The 9th Annual Awards event weekend will take place May 20 – 21, 2016 in beautiful Monterey, California.  Mission Blue founder and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Sylvia Earle will be master of ceremonies for the Peter Benchley™ Ocean Awards – the world’s preeminent honors for ocean conservation that will recognize a diverse group of global leaders for 2016. Often called the ‘Academy Awards for the Ocean,’ the Peter Benchley™ Ocean Awards will honor a diverse group of eight ocean leaders including the President of Palau, a New York Times investigative journalist, a French sailing expedition, and the Mayor of a San Diego border town. Past winners have included four Heads of State, U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense, senators, leading marine scientists, journalists, explorers, youth leaders and citizen activists.…

    By Charles Clover, Executive Director, Blue Marine Foundation     On the morning of Sunday 3 January 2016, the world woke to the news that the British government was proposing to create a “marine reserve nearly the size of the United Kingdom” in the tropical Atlantic around the island of Ascension. It was a moment of triumph for all those who had campaigned so hard for this outcome. The proposed designation of half the waters around Ascension Island would be the largest fully protected marine reserve in the Atlantic Ocean. Yet it is important to understand that what has happened is, for now, just a closure of some but not all of Ascension’s waters to commercial fishing and that a great deal more remains to be done by both British and the US governments if the formal protection of this marine treasure is to succeed and, crucially, to be supported by the local people.…

All too often on Earth Day, the big blue gets swept under the rug. Not this year! Mission Blue is crowdsourcing your most beautiful photos of the ocean! Submit them and vote for your favorites by clicking ‪#‎BigBlueEarthDay‬ here, by including the hashtag #BigBlueEarthDay on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook OR by entering on the form below. Submissions will be shared in public galleries for millions to see. Winners will be included in the Mission Blue global newsletter with attribution to the talented photographer!     //  …

By scientific illustrator DJ Jackson Science, nature and art have been passions of mine for as long as I can remember. Growing up on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, there were plenty of animals to spike my curiosity. Catching Green Anoles, observing alligators, and watching dolphins play as a child engrained my passion for nature. I was always bringing animals I found in my backyard in for show and tell, frightening my teachers with snakes, spiders and praying mantises. As I grew up, I began to pursue art. I was constantly drawing animals in class. At first, my teachers thought it was distracting me, but soon found that it helped me focus. As my art progressed, I found that I was able to learn a lot about animals through drawing them.…

An open letter to world, national, political, business, union, religious, media, educational, environmental, peace, NGO and philanthropic leaders. Please share and reblog this content at will! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= It’s a familiar refrain that water covers three-fourths of the planet and provides food, jobs, energy and oxygen and is a major driver of the Blue Economy. Indeed, it’s a fact that water is the source, matrix and sustenance of life. But just as music and art, water also makes life worth living. “That’s where I first discovered my love for music, through the motion of water. My imagination ran wild.” ~ Musician Pharrell Williams “There is something about being in water and swimming which alters the writer’s mood, gets his thoughts going, as nothing else can.”…

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The fundamental solution to combating ocean acidification and warming is to make a fundamental transition to a carbon-free future. Though it doesn’t have the support of the United States Congress, the most generally recognized solution is to put a price on carbon. At the Paris climate talks last December, countries around the world affirmed carbon pricing as essential. The chart below shows the countries that already embraced pricing. Unfortunately the U.S. is not one of them, and that’s because the U.S. Congress is in denial. Mission Blue is proud to be partnering with Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL), the only NGO whose sole grassroots advocacy focus is educating Congress about the imperative for responsible Congressional action on climate. Recently, CCL volunteers in 13 districts succeeded in breaking the dam of denial by catalyzing 13 House Republicans to sign the Gibson Resolution, calling on the House to study the causes, effects and solutions to climate change.…