World Ocean Radio - Ocean Policy and Governance
This week on World Ocean Radio: synopsis of a recent report by the UN Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission entitled "Call to All Voices of the Ocean – Consultation of Civil Society in Preparation of the Next United Nations Ocean Conference" addressing issues and providing recommendations and specific actions related to ocean climate, science, and policy. One glaring omission: a powerful specific call for action--a plan through communication that will amplify, advocate, educate, and initiate the change required to connect us all through the sea.
As we review the state of climate change challenge and response, it becomes clear we are not succeeding. Is it possible to craft a new economic system that values natural resource sustainability over depletion of those resources? Can we conceive a new economics, a forward-directed system of financial valuation and exchange based on the asset value of Nature? We're discussing this and more this week on World Ocean Radio.
"The state of the ocean is not good." So states Vidar Helgesen in the forward to the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) State of the Ocean Report that was released in May. This week on World Ocean Radio we are summarizing the findings.
Bio-regions on Earth are organized into types, then realms, and are further distinguished and mapped for planning, strategizing, developing, and as a tool for protection of the planet. A major trouble with bio-regional mapping is that it neglects nearly 83 percent of the ocean–beyond marine protected areas–leaving the high seas and deep sea unaddressed and vulnerable.
This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing a recent trip to Lisbon, Portugal to attend the Economist Ocean Summit. One such conversation we participated in was on the topic of regulation--those systems and structures that frame best practices and are designed to control abuse. Regulation is conflicting and contradictory, especially when most regulatory decisions are followed by time-extending litigation. What if we could redefine regulation as an incentive to succeed? What if regulation could become a motivating context to advance change, rather than a backwards impediment to progress? We'll explore this and more.
Seafood is a world staple, under siege by increased consumption and over-fishing. Aquaculture is the necessary alternative, yet is a polarizing issue in coastal communities. What are we to do? This week we explore two Maine-based successes in aquaculture that are building local supply chains, increasing resilience in rural communities, promoting environmentally responsible solutions, and integrating indigenous and cultural knowledge and skills for an emerging industry.
"We are not blind to the overall problem, and if we were in doubt, recent climate-explained events, near and far, should open our eyes more widely. With climate conditions constantly in the news, public awareness must follow," says Peter Neill, director of the World Ocean Observatory. This week on World Ocean Radio we wrap up a two-part series with a message of hope.
In this episode and the next, World Ocean Radio reports on the status quo, business-as-usual, tunnel vision conclusions at COP28 in Dubai, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, December 2023. While many millions of dollars and intentions were pledged toward solutions, the focus and associated response was too narrow and inadequate to address the deficit consumption of our world's natural and ecological resources.
In these three episodes of World Ocean Radio we are exploring a recent publication entitled “A Forgotten Element in the Blue Economy: Marine Biomimetics and Inspiration from the Deep Sea,” authored by Robert Blasiak from the Stockholm Resilience Center in Sweden. The article identifies seven broad categories of biomimetic design: adhesion, anti-fouling, armor, buoyancy, movement, sensory, and stealth. In this 3-part series we'll discuss each with examples of application, technological invention, and as effective solution models for response to negative human intervention and climate change, and for ocean protection and conservation.
This week on World Ocean Radio are two forward-looking government-proposed initiatives that offer opportunities for progress in climate policy, investment, resiliency and sustainability. The first is Bridgetown 2.0, proposed by the Prime Minister of Barbados, to urge UN member states to consider an ambitious finance-driven program of climate-change response and implementation; the second is an ambitious climate commitment by the State of California to reach 100% carbon-free by 2045, as part of their proven commitment to environmental protection and action.
We are aware of the key role played by insurance, more so as we face increasing events of extreme weather destruction. Government agencies are signaling policy and coverage shifts, and there is a growing realization that existing policies and programs are not adequate to the new realities. Insurance is fundamental yet largely invisible until it is not there, and may be the driving force toward necessary change for the future.
This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing a topic close to our home waters in Maine: the complex dispute between the lobster fishery and environmentalists over gear modification and the entanglement of migrating right whales. And we highlight the Maine Coast Fisherman's Association who recently addressed the US House of Representatives to discuss amendment to the Farm Bill that would extend those bill's advantages and opportunities to fisheries and marine coastal development.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a proposed solution to advance successful connection and communication within and with those who fund and communicate ocean programs and projects.
RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week on World Ocean Radio as part of the multi-part RESCUE series we revisit the concept of ecosystem services accounting and propose that, in order to create a culture of investment for our future, we must apply energy, imagination and innovation to enable transition and success. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with the topic of seafood consumption. While more than 3 billion people worldwide rely on wild-caught and farmed seafood as a significant source of animal protein, unsustainable and illegally caught seafood harvest threatens a major health crisis if we do not confront the issue through regulation and enforcement of best practice, change in social behavior and consumption, and new technological innovations toward a sustainable future.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with an outline of the four technological focus areas of the recently announced Ocean Climate Action Plan, the organizing connection of which is technology. Guiding the actions of the plan are a commitment to be responsible stewards of a healthy and sustainable ocean, to advance environmental justice and engage with all communities, and to coordinate action across governments.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a discussion of alternative energy solutions, battery technology, geothermal energy production, and the adaptation of existing at-sea platforms and rigs to capture energy from the ocean as a less-polluting, renewed, refit utility, taking an old technology and transforming it into a new solution for our energy future. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a discussion of Earth law, a framework built upon the idea that ecosystems have the right to exist and thrive, and that Nature should be able to defend those rights in court. Can we ratify a collective treaty toward the protection of Nature? RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a continuation of UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In early March, the UN finalized a consensus agreement to work toward the conservation and protection of ocean resources and ecosystems. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a highlight of UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a major example of a far-reaching universal agreement that was drafted in 1982 and ratified in 1984. At the recent Davos gathering, a call to overhaul the UNCLOS instrument of ocean protection went largely unheeded. Who will be willing to step up and redress priorities to conserve and sustain the ocean? RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a highlight of two policies--the Antarctic Treaty and the Hamilton Agreement for the Sargasso Sea--that are working to successfully engage parties and members and maintain oversight for ocean and ecosystem conservation. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series by featuring some successful initiatives and ocean progress, with examples of policies related to Marine Protected Areas that are working and thriving. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a conversation about consensus, a policy-making tool that has historically served to progress issues forward. In this episode we argue that, in light of recent conversations and outcomes from COP27 and Davos, consensus may have become diluted, compromised and corrupted. What's next? Might it be time for bottom-up collective action and social invention? RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
This week we continue the multi-part RESCUE series with a discussion about ocean policy and the myriad organizations and initiatives around the world developing guidelines that inform decisions, rules and laws for the ocean future. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.
In this episode we provide three examples of initiatives, proposals and financial solutions that could change the shape of our climate future, including the Bridgetown Initiative by Mia Amor Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, whose radical plan lays out specific actions to reform the global financial architecture to respond to the critical impacts of climate. Each of the initiatives discussed were cautiously embraced by world leaders and the status quo. Is change possible? What will it take?
