In the final day of the legislative session on Friday, the State Senate failed to act on AB 298, a bill to ban single-use plastic bags statewide. This bill would have been a major step forward in protecting the Pacific Ocean from plastic pollution, according to Environment California.
“Nothing that we use for a few minutes should pollute the ocean for hundreds of years” said Dan Jacobson, Legislative Director for Environment California. “Californians understand this and are taking action in their communities to protect the Pacific.”

The Cook Islands announced the creation of the world’s largest marine park at the opening of the Pacific Islands Forum on Tuesday, a vast swathe of ocean almost twice the size of France.
Prime Minister Henry Puna said the 1.065 million square kilometre (411,000 square mile) reserve “(is) the largest area in history by a single country for integrated ocean conservation and management”.
Puna said protecting the Pacific, one of the last pristine marine ecosystems, was the Cooks’ major contribution “to the well-being of not only our peoples, but also of humanity”.

The United Nations has launched a new "Oceans Compact" to combat pollution, over-fishing and rising sea levels.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today launched a new initiative to protect the oceans and the people whose livelihoods depend on it, and called on countries to work together to achieve a more sustainable management of this precious resource and address the threats it is currently facing.
"The seas and oceans host some of the most vulnerable and important ecosystems on Earth, but the diversity of life they host is under ever-increasing strain," Mr.

Americans who eat shark fin soup—an Asian delicacy costing up to $100 per bowl in the United States—might be unknowingly consuming an endangered species. According to an unprecedented scientific analysis by Stony Brook University, the Field Museum in Chicago and with support from the Pew Environment Group, the shark fin soup served in 14 U.S. cities contains at-risk species, including scalloped hammerhead, which is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as Endangered globally.

A marine scientist has urged people to "think twice about litter" after a basking shark was filmed in Manx waters with plastic around its nose.
The sighting comes just two weeks after a grey seal was pictured with plastic around its throat near Kitterland.
Jackie Hall, of Manx Basking Shark Watch (MBSW), said: "The images are terrifying."
The basking shark was filmed by a kayaker off the coast of Peel, who described it as "extremely upsetting".

Shark Advocates International is congratulating the government of Sri Lanka for adopting rules to protect three species of thresher sharks -- wide ranging species characterized by their exceptionally long tails – in line with a 2010 agreement by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC).

The number of basking sharks recorded in Britain's seas could be increasing, decades after being protected from commercial hunting in the late 20th century. The most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken of basking shark sightings in UK waters, by the University of Exeter, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), Cornwall Wildlife Trust (CWT) and Wave Action, is published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

Rebuilding global fisheries would make them five times more valuable while improving ecology, according to a new University of British Columbia study.
The study says that by reducing the size of the global fishing fleet, eliminating harmful government subsidies, and putting in place effective management systems, global fisheries would be worth US$54bn each year, rather than losing US$13bn per year.

KOTA KINABALU: The shark population in Sabah waters has dwindled significantly in the last 20 years, a forum was told recently.
And the time has come for a “balanced” alternative to be reached consensually for the shark species to thrive and be protected.

HONG KONG — China said Tuesday that it would prohibit official banquets from serving shark fin soup, an expensive and popular delicacy blamed for a sharp decline in global shark populations.
The ban, reported by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, could take as many as three years to take effect, and it remains unclear how widely it will be adhered to across a sprawling nation where orders issued by Beijing are often shrugged off by officials in faraway regions and provinces.