Missions
MISSIONS
Our missions take place on the ground in various locations around the world, backed up by activities in the places where we have local chapters. We also support missions ‘virtually’ through media social networking campaigns.
Working alongside local conservation groups and individuals, we hope to bring about lasting change that will benefit marine life and the oceans.
In addition, we will help people - wherever they live - to understand the global importance of marine conservation, encouraging them to get involved in whatever way they can in finding solutions to the issues that matter, locally and globally.
Captivity
There are so many things wrong with keeping cetaceans and other large marine animals in captivity, it’s hard to know where to start.
At the most basic level, these are intelligent creatures that cannot possibly live happily in small pens whether captive born or taken away from their natural habitat and family bonds.
Earthrace is running a ‘show stopping’ campaign with global coalition partners through our IMADA programme (www.earthrace.net/imada).
This is designed to pressure Governments, regulatory and professional organisations, and facilities that continue to promote and allow the use of captive marine animals as entertainment.
We are calling for:
- a ban on all wild capture of marine mammals for any use;
- transparency in the sourcing of all current and future captive marine mammals;
- the addressing of inadequacies in the Code of Ethics under which organisations keep marine animals in captivity.
Read more about captivity http://www.earthrace.net/captivity
Education
Education is the cornerstone of any conservation organisation, and it is firmly embedded in both Earthrace Conservation’s mission statement and its vision.
Raising awareness globally about marine conservation issues is an important step to achieving a lasting change that will benefit the marine environment as well as helping to protect and conserve all the creatures who live in our oceans and seas.
Put simply, life on earth cannot survive without healthy oceans.
Read more about education http://www.earthrace.net/education
Habitat
Over three quarters of the earth is water, and 97% of that is in the oceans - 361 million square kilometres of them.
We have a global population of almost 7 billion. If each single person took responsibility for guardianship of a mere 0.02 square kilometres of ocean – pollution problem solved! Sadly, nothing is that easy.
Unfortunately, marine habitats all over the world are under threat from a vast array of different enemies that are polluting our oceans – some naturally occurring and others that we only have ourselves to blame for.
Reading more about habitat http://www.earthrace.net/habitat
Hunting
Barbaric practices – both legal and illegal - continue around the world.
They are carried out in the name of research (Japan); indigenous, aboriginal or subsistence hunting (dugongs and sea turtles in Australia, sea turtles in the Caribbean, pilot whales in the Faroe Islands, whaling in Greenland); under the spurious excuse of 'protection of fisheries' (such as the Namibian seal harvest), or as openly commercial (whaling in Norway and Iceland; dolphin drives in Japan, seal cull in Canada).
These hunts result in the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of individual marine animals. Many of the species affected are globally recognised as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable to extinction, and each single individual that dies adversely affects the smooth working of our marine eco-systems just that little bit more.
Reading more about hunting http://www.earthrace.net/hunting
Illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing (IUU fishing)
It’s estimated that 80% of fish stocks are being fished either at or above sustainable levels. That estimation is based on reported fishing activity. Add the impact of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) and we have a catastrophe waiting to happen.
IUU fishing is wreaking havoc in the oceans, and on the 2.6 billion people whose livelihoods depend on legal fishing industries or who depend on the oceans for food.
Read more about IUU fishing http://www.earthrace.net/iuu-fishing
