The Youth4Ocean Forum will hosted a side event
The Ocean as a global common -
connecting generations of stakeholders through storytelling
at the United Nations OCEAN Conference Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of Goal 14: stocktaking, partnerships and solutions in Lisbon, Portugal.
The event was held
on 30th June 2022 from 11:30 to 13:00
at the
Institut français du Portugal - French Embassy
Rua Santos-o-Velho 11, Lisbon
It was hosted in collaboration with World Ocean Network, Ocean as Common, Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOP) Programme of IOC-UNESCO, Surfrider Europe, Institute of Oceanology of Polish Academy of Sciences, Sustainable Ocean Alliance, University of Brest - UBO, European Marine Board, Today We Have, EurOcean, WildTrust, Youth4MPAs and Nausicaa.
We care about what we know, and we care about what affects us emotionally. This all-inclusive side event emphasise the importance of creating one ocean generation connected to the ocean through personal experiences, shared knowledge and storytelling. It encourage a trans-generational dialogue by facilitating communication between different generations of stakeholders with diverse cultural backgrounds, anchored in the concept of having the ocean as a global common and its individual and local impacts shared through story-telling.
This side event aimed to connect stakeholders from different backgrounds, sectors, cultures and generations. We operates an 'All welcome policy'- this was an inclusive workshop and the more diversity among participants the better.
Speakers, young people, and participants shared their perception of the ocean as a common good, the global commons and heritage. Attendees will exchange personal stories about how the ocean benefits them and their communities, alongside a showcase of cultural approaches to ocean management and innovative solutions achieved through trans-generational cooperation. The workshop involved networking and storytelling activities to connect diverse stakeholders and young people from different backgrounds and sectors. It engaged the audience with personal ocean-related stories to find agreements and differences of opinion, activating emotional and collective intelligence to plan future concrete cooperation and innovative solutions for managing, protecting and restoring ocean and coasts through effective trans-generational cooperation.
Agenda
Moderator: Dr Jack Laverick, University of Strathclyde, UK; Founding Member of Youth4Ocean Forum
The UN Ocean Decade and the SDG14 imply the cooperation of all generations of stakeholders who will work together to ensure a resilient ocean, providing for all marine life and humans, and allowing the well-being of our societies today and in the years to come. The many threats to the ocean demand commitment throughout our entire society, the scaling up of ocean action across generations and continents, and require that young people reach their full potential as soon as possible.
Trans-generational storytelling linked with stocktaking and partnerships. We can’t respond effectively to environmental change under shifting baselines without collecting our lived experiences overtime (stocktaking) and connecting present and future generations. Have you ever gone back to a city you used to live in after 5 or 10 years away? You can often feel like a stranger somewhere you used to know so well. The same thing is true for our beaches, reefs, and oceans. What do we want them to look like in 50 years?