Whales are a key element of a symbiotic ecosystem and maintaining a healthy aquatic environment. An estimated minimum of 300,000 whales and dolphins are killed each year as a result of fisheries bycatch. This results in a destabilisation of the ocean's food chain.

The commercial fishing industry can have a devastating and irreversible effect on ocean biodiversity. Some of the many ways it is damaging include the entanglement of species in fishing nets, increased by-catch casualties, ploughing of the ocean bed, churning of the ocean rainforest and plastics from ghost nets that are mistaken for food and consumed.

Fighting on the front line is Sea Shepherd. During March of 2021, five trawlermen were arrested for illegal fishing as Sea Shepherd engaged in a new partnership with the governments of Sierra Leone, Peru, Gabon and Mexico. Around the world Sea Shepherd are building additional partnerships with national governments to stop illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in their sovereign waters, and to ultimately protect marine wildlife.

If we leave the ocean to recover, the ultimate success will be a return of our ocean rainforests which will sequester our CO2 on land.

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