This year marks the third Our Ocean Conference that will reach out to the international community with the main objective of inspiring and empowering a new generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, and civil society in an effort to protect our oceans.
And like the 2014 conference in Washington and the 2015 conference in Chile, this year’s gathering will be visually engaging, inspiring and interactive. About 450 participants are expected to attend the global event, including foreign ministers, environment and fisheries ministers, and other leaders in government, science, industry, and civil society.
This year there will be a particular focus on the role of technological innovation and entrepreneurship in ocean conservation and sustainable use. This will be a good way to develop partnerships with existing and relevant industries, including fisheries, plastics producers, technologists, waste management companies and a host of others.
At the same time, Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and the Sustainable Oceans Alliance are co-hosting the “Our Ocean, One Future: Leadership Summit” as a parallel event to the Our Ocean Conference. The summit will be exciting because ocean leaders will be paired competitively with 150 students to create strategies to spur action on the threats to our ocean.
What is the Our Ocean Conference?
To sum up what the Our Ocean Conference is all about, it is best to quote Secretary of State John Kerry.: “We have to keep the momentum going so that we can come together and protect our ocean. Why? Because our ocean is absolutely essential for life itself – not just the food, but the oxygen and weather cycles of the planet all depend on the ocean. ”
And Mr. Kerry is right. We are dependent on the world’s oceans for more than food or recreation. Without them, life would cease to exist. Our five oceans cover about 70 percent of the Earth, and they are unique to our solar system because no other planet has liquid water.
The oceans serve a number of functions, besides providing food. The oceans regulate the weather and temperature. They absorb the incoming solar rays, moderating the temperature, and the ceaseless currents distribute the heat energy around the globe, warming the land and air in the winter and cooling them in the summer.
But we humans have caused great damage to our oceans, and we must try to correct what we have done. This brings us back to the reason for holding the conference. We need to get the world involved in protecting our oceans through leaders that are informed and willing to go the extra step in protecting our oceans and making them healthy and sustainable.
To do that, the conference will focus on four areas of concern: marine protected areas, climate, sustainable fisheries and marine pollution. We will look at each one of those areas of concern over the next few days.
