Marine Policy & Law List

SeaKeepers is an organization that unites the yachting community with the scientific and educational communities to facilitate conservation. Via their extensive range of programmes, they educate about the marine environments of the world and help restore them. Marine Science and conservation is supported by utilizing member yachts as platforms for marine research, educational outreach, and to deploy oceanographic instruments. These efforts eliminate vessel costs and allow scientists and educators to maximize funding towards research and education. Additionally community engagement programs promote conservation awareness and unite local participants in beach and dive clean-ups.

ISPRA supports the Ministry of Environment, Territory and Sea in several environmental matters including marine protection policies and marine observation. It owns an oceanographic vessel

One of the first groups of environmentalists and antinuclear movements that developed in Italy and throughout the Western world, based on scientific environmentalism to build policies and to advocate change towards local, national and international stakeholders and institutions. It aims to engage communities, stakeholders and people and enable them be the leading actors of change. Amongst their projects involving volunteers is marine litter cleanups. Based in two headquarters in Rome and Milan, with 20 regional coordination offices and more than 600 local groups of volunteers.

The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF) is 'dedicated to the long-term health and wellbeing of all Earth's inhabitants'. Oceans is one of four key areas the LDF focuses on, working through collaborative partnerships with organizations such as Oceana and WWF, and thus supports innovative projects and programmes to protect marine life and support communities reliant on the oceans.

Marevivo is a significant Italian environmental association that protects the sea and its resources, focusing in particular on biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, enhancement and promotion of marine protected areas, combatting pollution and illegal fishing. They promote education in schools and universities, and act as an advocate influencing law and policy with many successful campaigns in Italy, such as recently the ban of microplastics in rinse-off cosmetics and the ban on sea cucumber fishing. Marevivo relies on the work of hundreds of volunteers and thousands of members scattered all over Italy, with representation throughout the country in the form of delegations in more than 25 centres. They are organised into diving, sailing, canoe & kayak, beaches and shore divisions.

Marine Conservation Institute is a non-profit scientific and conservation advocacy organization that has been working since 1996 to promote cooperation essential to protecting and restoring the Earth's biological diversity. From the headquarters in Seattle WA and the Washington DC and California offices, they work to protect marine life around the United States and beyond by encouraging research and training in marine conservation biology, bringing scientists together to examine crucial marine conservation issues, conducting policy research to frame the marine conservation agenda, leading outreach efforts to educate scientists, the public and decision makers on key issues, and building partnerships to solve problems affecting marine life and people.

The mission of the Marine Conservation Network is 'to build a global size ocean community by closing the communication gap between scientists, conservationists, and the general public'. This includes better communication and understanding among scientists, conservationists, and the public by establishing a shared platform for collaboration in pursuit of conservation and scientific advancement. This is aimed at addressing, together, the challenges facing the oceans today, including climate change, overfishing, plastic pollution, and habitat destruction. Their goal is to raise awareness, promote sustainable fishing practices, protect critical habitats, and ensure the health and resiliency of marine ecosystems. This includes sharing information and resources, including video resources, as well as advocating for policies and actions.

Marine Watchdogs focuses on the health of the ocean and the food products that come from it. A member-based nonprofit action company, their mission includes research, education and active projects like seafloor cleanup events. They aim to engage the public and enable ways for people to get involved in ocean ecology via seabed survey and seafloor clean-ups. Their multiple activities include: conducting toxicology tests, alerting the public to contamination issues, conducting marine bio fieldtrips, providing educational resources, and running campaigns aimed at reducing single-use plastic waste and agricultural chemical run-off.

MedReAct's mission is 'to catalyse action for the recovery of Mediterranean marine ecosystems by ensuring a fair and responsible long-term use of our Common Sea.' MedReAct consists senior marine campaigners and NGOs that jointly worked to reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), and who coordinated the coalition OCEAN2012 in Greece, Cyprus, France, Italy and Spain (ocean2012.eu), which helped securing the CFP main objective of stopping overfishing by 2020. They have now turned their attention to recovery of the Mediterranean ecosystems.

NAMMCO is an international regional body for cooperation on the conservation, management and study of marine mammals in the North Atlantic. The four partners are Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland and Norway. They have the aim of 'sustainable and responsible utilisation of all living marine resources, including marine mammals.' Through their cooperation under the umbrella NAMMCO, they 'aim to strengthen and further develop effective conservation and management measures for marine mammals'.

The role of the NPWS in the marine environment includes protection of marine habitats, protection of marine life in particular Cetaceans (principally dolphins) and seals, marine licencing, marine research and the control of marine research areas, amongst others.

Nature Trust (Malta) is one of the oldest non-governmental organisations dealing with the natural environment in the Maltese Islands. Their main focus is on site management of natural areas, environmental education and lobbying for effective environmental legislation. They are also involved in the Rescue of injured marine turtles and stranded dolphins. NTM has a team of dedicated rescue volunteers all professionally trained.