Why Donate at the End of the Year?

Every year, millions of people choose to give back during the holiday season. Giving Tuesday and year-end giving offer opportunities to support the causes that matter the most to you—and help create meaningful change before a new year begins. For ocean lovers, Giving Tuesday is an opportunity to turn passion into action. This global day of giving provides a chance to support ocean conservation and help protect the marine ecosystems and wildlife that depend on healthy waters. As the year ends, your gift can help advance efforts to safeguard the ocean for generations to come. 

Why is ocean conservation important this time of year?

Year-end giving is an important opportunity to support ocean conservation. Donations made before the end of the calendar year may qualify for a federal charitable deduction, depending on your tax situation and eligibility. For 2026, new rules allow taxpayers who do not itemize to deduct up to $1,000 in qualifying cash charitable contributions ($2,000 for married couples filing jointly), subject to applicable rules and limitations. If you want your gift to count toward your 2026 charitable giving, make your donation by December 31, 2026, and retain your donation records.

Our ocean faces urgent, year-round threats. Plastic pollution continues to threaten marine wildlife. Important ocean ecosystems need protection. Climate change is negatively impacting the ocean and communities that depend on it.

Your end-of-year gift helps Ocean Conservancy bringing together science, policy and advocacy to create solutions for a healthier ocean. For more than 50 years, we’ve helped mobilize millions of volunteers, conduct ground-breaking research, advance policies that reduce plastic pollution, strengthen protections for important marine ecosystems and advance ocean-based climate solutions.

A year-end gift helps carry that work forward. As you think about where to direct your generosity this Giving Tuesday and holiday season, consider giving to the ocean—and helping build a healthier ocean for generations to come. 

Give to Ocean Conservancy

Giving Tuesday and year-end giving are opportunities to turn generosity into meaningful action. Whether you’re supporting ocean conservation, contributing to your local community or giving to another cause that matters to you, every donation can help create lasting impact.

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What does my donation to Ocean Conservancy support?

Here are just a few examples of what your year-end gift helps support:

• Reduce ocean plastic pollution through advocacy, research and conservation programs
  For more than four decades, our International Coastal Cleanup ^®  has mobilized nearly 20 million volunteers who have removed more than 400 million pounds of trash from beaches and waterways around the world. In the past year, International Coastal Cleanup volunteers collected more than 1.3 million plastic beverage bottles and 885,000 plastic caps worldwide. Ocean Conservancy also continued its work to address abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear, known as ghost gear, through the Global Ghost Gear Initiative^®.
• Protecting marine biodiversity and vulnerable ocean habitats
  Ocean Conservancy researchers published groundbreaking research in 2025 examining how much plastic ingestion can be fatal to seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals. The research found that surprisingly small amounts of plastic can have deadly consequences. This science helps inform policies and solutions designed to address plastic pollution at its source and protect marine life. 
• Protecting important ocean ecosystems
  Over the past year, Ocean Conservancy continued efforts to expand protections for the Central Arctic Ocean, a 1.1 million square mile ecosystem around the North Pole. We also helped advance international recognition of the importance of the ocean’s twilight zone, a region 200 to 1,000 meters below the surface that is home to many ocean fish and plays an important role in the ocean’s carbon cycle. 

What are the different ways I can donate to Ocean Conservancy?

There are several ways to support Ocean Conservancy, depending on what works best for you.

• Make a one-time donation: A one-time gift is a simple way to support ocean conservation today and help provide resources for urgent work.
• Become a monthly donor: Monthly giving provides reliable, ongoing support that helps Ocean Conservancy plan for long-term initiatives and drive lasting ocean protection.

Explore all ways to give. 

How much should I give?

There is no single right amount to give. The most meaningful donation is one that fits your circumstances and reflects the causes you care about. You can also consider making your ocean conservation support go further by becoming a monthly donor. Recurrent giving provides nonprofits like Ocean Conservancy with more predictable resources and that help support long-term projects.

Giving Tuesday and year-end giving are opportunities to turn generosity into meaningful action. Whether you’re supporting ocean conservation, contributing to your local community or giving to another cause that matters to you, every donation can help create lasting impact.

The post Why Donate at the End of the Year? appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.

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The Mysteries of the Mariana Trench

Our ocean is an incredibly vast and mysterious place. And there is no place where that is more evident than the deepest ocean area in the world: the legendary Mariana Trench. Located east of the Philippines, the Mariana Trench lies in the Mariana Archipelago in the western portion of the North Pacific. The greater area of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument is made up of more than 95,000 square miles of ocean. Beneath these waters lie incredibly complex aggregations of submerged islands and volcanoes … and of course, an astoundingly massive trench.

Dive in with us to have your biggest questions answered about the famed Mariana Trench.

How deep is the Mariana Trench?

The deepest part of the Mariana Trench, known as Challenger Deep, is almost 36,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. For context, Mount Everest is about 29,000 feet above sea level, so the Mariana Trench is about 7,000 feet deeper than Mount Everest is tall. For one more comparison, the RMS Titanic lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet below sea level. The Challenger Deep is in waters nearly three times deeper than this ship’s final resting place.

Due to its enormous size, the Mariana Trench has at times been affectionately nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the ocean. This is certainly a picturesque image, but don’t let the mammoth size of this U.S. national terrestrial park fool you into thinking the Mariana Trench matches its size. The trench’s footprint is estimated to be 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon’s, and to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, you’d need to descend through almost six Grand Canyons stacked on top of each other before you’d reach the seafloor.

Oh … and did we mention it’s five times wider than it is deep?  It’s about 43 miles wide!

What is Challenger Deep, and how long would it take to reach it?

Challenger Deep is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. Fewer than 30 people have ever journeyed to this area. The trek below the surface is long, dark and time-consuming, and it’s not an expedition considered lightly by scientists and explorers.

The first people to descend into the depths of this area in 1960 were oceanographers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, and it took them close to five hours to reach Challenger Deep. Since then, more advanced submersibles have been created, but it still takes two to four hours for modern vessels to reach such depths. For example, explorer and filmmaker James Cameron reached the seafloor in a little more than 2.5 hours in the first documented solo submarine dive to the area, and it took oceanographer Dr. Dawn Wright about four hours in 2022. It is crucial that these submersibles descend slowly and steadily beneath the surface, as the immense water pressure compounds with every mile a submersible descends. Speaking of pressure …

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What is the water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?

If you thought the depth of the Mariana Trench was its only jaw-dropping feature, think again. Water pressure is one of the most important factors affecting deep-sea life. In the ocean, pressure increases by one atmosphere for every 33 feet (10 meters) of depth. One atmosphere (a unit of measurement for pressure equivalent to average air pressure at sea level) is equal to about 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI), which is the approximate standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. If you were to convert atmospheric pressure into weight, one atmosphere is about the weight of a bowling ball. Stay with me, friends.

If a vessel were to dive 2,000 feet below the surface, the pressure would equal that of 60 bowling balls stacked atop every square inch of that submersible. But 60 bowling balls is simply nothing compared to the pressure in the Mariana Trench. The atmospheric pressure at the depths of Challenger Deep is equal to about 16,000 PSI. That pressure is about the same as the weight of an entire full-grown elephant on every square inch of a submersible!

Need a more extreme comparison? If a human were to be placed at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the pressure would be equal to that of 50 jumbo jets piled on top of a person!

Do any animals live in the Mariana Trench?

The depths of the Mariana Trench come with immense pressure and extreme darkness, but somehow, life finds a way to survive. Organisms that live at an extreme depth, like that of Challenger Deep, have to be highly adapted to low temperatures (typically just above freezing), high pressure and virtually no light at all.

Species found in the depths of the Mariana Trench might look vastly different from animals from other ocean depths because their anatomy has been refined to thrive in harsh conditions. At such great depths, these animals typically depend on chemosynthesis (using nutrient-rich waters being pumped out of hydrothermal vents) or descending detritus (dead matter that has fallen from higher parts of the ocean) for food, such as whale falls. Just a handful of these animals include species of octopuses and squids, sea cucumbers, amphipods, sea jellies, shrimp, sea worms and some wild-looking fish!

In 2025, more than 7,000 new species were discovered in the Mariana Trench, including the hadal snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei). This is the deepest-dwelling fish currently known to science. Now, the fish has been dubbed “the Mariana snailfish.”

This ghost fish, of the family Aphyonidae, was filmed alive for the first time during a deep-sea dive. Observations like this are critical to understanding an organism’s life. We now have the first evidence of where these fish live!

How was the Mariana Trench formed?

The process by which the Mariana Trench was created is a geologically fascinating one known as subduction. On the Earth’s surface, there are thin plates that cover the planet’s mantle, which is made of molten rock. If two of these plates collide, one pushes down into the Earth’s mantle while the other is pushed over the bottom plate. When this happens, a trench is formed from the drag of the bottom plate. This process can sometimes create incredibly strong earthquakes. The plates that forged the Mariana Trench’s creation are estimated to be up to approximately 180 million years old.

This trench was unknown to scientists until 1875. It was then that a team of explorers on the HMS Challenger measured the depth of the sea by simply lowering a weighted rope into the water. They were baffled when they measured that first portion of the seafloor to be five miles below the surface. And so was born the origin of some of the most daring deep-sea explorations known to mankind to date.

Is the Mariana Trench protected?

The Mariana Trench is in waters off Guam and the Mariana Islands. The region is protected from some human activities under its status as a marine monument. The creation of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument signified that international, national and local leaders all recognize the importance of protecting this area.

However, just because the region is protected does not mean it’s not vulnerable to modern threats to ocean health. Plastic bags have been spotted in the Mariana Trench during several expeditions, highlighting the far-reaching impact of the marine debris problem. No corner of our ocean is safe from the ever-present threat of plastic pollution. The reality of a changing climate makes the future well-being of wondrous places like the Mariana Trench uncertain. What’s more: More than 70% of the global ocean has yet to be mapped. And what we don’t yet know about, we cannot wisely work to protect.

It’s up to us to work together to defend our ocean, from the sandy shores of our favorite beaches to the deepest, darkest parts of the sea. Together, we can work to protect our ocean as a whole, which ultimately helps protect treasured places like Challenger Deep.

Find out how you can join Ocean Conservancy’s wave of momentum to secure a healthy ocean and a thriving planet, forever and for everyone!

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The Ocean is Changing—Here’s What We Can Do About It

Our ocean has absorbed more than 90% of excess heat caused by human-driven climate change and a quarter of the carbon dioxide we emit. In simple terms: The ocean has been quietly protecting us from the worst impacts of a warming planet.

But that protection comes at a high cost. 

In “Ocean Discovery: Climate and Our Ocean,” actor and Protect Where We Play Team Ocean Captain John Slattery sits down with Ocean Conservancy’s Vice President of Climate Fatima Candace Vahlsing to explore what’s happening beneath the surface—and what we can do about it.

The ocean is the climate story.

We often think about climate change as an atmospheric story, but the ocean is the engine of our climate system. It regulates temperatures, drives weather patterns and produces roughly half of the oxygen we breathe. And right now, that engine is under enormous pressure.

Currently, we’re facing a triple planetary crisis: The ocean is warming, becoming more acidic and experiencing rising sea levels. These aren’t distant or abstract problems. They’re measurable changes with consequences we can already see. 

Take coral reefs. They support roughly one-quarter of all marine species, but when ocean temperatures rise, corals can bleach and, if the stress continues, ultimately die. Today, 77% of the world’s reef areas have experienced bleaching-level heat stress.

Ocean acidification is another consequence of our changing climate. As the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, seawater becomes more acidic. Ocean acidity has increased by about 30% since the Industrial Revolution, making it harder for animals like oysters, clams, sea urchins and some plankton to build and maintain their shells and skeletons. 

When the foundation of the ocean’s food web and ecosystem is disrupted like this, the effects ripple outward—to fish and wildlife, to coastal communities and ultimately to all of us. 

This is a human story, too.

For hundreds of millions of people around the world, a healthy ocean is inseparable from food, livelihoods and culture. Coastal fishing communities, small island nations and Indigenous communities are among those facing some of the most immediate impacts, despite contributing comparatively little to the climate crisis. Here in the United States, rising sea levels are already making high-tide flooding more common.

That’s why understanding the science matters. The numbers tell us what’s happening. They also point us toward where we need to act. 

The ocean can be part of the solution.

The good news is that this story doesn’t end with what’s going wrong. Protecting important ocean areas, like mangroves, marshes and wetlands, can give ecosystems room to recover. Clean ocean energy, including responsibly developed offshore wind, can help reduce the greenhouse gas pollution driving climate change.

Ocean Conservancy is working with partners around the world to advance these and other ocean-based climate solutions while supporting the science to explore new opportunities. 

The solutions are real. The progress is real. And so is the opportunity to make a difference.

As John puts it, the ocean has been taking care of us. It’s time we returned the favor. Watch Ocean Discovery: Climate and Our Ocean to hear Fatima and John unpack the science, the stakes and the solutions—and then take the next step.

Take action to combat the climate crisis from right where you are. Our elected officials must act now to move away from dirty fossil fuels that exacerbate climate change and move toward clean energy. Add your name today.

Whether you’re learning more, sharing what you’ve learned or raising your voice with decision-makers, your action matters. Together we can protect the ocean that protects us. 

Combat the Climate Crisis

Our elected officials must act now to move away from dirty fossil fuels that exacerbate climate change and move toward clean energy. Add your name today.

TAKE ACTION

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The Annual Migration to Clean Up Our Coasts

Annually, seasonally and sometimes even daily, amazing oceanic migrations are taking place. Humpback whales migrate thousands of miles to breeding grounds each year, while every night trillions of plankton, fish and squid move from the depths of the ocean towards the surface to feed. There are dozens more examples. Generation after generation, these incredible treks take place like clockwork.

There’s another migration I would like to add to the list. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people flock to shores across the world to remove harmful debris and plastic from their creeks, rivers, lakes and beaches. This is Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup® (ICC), and its 41^st season is upon us. I personally am extra-excited about this year’s movement, as it will be the first cleanup with my eight-month-old in tow, hopefully her first of many. 

About the ICC

The ICC brings together people of all ages and backgrounds to take part in removing trash from the environment. The beauty of this migration is that even the smallest actions add up to great impact for ocean health. While many community cleanups take place in September, cleanups happen all year long. You can also do a cleanup any time on your own or with family and friends using Ocean Conservancy’s free mobile app, Clean Swell®, to track what you find. Data collection is at the heart of the ICC, and millions of marine debris data points feed into an online open-access database which informs big-picture solutions to the ocean plastic crisis. During last year’s Cleanup, more than 630,000 volunteers removed 7.9 million pounds (3.4 million kilograms) of trash and tallied 13.8 million items removed!

Our cleanup actions have immediate benefits for marine life too. Based on recent research led by Ocean Conservancy scientists, we built a Wildlife Impact Calculator to help us understand how our actions removing plastic from the environment protect marine birds, turtles and mammals that otherwise might have interacted with those items. The calculator is now part of the Clean Swell® app, so when you submit your cleanup results, you can see in real time how many animals your cleanup effort is protecting.

If you are like me, once you start this movement to clean our waterways and ocean, it becomes part of your yearly routine. It’s an annual migration of good for our blue planet—one where we can bring our families and friends along too.

What the ocean means to you

We recently asked our supporters: What does the ocean mean to you, and why do you feel called to protect it? Here are some of the responses they shared with us:

“I would love for future generations to be able to see the beautiful ocean we have. We need to stop the destruction of pollution, overfishing and warming of our oceans.” – Debra E.

“It is our future! And it is an honor to explore it at times. I wish everyone could see its beauty below the surface.” – Suzy W.

“It’s one of the most important places on the planet and it is still as unknown to us as outer space, for this is the final frontier to be explored. And now more than ever, our future depends on a healthy thriving ocean.” – Derek H.

“The ocean and wildlife were part of my childhood. It was where I felt like I belonged. I want to protect it so future generations can have the connection that I had.” – Cynthia K.

“The ocean is life itself; a vast, breathing force whose rhythms sustain the planet, nourish entire ecosystems, and cradle an extraordinary tapestry of wildlife. It embodies natural beauty in its purest form, from shimmering surfaces to the hidden worlds below, each layer reminding us of the delicate balance that keeps Earth alive. Without the ocean, all life ends; with it, the planet thrives. It is both a wonder and a responsibility, a reminder that we must protect the oceans if we hope to protect ourselves and the future of every living thing.” – Laurie S.

Looking to the future

Like so many of our supporters, I dream of a future where my daughter and her generation do not have to do cleanups, and the plastic pollution crisis would be a thing of the past. And that dream is not too far away. The tools and solutions exist, we just have to prioritize and implement them. Cleaning up the debris and plastics already in the environment remains an important part of the solution. Join our International Coastal Cleanup® and help us reach our mission of a healthy ocean and a thriving planet, forever and for everyone.

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Do Sea Turtles Get Lost?

Did you know some female sea turtles can travel hundreds—or even thousands—of miles through open ocean before returning to nest on or near the very beaches where they hatched? In fact, Leatherback sea turtles take this long-distance travel to an extraordinary level. Pacific leatherbacks nesting in Indonesia have been documented migrating more than 10,000 kilometers to the West Coast of the United States. That’s the longest migration of any air-breathing marine vertebrate. So how do they accomplish this without Google Maps?

Scientists have found that sea turtles can sense magnetic information and use it as a navigational cue. Because the strength and angle of Earth’s magnetic field vary across the planet, these subtle differences can provide turtles with information about where they are and help guide their movements across the ocean. For turtles that return to their birthplace to nest (a behavior known as natal homing), these magnetic cues may be especially important. It’s an extraordinary system, but even the best navigation can take a turtle only so far.

Despite their great sense of direction, sea turtles don’t always make it where they’re going.

A sea turtle may be capable of navigating thousands of miles, but reaching the right destination is that much more of a challenge when human-caused obstacles lie in the way.

Artificial light is one example. Artificial lighting not only discourages nesting females from coming ashore but also has a harmful impact on hatchlings, which historically emerge from their nests at night and orient toward the brightest horizon. On a natural, undeveloped beach, that is generally the open ocean. But artificial light from coastal development can overwhelm the natural cue, drawing hatchlings inland away from the water and causing them to get lost on day one.

Coastal development not only brings more artificial light and human activity to the shoreline, but it also changes turtle habitats themselves. Buildings, roads and other development can alter or reduce areas sea turtles need for nesting. Shoreline armoring, such as seawalls, can eliminate the dry sand turtles need to successfully nest, while beach driving and other activities can further disrupt nesting habitats. And these challenges extend beyond the beach.

The ocean is getting noisier, too. Sea turtles have internal ears and can hear underwater sounds. Vessel traffic, oil and gas surveys, underwater construction and sonar all add noise to the marine environment. Human-generated sound can cause stress, disrupt normal behaviors or even force marine animals to move from preferred habitats or divert from migratory paths.

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Evolution never saw the plastic grocery bag coming.

Then there’s a threat sea turtles encounter almost everywhere they travel: plastic pollution. Sea turtles evolved over millions of years to spot drifting prey, like jellyfish. But plastic rapidly started to be used only around 60+ years ago.

Our plastic trash entered the ocean so quickly that animals haven’t had time to adapt. To a hungry sea turtle, a floating plastic bag still looks enough like dinner to trick even an experienced turtle. Plastic bags, balloons, soft plastic packaging and other plastics, once swallowed, can block a turtle’s digestive tract or puncture internal organs. And it doesn’t necessarily take much.

A recent Ocean Conservancy study of more than 10,000 marine animal autopsies found that nearly half of the sea turtles studied had ingested plastic. Even more alarming, researchers found that for adult loggerhead turtles, swallowing just one and a half times the plastic in a golf ball was enough to kill 50% of these creatures.

It’s a heartbreaking reminder that something we use for minutes can threaten an animal that’s been roaming Earth’s ocean for more than 100 million years.

Ancient animals still face very modern threats.

Sea turtles survived the extinction event that wiped out dinosaurs. They’ve outlasted shifting continents and dramatic changes to our planet. But surviving millions of years doesn’t make them invincible. Today, they’re facing threats that appeared in the blink of an evolutionary eye: plastic pollution, habitat loss, vessel strikes, fishing gear entanglement and climate change. The remarkable thing is that many of these challenges aren’t inevitable. They’re problems we can all help solve.

Together, we can reduce the amount of plastic that reaches the ocean. We can protect and restore nesting beaches. And we can support policies that protect healthy ocean ecosystems. Every action helps make our waters a safer place for animals that depend on it.

So, do sea turtles get lost? When left to their own devices, not often. Sea turtles have an extraordinary ability to navigate across vast stretches of open oceans. But there’s a bigger question worth asking: Can we help make the ocean a safe place while they make these incredible journeys? Navigation is only part of the challenge for sea turtles trying to find their way home. Sea turtles may know where they’re going, but it’s our job to ensure the ocean and coastlines they depend on are safe when they get there. That’s why Ocean Conservancy is committed to protecting our entire ocean—and all the creatures that dwell there.

We’re fortunate to share the planet with these amazing creatures. Their journeys are a remarkable feat of science and survival. To all the turtles out there: Here’s to finding your way—wherever you’re going!

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