Oceans

Learn more how WWF is preventing illegally caught seafoodfrom entering our food chain.

Unsustainable fishing is a leading cause of declines in marine life, which impacts entire ecosystems. When stocks decline, nature’s imbalance directly affects local jobs, businesses, and food sources. The ripple effect is global.

Since unsustainable fishing is a problem entirely caused by human behavior, people have the power to fix it.

WWF is acting globally to identify the most practical tools for transforming fishing and working locally to match proven approaches with the people in a position to fish better. We work along three tracks—supporting community leadership, realizing better rules and enforcement of those rules through better governance, and engaging private sector action at critical points of leverage.

Our projects are co-designed with our partners to address the major threats that lead to unsustainable fishing—poor management, illegal fishing, and bycatch. WWF experts are constantly curating the best tools informed by local community knowledge, science and research. Once we have those tools, we identify high-impact areas for application—priority places, ecosystems, food commodities—across the WWF network.

WWF’s corporate seafood partners source from 550 fisheries—and when improvements are made in those 550 fisheries, it ultimately impacts 30% of global wild catch. We work deep inside supply chains to improve transparency and accountability to help move the industry as a whole towards sustainable practices.

Tropical Coastal Ecosystems

Coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass are interconnected ocean ecosystems that support an astounding array of biodiversity and have deep roots in local cultures. The coastal zone makes up only 10% of the ocean environment but is home to over 90% of all marine species. But we’ve lost half of these ecosystems and stand to lose even more from the pressures brought on by development, pollution, and climate change.

To support the health of coastal ecosystems throughout the Coral Triangle, Western Indian Ocean, Mesoamerican Reef, and the Eastern Tropical Pacific, WWF prioritizes a bottom-up stakeholder and community engagement approach on the ground complemented by a coordinated global effort to change the systems that hamper local action.

WWF’s approach advances science and technology and builds capacity and expertise in priority, underserved places. Our goal is to maintain and rebuild the resilience of coastal ecosystems that provide benefits for 10 million people, through conservation and restoration in places where we can have the biggest impact on maintaining biodiversity and human well-being.

The Arctic is experiencing rapid and dramatic transformation. Warming is occurring faster here than anywhere on the planet. As sea ice vanishes, wildlife like polar bears lose vital feeding grounds and the ocean is opened to increased ship traffic and oil and gas exploration, putting nature and people at risk.

WWF works to strengthen Arctic-wide governance, advance climate-smart, sustainable development, and secure permanent protection for ecologically critical areas. We’re advancing ArcNet, an Arctic Ocean Network of Priority Areas for Conservation, backed by the world’s most comprehensive database on Arctic biodiversity. ArcNet can be used to develop concrete proposals for marine planning and management that consider entire ecosystems and account for local needs and benefits.

WWF staff are on the ground in seven Arctic nations. We’ve been on-the-ground for nearly 30 years, supporting local communities and collaborating with experts in science, policy, and planning. In Alaska, our focus is on Bristol Bay and the Bering Strait, as well as the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.