UNOC3 Side Event launches strategic partnership for Ocean Research and Capacity Building
A significant step forward in international marine science cooperation was achieved on June 12 as Portuguese-speaking African Small Island Developing States (SIDS) committed to establishing Centers of Excellence in Marine Sciences. The initiative, presented during the official UNOC3 side event “Strengthening Marine Science and Capacity Building through the Establishment of Centers of Excellence in Portuguese-Speaking African SIDS,” was led by Cabo Verde’s Ministry of the Sea and Instituto do Mar (IMar) with support from the AIR Centre.
The comprehensive partnership brings together four island nations—Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Timor-Leste—alongside UNESCO’s SIDS Section and Germany’s GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. The collaboration aims to leverage existing scientific knowledge, regional infrastructure, and international cooperation to address critical oceanic challenges facing these vulnerable island communities.
The session gathered distinguished participation from key government officials and scientific leaders, underscoring the initiative’s strategic importance. Ministers from three African nations participated: H.E. Jorge Santos, Minister of Sea of Cabo Verde; H.E. Nilda Borges da Mata, Minister of Environment, Youth, Sustainable Tourism of São Tomé and Príncipe; and H.E. Viriato Soares Cassamá, Minister of Environment, Biodiversity, and Climate Action of Guinea-Bissau.
International organizations were represented by Mr. Vidar Helgesen, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanography Commission (IOC) and Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, and Professor Dr. Katja Matthes, Director of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. The AIR Centre’s Executive Director Miguel Miranda and Yara Rodrigues, Board Member of Instituto do Mar – IMar (Cabo Verde), also participated in the discussions.
The initiative focuses on five strategic areas critical to building sustainable marine science capacity: strategic partnerships for blue science and innovation, youth capacity building with a dedicated focus on gender equality, evidence-based decision making for marine management, enhanced access to marine data and technologies, and fostering community innovation alongside regional cooperation.
The Centers of Excellence are designed to empower these communities with the knowledge, tools, and expertise needed to protect their marine environments while developing sustainable blue economies.
This represents a significant milestone in South-South cooperation, combining regional expertise with international scientific support to address some of the most pressing oceanic challenges facing island nations in the Atlantic and beyond.
All-Atlantic Summit 2020
The All-Atlantic Summit will include the 6th High-Level Industry-Science-Government Dialogue on Atlantic Interactions (HLD) and technical sessions focusing on innovation to develop inclusive ocean economies in the Atlantic region. The event originally was to be held at The Navy Yard in Philadelphia but has transitioned to an online summit slated for Oct. 5-9. Registration is free and open to the public. The 6th HLD will be followed by four days of technical sessions under the theme “Innovation for Sustainable Marine Development and the Blue Economy.” The summit is hosted by Penn State’s Alliance for Education, Science, Engineering and Design with Africa (AESEDA) and co-organized by AIR Centre. The summit will bring together high-level representation from member nations of the AIR Centre, the international scientific research community and industry partners to discuss ideas, initiatives and projects around AIR Centre’s thematic missions as well as supporting cross-cutting activities such as capacity building, infrastructure sharing, and space and ocean literacy.
Networking Friday with Carlo Fezzi (University of Trento)
On October 9th, 2020, 1-2 PM UTC, we will have Carlo Fezzi, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Trento (Italy) and Senior Lecturer at the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute, University of Exeter (United Kingdom). He will discuss the economic valuation for spatial targeting of coastal ecosystems’ conservation in the face of climate change. Preserving coastal ecosystems requires identifying priority areas for action. Economics can contribute to this process by developing methods to understand which locations provide the highest values for the society and which policy interventions are will deliver the highest benefits for the lowest cost. In this context, cultural services such as recreation deserve a prominent position, particularly in those areas with thriving tourism and leisure sectors. They are also crucial from a policy perspective, since their values can be at least partially captured via access fees or green taxes and, therefore, are extremely suitable for financing conservation and restoration programs in practice. This study shows how information on the number of visits to different outdoor recreation sites in a wide area can be used to develop a behavioral economic model providing welfare estimates that are directly applicable to inform a wide array of spatial planning questions related to coastal management. The empirical application is based on more than 150 different recreation sites located on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Carlo will present the changes in economic values from different scenarios including creation of marine protected areas and climate change impacts.
Networking Friday with Martin Visbeck (GEOMAR)
On October 2nd, 2020, 1-2 PM UTC, Martin Visbeck, Professor for Physical Oceanography at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and Kiel University, discussed the Future Ocean Sustainability – From Ocean Observation towards Sustainable Development. The session will be moderated by Isabel Sousa Pinto, Professor at the University of Porto and Head of the Aquatic Biodiversity and Conservation group at Interdisciplinary Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR). Martin introduced two elements of the value chain more specifically: First the All-Atlantic Ocean Observing System (AtlantOS), a community-based program to support the implementation of an integrated basin-scale observing system ‘that benefits all of us living, working and relying on the ocean’. AtlantOS is working to support the ocean community to enhance and sustain basin-scale ocean observing in the Atlantic as a contribution to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and similar programs and promotes the GEO Blue Planet Initiative. How can we transform current ocean observing from a niche action to the societal norm. Martin also introduced the concept of a Digital Twin of the Ocean as the next step in the value chain, filling the need to integrate a wide range of data and information sources (from physics to ecology through biology, chemistry and geology, as well as from social or economic sciences and business operators), to transform data into knowledge and to connect, engage, and empower citizens, governments and industries by providing them with the capacity to inform their decisions with the goal to arrive at a more sustainable ocean governing system. Neither AtlantOS nor the Digital Twin Ocean can succeed without full engagement of the ocean community including the Global North and Global South, actors from academia, business, civil society, indigenous and communities of practice. The upcoming UN Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development provides a once in a lifetime opportunity to advance such agendas in the Atlantic and around the globe.