This year's conference is taking place in Lisbon, Portugal under the theme “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of SDG 14: Stocktaking, partnerships and solutions.”
Minister Shauna - Source: presidency.gov.mv
The ocean is an important part of our lives. Many people are unaware that the ocean provides far more than we realise. We all know that humans cannot survive without air, but many people are unaware that the ocean produces more than half of the oxygen we breathe. Not only that, but the ocean regulates the climate, making it bearable for us to live on this planet, provides us with food and a livelihood through the various creatures found in the ocean, and is responsible for many of the elements found in the medicine we use.
Given these facts, it is reasonable to conclude that we may not be able to survive without the ocean. While there is much we do not know about the ocean, we do know that it covers 70 percent of the earth. This should be enough to make us more cautious about how we treat the ocean, but we are frequently careless.
The ocean is in fact so important to us that as of 2015, a 14th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) was created under the name “life below water” with the purpose of conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
With this goal in mind, in 2017, a UN conference was held at the UN headquarters in New York, co-hosted by the Governments of Fiji and Sweden to support the implementation of the 14th SDG. This conference was a success, with an intergovernmental agreed Call for Action, a registry of over 1,300 voluntary commitments from governments and other stakeholders, and key messages from partnership dialogues.
The UN General Assembly adopted resolution 73/292 in 2019 to convene the high-level 2020 conference to support the implementation of SDG 14: Oceans - Conserve and utilize oceans, seas, and marine resources in a sustainable manner for long-term development.
However, due to COVID-19, this conference kept getting postponed until it was finally held this year, co-hosted by the Governments of Kenya and Portugal. This five-day conference which started on the 27th of June is going to be focusing on some of the key issues faced by today's post-pandemic world such as climate change, food insecurity, poverty, human and environmental health biodiversity loss, and economic inequality.
With the participation of leaders from 120 countries, this year's conference is taking place in Lisbon, Portugal under the theme “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of SDG 14: Stocktaking, partnerships and solutions.”
The eight main dialogues discussed to support the implementation of SDG 14 during this conference are going to be:
● Addressing marine pollution.
● Promoting and strengthening sustainable ocean-based economies, in particular for small island developing states and least developed countries.
● Managing, protecting, conserving and restoring marine and coastal ecosystems.
● Minimizing and addressing ocean acidification, deoxygenation and ocean warming.
● Making fisheries sustainable and providing access for small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets.
● Increasing scientific knowledge and developing research capacity and transfer of marine technology.
● Enhancing the conservation and sustainable use of oceans and their resources by implementing international law, as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
● Leveraging interlinkages between SDG 14 and other goals towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
While representing the Maldives at this conference, the Minister of Environment, Climate change and Technology Shauna spoke about marine pollution in dialogue 1, emphasizing the importance of the marine and coral reef systems in Maldivians' lives. In addition, Shauna discusses the issue of plastic pollution and the effects it has on humans and marine life.
“Micro-plastics have been detected in marine species and even in our blood. Vulnerable natural systems such as ours are affected by plastic pollution leading to loss of species and habitats,"
When it comes to SDG 14, there are ten different global goals/ targets that have been set in order to conserve and use the ocean sustainably. The goals set for 2020 included protecting and restoring the eco-system, implementing sustainable fishing, ending subsidies contributing to overfishing, conserving coastal and marine areas, and end subsidies contributing to overfishing.
The next short-term goal is to reduce marine pollution by 2025, which is only three years away. While there are some more general goals with no target year for completion, such as reducing ocean acidification - we still have plenty of time to meet the 2030 goal of increasing the economic benefits from the sustainable use of marine resources. While it is easy to delegate responsibility for achieving SDG14 to world leaders, we must remember that our actions play an important role in ensuring the success of these goals as well.
