Good News for Oceans

Raise your glasses for these ocean victories of 2010: 

• The Obama Administration reinstated a ban on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast.
• The Chilean government halted the construction of a coal-fired thermoelectric plant near Punta de Choros, a marine reserve home to Humboldt penguins, bottlenose dolphins, and blue whales.
• Two big bottom trawling victories: the U.S. banned bottom trawling in a 23,000 square mile area off the Southeast Atlantic coast, home to the largest area of pristine area of cold-water corals in the world. And in Belize, a ban was passed on all trawling in the country’s waters.
• Morocco and Turkey stopped the use of gillnets, a.ka. “walls of death”, which will save the lives of bluefin tuna, sharks, dolphins, and many other creatures.
• The U.S. government proposed designation of a 70,000 square mile protected zone off the California coast to protect leatherback sea turtles.
• The waters around Chile’s pristine Sala y Gomez Island were declared a no-take marine reserve, expanding Chile’s total marine protected area more than 100 times, from 0.03% to 4.41%.
• Though ICCAT again failed to protect bluefin tuna, the commission increased protections for oceanic whitetip sharks, hammerhead sharks and shortfin mako sharks and put in place new measures to reduce sea turtle deaths.
• The Olin Corporation announced that it would go mercury-free in two of its plants, including the largest remaining mercury-based chlorine plant of the four plants in the U.S. that had refused to switch to cleaner technology.
• In a last minute vote, the U.S. Senate passed the Shark Conservation Act, which will end shark finning in U.S. waters. 

Check out all of the victories on Oceana's site and more information about the ones listed above.

Why does it take so much time and effort to protect our oceans? Everyone seems to love beach vacations.

What do you love about the ocean, lake, beachs, waters, and more?