Oceans
The world’s oceans support countless forms of life. Unfortunately, oceans and the tens of millions of people who live near them are under threat from oil spills, air pollution, sewage releases, industrial ocean fish farming, and unnatural ocean noise. Friends of the Earth has won regional, national and international limits on air, water and oil pollution from cruise ships, cargo ships, oil tankers, ferries and recreational water craft. We were instrumental in achieving the establishment of air pollution limits for ships near the coasts of the U.S. and Canada, which prohibit the use of dirty bunker fuel — unless alternative compliance methods are employed, such as shorepower or other pollution reduction technologies.
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Oceans Save our oceans from plastic pollutionTAKE ACTION
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Oceans Tell Carnival to put people over profitsTAKE ACTION
Friends of the Earth’s oceans team is focused on safeguarding public health and our oceans by calling for shore power — a technology that connects docked ocean vessels to the electric grid, allowing ships to turn off their diesel engines when not at sea.
When Donald Trump approved an offshore drilling project off the coast of Alaska in 2018, Friends of the Earth jumped into action. Represented by Earthjustice, we brought a lawsuit in federal court with four other environmental organizations to challenge the project’s approval. And, two years later, we won.
A years-long battle over a proposed mine in Alaska ended when a coalition that included Friends of the Earth successfully pushed the US Army Corps of Engineers to deny Pebble Mine a permit to operate in Bristol Bay, killing the project!
Hundreds of Friends of the Earth members called their state legislators, urging them to support these important bills, and we went to Sacramento to march and voice our strong opposition to Zinke’s plan.
Pebble Mine is a clear environmental disaster—yet its parent company found a financier for the project in First Quantum Minerals. To stop this project, Friends of the Earth has worked to hit them where it hurts: their financial backing.
Five years of environmental activism will clean the state’s waterways, protect public health, and boost local economy. This is a major win for both Washington and our planet.
In early March 2018, Washington’s state legislature passed House Bill 2957—a bill that bans all future industrial net pen operations by 2022. This bill should send a message to the aquaculture industry that its time is up.
The Washington State Department of Ecology, Port of Seattle, and CLIA-NWC are still allowing scrubber wastewater dumping in Puget Sound.
Despite ongoing litigation and timing questions regarding the lease for the facility, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has granted fish farming giant Cooke Aquaculture a permit to stock its Hope Island facility in-water net pens with steelhead.
Friends of the Earth released its 2021 Cruise Ship Report Card today, an annual assessment ranking the environmental & human health impacts of cruise lines.
by Katie Chicojay-Moore, Oceans and Vessels Fellow
Air pollution from large container ports has been a historically neglected environmental justice issue. Near-port communities tend to be communities of color, low-income, or otherwise disadvantaged and are disproportionately exposed to pollutants. While there have been significant efforts to reduce emissions from…
With the industry almost completely halted due to the COVID-19 crisis, Friends of the Earth sets out the following demands before the cruise industry should resume its operations in the United States.
In order to have clean cruising, we need the cruise industry to stop contributing to the climate crisis, polluting our air and water, destroying marine ecology, oceans, beaches and coral reefs with waste, and hiding their emissions.