Global Ocean is a London-based charity established in 2006 to heighten public awareness about the plight of marine life and to generate funds for conservation programmes around the world.

We wish to congratulate the Sharkwater team for creating such a wonderful film, whilst raising awareness on a key issue and highlighting the need for change.  We are enthused by the success and clear-cut message portrayed in Sharkwater about shark-finning and believe that films like this are crucial to saving species in peril.

We are currently looking for ways to help protect sharks from the fishing onslaught they receive all over the world, and we are appalled that 100 million sharks are still being slaughtered each year.

To help generate awareness Global Ocean works in other creative mediums and produces, for example, eco-arts plastic workshops to heighten awareness about the problem of plastics entering the marine and human food chains.

As consumers we can act together to buy products which do not harm our ocean and ourselves.  For details on our campaigns and how you can get involved visit our website at: www.globalocean.org.uk

Thank you Ted for such a poignant e-mail …

Hello,
My name is Ted Kao and I’m of Taiwanese decent and currently reside in San Francisco.  Unfortunately, I’d have to admit that I’ve eaten my share of shark fin soup over the course of my lifetime.  Heck, the plan was, the bigger the fin, the better the soup (ie - cost more money so therefore, its a better meal).  As I reached adulthood, I finally took up a sport that I’ve always wanted to try, Scuba Diving.   Since I learned to Scuba Dive 3 years ago and had my first child about the same time, I began to see sharks in a different light.  I’ve seen plenty of sharks in my diving experience and found that they are gentle, curious animals that really have no interest in us.   I began to watch and learn about many of the factors that impact these great and beautiful animals.  I’m afraid that my time left to see a whale shark in the wild may be all but closing and my children’s ability to see any sharks in the wild may be gone.  I think it may be too late to impact the current generation of 50+ year old asians in our quest to remove shark finning.   I believe that 2 events will truly impact the sustainability of sharks in our oceans.  1. There needs to be significant economic improvement to the 3rd world countries from which our sharks are most abundant.   While education helps, asking people who’s day to day meal tickets comes from finning to stop doing it won’t really work.   2.  Education of those Asian teens and adults who are more open to change may decrease the number of individuals who eat the fins.   Remember, as China becomes more prosperous, the number of consumers will actually increase over the next 30 years unless we get to the youth now.
I’d like to thank you for your video and continuing my education of this terrible practice.    I’ve created a facebook page recently that will hopefully gain some traction among young adults called Asians for Sharks that asks its members to give up eating shark fin.  I hope you will share it with your members.

Good Morning Friends,

I need your help please! I am trying to stop the needless shark killing here in my home town. Although this has happened many times at this marina, it was the first time I was in town to catch it, thank god!

Please click here and vote for the video so this needless killing of an endangered scalloped hammerhead shark, will have more impact! If enough people vote it may go to national news which means more support for stopping the needless slaughter of these beautiful creatures that are so vital to the health of our oceans!

Feel free to post this everywhere! Below is the actual story with images! Thank you for your help!

At this moment I am very sad to say that the fisherman that did this will not be penalized in anyway, because of a interpretation of the law that makes no sense to me what so ever! If you need to reach me, email is best!  Many of you know me very well and know that because I live at sea, swimming with these beautiful creatures everyday year round, I see this the horrific act the same way most people would look at your pet dog, left on a cart to die and bake in the sun, as if no one gives a dam! I do give a dam and I hope you do to! Please make this count and make a difference! This type of behavior infuriates me and needs to be stopped! Thanks so much for your help!

Save The Sharks,

Jim

Jim Abernethy’s Scuba Adventures, Inc

Read the rest of this entry »

The goal of this contest is to create a T-Shirt with a PANGAEA ACT PROJECT THEME. A secondary goal is to make it not only meaningful but stylish so that visitors to the YEP community and mikehorn.com will want to wear them to help promote, sell and create awareness for the project. The concept could be something as simple as designing a cool looking image for selling and proceeds will be donated for a future shark project.

We now want to put the challenge to you. The top design contenders will have their designs posted and displayed for all to see. There will be a vote on the community and the winning design will be printed up and carried by our online store.

Inspired by an internationally acclaimed documentary, two Mills College undergraduates organized a screening of “Sharkwater” as part of Earth Week to spread awareness to the campus community about shark finning, the killing of sharks for their fins.

Seniors Tarra La Valley and Emma Giboney’s newly created Environmental Studies club seeks to rally Mills women to petition the selling of shark cartilage products in local health food stores, which contributes to an estimated 100 million sharks that are killed annually for their fins.

To read the full story click here.

Thank you Mills College.

Discovery Channel is asking for your help promoting the 23^rd annual SHARK WEEK – a full week celebrating the ocean’s apex predator, kicking off Sunday, August 1.
We are asking for video submissions from SHARK WEEK fans to give them the chance to become a part of this year’s celebration.

See our call for entries here.
We thought readers of Abandon Fear would be interested in participating in the fun!  With its focus on shark education, this site it the perfect outlet to generate hype about Shark Week 2010’s online, promotional campaign.

A little about the submissions, also part of the video above:

-  entries must include the words “Happy Shark Week”
-  entries must be an acapella version of the song “Boom De Ya Da” (see Discovery Channel’s popular promo here.
Beyond that, we hope submitters will get creative!

We will be combining the best video submissions into one single video to be posted on Discovery’s SHARK WEEK website as a representation of the vast spectrum of fanatics.

The award-winning film Sharkwater premieres in Hong Kong on June 7, 2010. EcoVision Asia will host the VIP Premiere as part of the World Oceans Day series of events. Director and star Rob Stewart will attend the Blue Carpet premiere and VIP After Party as well as other events, including a beach clean up and panel discussion on ocean conservation. The film has previously been shown in Mandarin and the Hong Kong premiere will debut in Cantonese. Sharkwater premiered in Taiwan in May. Sharing the film with Chinese audiences is an important step for Stewart in his mission to spread awareness about shark finning and its effect on ocean conservation. “If people knew what was going on – that their consumption of this delicacy was causing the demise of one of the oldest, most important predators the planet has, and that this is going to mean a big problem for people; I hope they would make more effective decisions, and the demand for shark fin would decline.” Click here for more information on the Hong Kong Premiere or on the World Ocean Day Lunch Panel Discussion. Click here to watch the Sharkwater trailer.

Greetings,

Pangea Seed is pleased to announce our recent partnership with Ecojoia.  Ecojoia supports the merchandise needs of environmental and humanitarian non-profit organizations, with the goal of increasing their fund raising capabilities and simultaneously spreading cause awareness. Selling products made from environmentally conscious materials such as certified organic cotton and earth-friendly dyes and screen printing, wherever possible.

For the release of our first t-shirt, we’ve partnered together with Rob Stewart (Sharkwater) with artwork created by PangeaSeed supporting artist Dave Kinsey to help raise awareness of the global shark plight. Every shirt sold will directly benefit PangeaSeed and Rob Stewart to support our anti-shark finning campaigns.  Mens and Womens sizes/cuts available.

PangeaSeed is the first organization in Japan to raise public awareness regarding shark conservation and preservation. We rely on the generosity of our supporters.

Be on the look out for more great t-shirts designed by world-renowned artists such as skate/surf legend Jim Phillips and New Zealand wonderboys Sideroom.com   Follow the link below to get your shirt today!  Summers never looked so good!

Ecojoia
PangaSeed T-Shirts on Ecojoia Website
PangaSeed Profile on Ecojoia Website

Cheers and thanks for your support,

PS3

A hawaiian monk seal swimming. Image: James Watt/NOAA

Ilio-holo-ikauaua (ee-lee-o holo ee ka ooa-ooa) meaning ‘dog that runs in the sea ’

The Hawaiian monk seal has thrived for the past 13 million years in the oceanic waters and coral reefs of the Hawaiian Islands. Today, the Hawaiian monk seal is critically endangered and headed toward extinction. Hawaiian monk seals are the most endangered endemic marine mammal in the USA and one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. Over the last 50 years, the Hawaiian monk seal population has declined by more than 60% and is now at its lowest level in recorded history. Fewer than 1200 Hawaiian monk seals remain in the wild. Reasons for the decline of the monk seal include: overfishing, limited food availability, entanglement in marine debris, habitat loss, shark predation, competition for food, aggressive male behavior, deaths of pups, an aging population, harmful algal blooms, and global climate change.

When the hunt is over each day, the bodies of the dolphins are hauled away to the slaughterhouse for processing. Our team tries to photograph the butchering in order to get the information out to the Japanese people, but we are constantly blocked by the Taiji dolphin killers. They don’t want the public to know about their dirty, little secret, so they spend a lot of time covering it up. They know that if  the Japanese public and the world learn the truth about this barbaric practice, world opinion would immediately put an end to it.

The whalers in Taiji told us not to take any photographs. They said that if our photos and video footage get out to the rest of the world, it would pressure the authorities in Tokyo to deny them permits for the annual dolphin slaughter.

Our campaign has brought tremendous international attention to the slaughter. The killings are carried out in remote fishing villages, and the dolphin hunters are not used to being monitored and exposed to this degree. It is becoming more and more difficult for them to keep the slaughter a secret from the world.

We need to continue returning to Japan to document the dolphin massacres and give the photos and video footage away to the media, free of charge. We will continue to encourage journalists to return to Japan with us. Exposing these crimes against nature is crucial to the success of our campaign.

We need your help to get the word out quickly.

Help keep our team on the ground in Japan.