Greetings all Blue Project fans out there! Well, you guessed it…It’s that time of year again, the Malibu Invitational which will be held on August 27th-28th, 2011 benefitting Jimmy Gamboa’s TheraSurf.

This organization needs no introduction, but for those of you who haven’t heard, TheraSURF is a non-profit organization that focuses on sharing the magic of surfing with children who have special needs. Their mission is based on “giving the kids an opportunity to enjoy surf culture and be stoked in the water and on land by including family and friends.  There is nothing more powerful than sharing experiences such as this to fulfill lives and turn dreams into realities.”

To find out more about their cause, please check out their website here!

To find out more about the contest please visit The Malibu Invitational website!

Why say no to shark fin soup?

Shark fin soup is a key reason why one-third of the world’s sharks are now threatened with extinction. Up to 73 million sharks per year are slaughtered to make shark fin soup, a vastly popular Asian delicacy. Captured at sea and hauled on deck, the sharks are often still alive while their fins are hacked off. Because shark meat is not considered as valuable as shark fin, the maimed animals are tossed overboard to drown or bleed to death. The process is called shark finning: a recipe for cruelty and waste.

Traditionally served at Chinese New Year’s celebrations, shark fin soup can fetch up to $100 a bowl. That’s a high price to pay for a meal harmful to your health. Sharks consume marine trash polluted with heavy metal chemicals, and shark fin analyses have shown extremely high concentrations of mercury. Poisonous to humans, mercury can cause fetal damage and infertility.

California Shark Fin Ban:

With California’s Asian American population standing at 55% of the entire nation’s, assembly members Paul Fong and Jared Huffman have introduced an historic bill to prohibit the sale of shark fins in California – one of the largest sources of demand for shark fins outside Asia.

Read our full news release here

How you can help:

SIGN OUR GLOBAL PLEDGE FOR SHARKS

Our Shark Conservaton Program

WildAid’s Shark Conservation Program seeks to reduce the threats to sharks caused by over-fishing and over-consumption of shark products and by wasteful practices such as finning and needless bycatch. We also aim to improve data-collection and research, to advocate protection for individual species under international agreements and conventions and to support Marine Reserves and other key areas where sharks are protected.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo © Miles O’Sullivan

To view more of his work, please check out his website.

Story courtesy of Surfline, to view in its entirety please click here

SoCal surfer/activist Jon Rose explains of his recent trip to Japan. “This will be a 10- to 20-year rebuilding process. You’re not talking about one isolated place, it’s 200 miles of coastal towns wiped out. No electricity, no sanitation, nothing — they’re just trying to get the roads back. There’s debris everywhere, it looks like a giant landfill.”

Rose is no stranger to disaster zones. Since starting Waves for Water in 2009 after the tsunami hit the Mentawais, he’s since traveled around the world to various disaster areas — from Haiti to Chile to Pakistan — offering up filters to create clean drinking water for victims of natural disasters.

He spent last week traveling around northern Japan giving out filters to those in need on the perimeter of where the tsunami hit — and there was no shortage of people in need.

“We’d be driving around in the van and see people camped out in their driveway boiling water for drinking,” Rose says. “They’d have to walk to the nearest pond, and bring it back and boil it.”

Rose, former pro surfer Danny Melhado, W4W Executive Director Christian Troy and local surfer/musician/translator/guide Toruman would walk up the driveway and explain they were volunteers and had filters to donate.

Rose explains: “We’d say, ‘We know you have a million needs right now, but we can help with one of them. You don’t need to boil your water anymore — and you can use that time to focus on other needs.’ We’d show ‘em how to use the filters, and they were stoked. It was kinda like guerilla humanitarianism.”

The crew spent the week on the perimeter of where the tsunami hit. “They’re the ones kinda living in the shadows,” explains Rose. “They can’t go to the government shelters, ’cause they still have their houses — but they don’t have anything else. It was important to reach out to them.”

All up, the expedition gave out 150 water filters, which will give 15,000 people clean drinking water. “Unlike most of the places we go, Japan is very first world, so they just need the filters till their water gets turned back on,” said Rose. “We told ‘em to hang onto ‘em in case of emergencies. Hopefully they won’t need ‘em again.”

For more on Waves for Water, check out wavesforwater.org.

This video was shown to The Blue Project this afternoon via, Bryn Mooser founder of RYOT.

Ryot, can be summarized simply as “David Darg & Bryn Mooser:  Aid workers and film makers.  Believers that some stories need to be told and other stories need to be corrected.  In the words of Martin Luther King “A riot is the language of the unheard”, David & Bryn use RYOT to give a voice to the voiceless.  From the Ryots (peasants) of India to victims of poverty in Haiti, RYOT uses film to bring awareness, change misconceptions and to highlight the most powerful humanitarian projects in the world.”

You can view their website here.

Follow them on Twitter.

Like them on Facebook.

“An 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit off the east coast of Japan early today. The quake — one of the largest in recorded history — triggered a 23-foot tsunami that battered Japan’s coast, killing hundreds and sweeping away cars, homes, buildings, and boats.”

Editors note: we’ll post more as the story develops — Lloyd Young

The annual kerfuffle between Japanese whaling ships and the anti-whaling activists who chase them around Antarctic waters every winter is once again getting its seasonal share of ink and airtime. But this year the familiar scenes from the southerly tug-of-war might have a new victor – for now.

For the last several winters, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has chased around the whaling fleet Tokyo sends down to Antarctica to continue Japan’s annual whale hunt. Though there has been a global moratorium on commercial whaling since 1986, Japan continues to hunt whales in a loophole in the laws that permits whaling for scientific purposes. The scuffles between the Sea Shepherd activists trying to put a stop to this hunt and the Japanese fleet have been documented from the organization’s perspective in the sensationalist Whale Wars series on Animal Planet. Usually, the battle ends with the end of Japan’s hunt, and the activists vow to try again next year.

Yesterday, however, Japan announced they had suspended their whaling activities on Feb. 10 due, officials said, to persistent harassment from the Sea Shepherd. As of Thursday afternoon, Tokyo still had not said whether they were calling off the hunt for the season, which normally ends in March. Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and captain of the Sea Shepherd vessel, said Japan’s whale processing ship had changed course and might be heading home.

(See TIME’s Top 10 Gratuitously Provocative Acts.)

It would be a massive coup for the militant eco group in their long fight against whaling that, for Japan, has seemingly become less about harpooning a few hundred whales than the national identity. Facing Sea Shepherd’s increasingly bold tactics and deafening PR machine, Japan has dug its heels ever deeper in the ocean floor, insisting on its right to cull whales under its scientific program and sell its meat under the international treaty, despite flagging demand (the national stockpile of whale meat stood at 5,093 tons in December, compared to 1,453 tons in 1999) and threats of international legal action from Australia if it doesn’t stop.

That Japan may have finally decided that the whales they will kill and process this year may not be worth the money or safety of their crew was greeted with approval and optimism from many environmental corners. Interpreting Wednesday’s halt as a full withdrawal, Pew Environment Group director Josh Reichart released this statement yesterday:

The Pew Environment Group welcomes the early departure of the Japanese whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Commercial whaling does not belong in the 21st century. We hope that the removal of the fleet marks the end of all whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and that Japan confirms this exit is permanent at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in July.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Article courtesy of GOOD Magazine

“Levi’s has embarked upon quite the campaign to raise awareness about waste in the production and washing of jeans. Take the dyeing process alone: One pair of jeans requires a remarkable 42 liters of water just to turn that distressed shade of blue.

Last year, Levi’s hosted a contest that asked for ideas from their audience about how they could handwash and dry their jeans to reduce their footprint. The year before that they added new tags which detail how to responsibly care for jeans, including directions like “Donate to Goodwill.”

Now they’re showing how they’ve made drastic changes in their own production chain to ensure that their facilities are using less water—an average of 28 percent less per pair, and up to 96 percent for some styles. This fun, quirky video shows how much water they’re saving, and another video hosted on their site shows how they did it: By changing the way they design, sew, and dye their jeans (fun fact: they actually do wash jeans with rocks to get that stone-washed look). A page of resources hopefully inspires consumers to get serious about saving water, too.”

Article courtesy of The Huffington Post Freelance contributor: Deborah Bassett

Just when you thought that the fight to save whales couldn’t get any more mainstream, The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society announced the successful launch of their new iPhone and iPad App earlier this week.

Founded in 1977, the high profile and often controversial non profit marine conservation organization remains steadfast in its direct action mission to protect endangered marine wildlife and habitats across the planet. Now you can join ‘Neptune’s Navy’ as they continue to confront illegal poachers on the high seas in their relentless efforts to end illegal whaling and other critical issues facing the world’s oceans today.

The new iPhone application gives a positive new meaning to the term “armchair activist,” offering users the opportunity to take part in Sea Shepherd’s hi-stakes campaigns from any iPhone mobile device. Delivering international breaking news and updates, the application allows supporters to stay informed and up to date about the organization’s activities, including their current Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign, Operation No Compromise to be featured later this year on Animal Planet’s hit television seriesWhale Wars.

According to Sea Shepherd founder and lifelong champion of marine conservation, Paul Watson:

“Technology continues to change the way the world receives information and breaking news. I’m grateful that we are one of the first non-profit conservation organizations to leverage this technology and send updates to our supporters [via iPhones] with the click of a button. Sea Shepherd is ready for this year’s campaign with the goal of financially ‘sinking’ Japan’s illegal whaling operations. This new tool will allow iPhone users to do their part by staying informed, sharing updates to improve awareness and raise funds, and help ensure our success to end this barbaric slaughter.”

Features Include:

• International breaking news from Sea Shepherd campaigns
• In-depth commentaries on conservation issues from Captain Watson and others
• E-store offering the latest eco-friendly Sea Shepherd apparel, accessories, and gifts
• Calendar of Sea Shepherd events from around the world
• Access to Sea Shepherd’s social network including Facebook and Twitter
• Ability to donate to help keep their vessels and projects active
• Photo gallery featuring vessels, crew, and high seas action
• YouTube channel highlighting the latest Sea Shepherd footage shot around the world

One of the first in its class, this effective social media activist application is available for free download at the iTunes App store.