Blue Attitude Articles

(Dive Travel Business News - July 31, 2010) -- The world's top shark experts are allowing themselves to be auctioned on eBay during Shark Week 2010 to raise funds for the Shark Research Institute's conservation programs. Up for auction are dinners (or lunches) with the world's foremost shark experts. It is a unique opportunity to "talk shark" face- to-face, one-on-one, with an authority on sharks.
 
Shark experts and celebrities being auctioned include: Dr. Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Explorer-in- Residence and unquestionably the most eloquent spokesperson for ocean conservation; Dr. Eugenie Clark, founder & director of Mote Marine Labs; Donald Schultz, host of Animal Planet's Wild Recon, Dr. Leonard Compagno, the world's top shark expert; legendary filmmakers Tom Campbell, Jeff Kurr, Marty Snyderman and Jonathan Bird; underwater photographers Amos Nachoum and Matt Potenski, marine painter and author Richard Ellis, artists David Dunleavy and Rogest; and Sherman Lagoon's Jim Toomey and Shaaark's Phil Watson.
  read more »

(Dive Travel Business News - July 14, 2010) -- Washington, D.C. – The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), as part of a series of initiatives commemorating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the world’s oldest and largest association dedicated to promoting ecotourism, has launched the annual Innovation Leadership in Sustainable Tourism Awards to recognize and honor accomplishments by sustainable tourism leaders and pioneers.

The Innovation Award has been created by TIES to recognize those individuals and organizations who demonstrate leadership in innovative actions that effectively promote sustainable tourism and bring tangible benefits to communities and conservation. The Award winners – one individual and one organization – will be honored for their best practices and innovative actions, judged based on one example of an innovative project, product, or program developed in the previous year that supports the goal of uniting communities, conservation, and sustainable travel read more »

(Dive Travel Business News - July 11, 2010) -- NEW YORK, NY - In an historic step, delegates to the Fish Stocks Conference at the United Nations voted unanimously to end shark finning at sea. read more »

(Dive Travel Business News - June 14, 2010) -- The terms "green" and "sustainable" have been bandied about, and now with part of the Gulf covered in a thick coating of oil, it seems a good time to revisit these definitions.

The word "green" refers to being environmentally friendly, writes Ronnie Citron-Fink in a recent article at Care2.com. She explains that the term "green" tends to focus on the use of fewer natural resources and minimizing waste. On a narrow level, "Sustainability" is more encompassing than green. It addresses the individual environmental choices, and the process of discovery that include the health and wellbeing of our selves as individuals, and our planet. On a broader level, "Sustainability" implies future viability of the collective -- politically, socially and economically. It also has to do with being less of a burden on future generations, she writes. Read more here.

** This RSS Feed is brought to you by www.DiveTravelBusinessNews.com **

(Dive Travel Business News - June 3, 2010) -- The Maldives’ nation continues to be a frontrunner in environmental activism with their latest announcement that offers complete protection for sharks in its  90,000 sq.kms (34,750 sq.miles) of Maldives territorial waters. The huge shark sanctuary will be free of all shark fishing and finning, protecting more than 30 different species that make their home in the region. The Maldives has further banned all imports and exports of shark fins and shark products.

"The Maldives were one of the first countries to recognize that sharks were a key reason tourists went to dive there," said Matt Rand, Director of Global Shark Conservation for the Pew Environment Group. "Today's announcement protects the Maldives' tourism industry - the largest segment of their economy - from the ravages of the shark fin trade. It is a bold and farsighted move on the part of the government of the Maldives." read more »

(Dive Travel Business News - June 2, 2010) -- With half of the world's sharks threatened with extinction, Palau created the world's first "shark sanctuary" in 2009. One of the smallest nation's in the world, Palau declared its entire Exclusive Economic Zone a shark sanctuary that protects about 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq miles) of ocean, an area about the size of France. Conservationists regarded the move as "game-changing" but enforcement is a problem due to the high demand for prestigious shark fin soup. read more »

(Dive Travel Business News - May 31, 2010) --  Governor Linda Lingle of Hawaii has signed a landmark bill that prohibits the possession, sale, trade or distribution of shark fins, an ingredient in expensive shark fin soup served in Asian restaurants. read more »

(Dive Travel Business News - May 10, 2010) -- Australia is planning to subject commercial ships passing through all parts of the Great Barrier Reef to greater surveillance. The tough new measures are intended to protect the region from pollution. It follows the grounding of the Chinese bulk coal carrier, the Shen Neng I, while traveling in restricted waters around the reef, hit a sandbank at full speed on Easter Sunday, destroying vast areas of reef and leaking about three tons of oil into the sea.

Ships sailing through southern parts of the Great Barrier Reef will be tracked by satellite and required to regularly report their movements under the new regulations. Vessels using the reef's northern expanses are already subject to such strict monitoring.

Conservationists say that greater surveillance will make a difference but believe that professional navigators are also needed alongside the satellite tracking system. read more »

(Dive Travel Business News - May 6, 2010 ) -- A proposal to ban the trade of shark fins was introduced by Sen. Clayton Hee on April 28, 2010 in the Hawaii Legislature. Senate Bill 2169 prohibits the possession, sale and distribution of shark fins in the state of Hawaii.

State Sen. Clayton Hee is rallying support for the legislation he introduced that would make Hawaii a leader in the global fight to end shark finning. The practice involves cutting the fins off sharks, then discarding the live animals in the ocean to drown. The debate over shark finning in Hawaii is a controversial issue in the legislature. But Hee says shark fishing is insignificant when compared with the total fish take in Hawaii, and longline fishermen do not even fish for sharks. read more »

(Dive Travel Business News - April 27, 2010) -- HUFFINGTON POST --

A Sea of Deceit and Capitulation

by Edward Dorson
April 25, 2010

The trajectory of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), meeting in Morocco this June, is on a disastrous course for the world's whales. A new proposal to resume commercial whaling will be presented at the IWC summit. Simply put, it's an awful deal. In order to foresee the fate of the whales with this proposal on the table, look no further than how all the marine species fared at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last month, where each and every proposed aquatic species was denied protection. This was a Japanese orchestrated "victory," and the same bullying, vote swapping and "influencing" that Japan deployed at CITES to prevent marine protection is also entrenched to dictate the fate of the whales at the IWC. read more »