Our oceans contain most of Earth’s biodiversity, yet only a tiny fraction is protected. Overfishing, pollution and climate change threaten to degrade the special places in our oceans that remain healthy and teeming with life.

Protecting these places–before it is too late–is critical. Just as national parks conserve our lands,  marine reserves can help ensure ocean health for generations to come.

Global Ocean Legacy, a project of Pew and its partners, aims to establish a worldwide system of very large, highly protected marine reserves where fishing and other extractive activities are prohibited. We work with local citizens, governments and scientists around the world to protect and conserve some of the Earth’s most important and unspoiled marine environments.

• Our oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface.
• Less than one-half of one percent of the world's oceans is fully protected in no-take marine reserves; more than 15 times as much land area receives this kind of protection.
• Ninety percent of the population of the largest fish species has disappeared over the past 50 years.
• Roughly two-thirds of the world's coral reefs are either damaged or under threat and around a quarter have already been destroyed.