register visit the conference's website.
 

Happy World Ocean Day!