The largest ocean-only advocacy organization on the planet.
Founded in 2001 after a study found that less than 0.5% of U.S. environmental nonprofit funding went to protecting the oceans, Oceana exists to close that gap — through science, law, and policy campaigns with real deadlines.
“Oceana: Protecting the World’s Oceans” (2009), narrated by Ted Danson — an overview of bottom trawling, overfishing, and what Oceana has done about both.
Built to be the one organization doing only this
Oceana wasn’t started by activists frustrated with slow progress elsewhere — it was started by funders who ran the numbers and found nobody was working on oceans specifically, at scale.
The study that started it
The Pew Charitable Trusts and four other foundations commissioned research that found less than half a percent of all U.S. environmental nonprofit spending went toward ocean advocacy — despite oceans covering most of the planet.
Oceana is founded
Backed by the Pew Charitable Trusts, Oak Foundation, Marisla Foundation, Sandler Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Oceana launched as an organization dedicated solely to winning specific, science-based, time-bound ocean policy campaigns — not general environmental advocacy.
Ted Danson’s organization joins
Oceana merged with the American Oceans Campaign, founded by actor and environmentalist Ted Danson, who has served on Oceana’s board since. The merger combined Danson’s public platform with Oceana’s legal and scientific infrastructure.
“We were going to go swimming and we came across a sign that said ‘No swimming, water polluted.’ They didn’t understand and I couldn’t really quite tell them.”— Ted Danson, on the moment that first got him involved in ocean advocacy, describing a day with his daughters in Santa Monica
Wins measured in policy, not just awareness
Oceana’s core strategy is deliberately narrow: rather than raising general awareness, campaigns are built around specific, winnable policy outcomes with real deadlines — things like fishery management reform, bycatch reduction, and stopping offshore drilling in specific waters. That focus is why the organization measures its impact in named victories rather than broader sentiment.
Oceana’s Victories Recap, year by year
Oceana publishes an annual recap of the specific policy wins from that year. Here’s the real playlist, 2021 through 2025.