The Tiffany & Co. Foundation Bestows Grant to International Conservation Organization Oceana
Press Release Date: October 1, 2009
Location: New York City, NY
Contact:
Anna Baxter | email: abaxter@oceana.org
Anna Baxter
The Tiffany & Co. Foundation recently presented ocean conservation group Oceana with a grant in the amount of $100,000 in support of its efforts to protect increasingly threatened deep-sea corals that thrive off the New England and Mid-Atlantic coasts.
With this grant, Oceana will work with the federal fishery management council in New England to gain protections for these areas. As part of the effort, Oceana will prepare reports to inform decision-makers and the general public about the value of deep-sea coral and sponge habitat in the north Atlantic.
“Corals are the jewels of our seas,” said Bettina Alonso, Director of Oceana’s Northeast Office. “It is a perfect and logical matching. We are very pleased to add Tiffany to our ocean family.”
Coral has long been used in fine jewelry but for the past three years, Tiffany has been one of the few retail jewelers to refuse the use of this material in their collection.
“It is from nature that Tiffany & Co. draws the raw materials and inspiration that have shaped the company’s design heritage,” stated Fernanda Kellogg, president of The Tiffany & Co. Foundation. “We truly believe corporations have a responsibility to protect the environment which gives us so much.”
The mission of The Tiffany & Co. Foundation’s Environment Program is to support organizations dedicated to the protection of natural resources. It seeks to promote collaboration and capacity building in three major areas: responsible mining, coral reef conservation and land conservation.
“Destructive trawls and dredges used for commercial fishing have destroyed and continue to destroy entire seafloor environments necessary to conserve, protect and restore healthy oceans and healthy fish populations,” said Dave Allison, Director of Oceana’s Campaign Against Destructive Trawling. “This grant will help us continue our work on protecting corals from destructive fishing practices.”
Oceana has led the campaign to protect deep sea corals and sponges and other vulnerable seafloor habitat, and to prevent bottom trawling from expanding into new areas.
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Oceana campaigns to protect and restore the world’s oceans. Our teams of marine scientists, economists, lawyers and advocates win specific and concrete policy changes to reduce pollution and to prevent the irreversible collapse of fish populations, marine mammals and other sea life. Global in scope and dedicated to conservation, Oceana has campaigners based in North America (Washington, DC; Juneau, AK; Portland, OR; Monterey, CA; Santa Monica,, CA), Europe (Madrid, Spain; Brussels, Belgium) and South America (Santiago, Chile). More than 300,000 members and e-activists in over 150 countries have already joined Oceana.
