Our 25 metre long 'No Fish No Future' banner looks tiny alongside the giant Albatun Tres

After last week's good news about Pacific Island nations banding together to stop foreign fishing fleets decimating their tuna stocks, the crew of Esperanza yesterday took action against the biggest and most devastatingly efficient tuna catching vessel in the world, the Spanish owned purse seiner Albatun Tres.

Hurrah! At last some good news for threatened Pacific tuna. Eight Pacific Island nations have signed an agreement to stop foreign fishing fleets taking their tuna. Our ship the Esperanza has been in the Pacific for the last seven weeks confronting unscrupulous foreign fleets that take 90 per cent of the fish, and even more of the profit.

Many of us are filled with a great sense of wonder and awe when we have the opportunity to experience the ocean. It can excite and calm, mystify and inspire. The ocean stimulates all of our senses. We can see it, hear it, touch it, smell it and taste it. We can completely immerse ourselves in it.

As much as I love tramping through rainforest, admiring mountain views, watching rivers meander through impressive landscapes and discovering all kinds of plants an animals on land... there's something about the ocean that grabs me every time I'm near it.

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Video: the discovery of Aaptos kanuux

Fascinating news just in - our two month research expedition to the Bering Sea last summer led to the discovery of a new species. Using manned submarines and a Remote Operated Vehicle, the crew of the Esperanza explored two of the world's deepest underwater canyons and took samples of never before seen life on the sea floor. Now, careful analysis has revealed one of them to be an entirely new species of sponge. Discovered in Pribilof Canyon, the new discovery is to be named Aaptos kanuux.

Our Executive Director John Sauven, writing for comment is free explains why tuna, once the 'chicken of the sea', is now at grave risk from overfishing.

The MV Esperanza confronts overfishing and pirate fishing in the Pacific.

Tuna, particularly the canned variety, has long been one of the UK's staple foods and most of us probably have a couple of tin or two somewhere in our cupboards. More recently, we've been developing a taste for raw tuna, as sushi bars continue to spread throughout the country.

You'd probably find the idea of an event for trading in rhinoceros horns or tiger skins pretty shocking. But today, 1,600 companies from 80 countries came together in Brussels to trade all sorts species, including some threatened and endangered ones: fish, also known as our global marine life.

The Brussels Seafood Expo is the world's biggest sea food trading event, where species on the brink of collapse - like Mediterranean bluefin tuna and North Sea cod - are, literally, served up on a plate.

Today sees the long overdue publication of the Draft Marine Bill. The Bill presents a key opportunity not just to improve the management of our national waters, but to begin the concerted action that is needed to protect marine biodiversity and reverse the decline in our fish stocks.

But the Marine Bill is only a tool, not the finished product. Read more »