International law is all about rights and duties: a country gets the right to do something in exchange for which they have an obligation to make sure that they will not harm the rights of other states, or, in some cases, the environment. What we saw over the last few weeks was the strengthening of the rights to use the biodiversity of our planet and the weakening of the responsibilities that states should meet to ensure that life on earth is protected and conserved for future generations.

What does this mean for our oceans? In 2002, countries committed to establishing a global network of marine protected areas by 2012. We are four years closer to 2012 and less than 1% of our oceans have been declared strictly no-take protected areas - what we call Marine Reserves.

More than one billion people across this planet depend on fish as their primary form of protein, but three-quarters of all fisheries are now fully-exploited, over-exploited or depleted. And then states like South Korea stand up at a conference like the CBD and ask for the deletion of language recognising that there has been 'an unprecedented decline in global fisheries'.

Or Australia spends hours arguing that a sentence which singles out destructive fishing practices like bottom trawling (the sentence read in part: 'expresses its deep and increasing concern over these threats, in particular destructive fishing practices, including bottom tawling') should be deleted because the wording is different from that negotiated at the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 . This, even though Australia supported the recognition of destructive and illegal fishing as two of the key problems affecting oceans biodiversity just last month at the UN in New York!

And all this while, at the same time, on the water, the Esperanza is exposing the terrible working and sanitary conditions on pirate fishing vessels that are stealing the fish from the coastal communities of West Africa and sending them instead to grace the dinner plates of those of us who live in Europe and North America. Or our campaigners in Europe are locking down other pirate fishing vessels - listed by Europe, Norway and Iceland as pirate vessels - which are sitting in European ports being resupplied and readied to go fishing again. Sometimes it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Working at these political meetings can be depressing. Seeing the people in suits arguing over words for hours, watering down the language, weakening the final decisions. But then there are those who whisper their support for us - or who speak out loudly in support of us and what we are doing during the meetings - and even more importantly, stand up for what they believe needs to be done to protect earth's biodiversity. There was even the Environment Minister from one big fishing country that said he was a member of Greenpeace! Their voices may be few, but they are making waves - standing up for what they believe in. As Ocean Defenders, we can all do that and work to bring the changes that are so sorely needed if we are going to change the way things are now and make a better future for all. Make waves with us, become an Ocean Defender today!

PS: On a related and more positive note, Karli, one of our oceans campaigners who was with us in Brazil, decided to make waves in a small but significant way. Her target: the sushi restaurant at the Convention Centre. Her objective: vegetarian sushi on demand! Karli visited that sushi bar every day, asking for vegetarian sushi. At first, they were dumbfounded, but agreed to make her something special. By day 4, Karli had rounded up several of us and we were all ordering the 'special made' veggie sushi. By the penultimate day of the conference, vegetarian packs of sushi were available on demand. All goes to show, small acts can lead to big ripples and those ripples can become waves!

- Karen

Greenpeace calls the Summit for Life on Earth a failure »