The ocean is the Earth’s biggest life support system, and healthy marine ecosystems are essential for human survival and well-being. As a leader in the global movement to protect vast ocean areas, Marine Conservation Institute uses the latest science to identify important marine ecosystems, advocate for their protection, and measure progress toward effective, sustainable marine protection.
Our priority is to help create an urgently-needed worldwide system of Blue Parks, or recognized highly protected areas, to ensure the future diversity and abundance of marine life. To encourage meaningful progress and accurately reflect the current state of marine protection, we also developed and actively maintain the world’s most comprehensive online marine protected area database, the Marine Protection Atlas.
Since starting as the vision of one person in 1996, Marine Conservation Institute has become an influential voice in the global fight to save our ocean.
We are an active member of the High Seas Alliance, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, Coral Reefs of the High Seas Coalition, and National Ocean Protection Coalition, working to defend and advance marine protection at home and abroad.
As a founding member of the California Seamounts Coalition, we lead efforts to protect vital deep-sea habitats off the California coast. This work builds on our decade-long effort to conserve coral ecosystems. We also model deep-sea habitats and research their ecosystems to promote protection for these fragile, hard-to-find living treasures.
For 25 years, Marine Conservation Institute has been leading conservation efforts to save our ocean. Growing awareness of threats to our ocean has led to significant expansion of marine protections, but the environmental challenges facing our blue planet are enormous. Your support for our mission is more important now than ever before.
Become an Ocean Guardian or make a donation to help ensure our ocean remains healthy and strong for generations to come.
Organizational Statement
Humankind depends on a biodiverse ocean. Everyone deserves a voice in the marine conservation community. Marine Conservation Institute recognizes that all people and communities, particularly those that have been historically but also contemporarily marginalized, are essential to our mission of protecting the ocean for those of us on the planet now, and for future generations. Marginalized communities are facing the earliest and most intense impacts of the biodiversity and climate crises, yet these communities have faced systemic disadvantages that restricted their opportunities to engage, participate, and lead in marine science and conservation. We acknowledge the historical and present-day inequities and injustices pervasive in the field of marine conservation.
Equity and justice are integral to effective marine conservation. We envision a future in which our thriving biodiverse ocean benefits a diverse human population that is fully involved in and committed to marine conservation. We commit to work with intent and care to build and support an inclusive and diverse marine conservation community within our own organization, through our programs, and through our collaborations. We aim to foster equitable and just marine conservation efforts through all of our work. We commit to continuing to learn and deepen our understanding of how to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, and we commit to developing and implementing an annual strategy of concrete activities aligned with these values.
