European politicians have agreed a commitment to ban the "discarding" of usable fish at sea, but were criticised for failing to take strong action to tackle overfishing.
Fisheries ministers meeting to discuss moves to reform the policy which governs all European fishing fleets have agreed there should be an end to discards but no firm date was set for bringing in the ban.
Provisional dates published by the EU council would see discards banned for Pelagic fisheries such as mackerel and herring by January 1 2014.
And a ban on discards in whitefish fisheries such as cod

Your voice mattered again this week. On June 11th, 2012 Project AWARE Foundation together with Shark Advocates International, Humane Society International, and WildAid sent a letter to the United States Fish And Wildlife Service as part of a public comment process on potential U.S. proposals for listing sharks and other species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

World leaders have made pitiful progress on their guarantee to protect global oceans from overfishing and other threats.
In a paper published today (Friday 15th June) in Science, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and world renowned researchers have reviewed commitments made by governments to protect the world's oceans and shown that there has been little success over the past 20 years.

 
We did it! You helped us make history. Project AWARE and our partners in the Protect Our Coral Sea campaign are celebrating the Coral Sea becoming the largest marine reserve and the second largest marine national park in the world.
The Australian Government has announced a nationwide network of new marine reserves in a move that recognises there are limits to how much we can take from the ocean.

The Australian government announced Thursday that it is creating the world’s largest network of marine reserves, a patchwork of protected areas covering more than 1.1 million square miles of ocean.

Indonesia's newest jail helped raise over $10,000 this World Ocean Day.  In a bid to bail our ocean out of trouble two Bali dive centers got super creative. They built a bamboo jail to raise much needed funds for our ocean. 
Bali Crystal Divers, Blue Season Bali and friends joined forces for the most unconventional, highly inventive fundraiser on record. 

A major milestone was reached today in the effort to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) along California's coast. In a 3-0 vote, the California Fish and Game Commission (Commission) today approved and adopted regulations for the north coast MPAs, completing the network of MPAs in California's open coastal waters, from Mexico to the Oregon state line. The network of MPAs is the first in the United States to be designed from the ground up as a science-based network, rather than a patchwork of independent protected areas without specific goals and objectives.

To celebrate World Oceans Day: Youth the Next Wave for Change, we shine the light on Concordia International School, Shanghai.  In 2007 PADI Members Joel Klammer and Paul Adams made a big commitment to Racha Yai reef, Thailand.  Over the next five years their students witnessed firsthand coral bleaching; collected important data for conservation; discovered bananas and seawater never mix well and the joy of a 30 second shower!