VICTORIA, Seychelles, Dec 02 (IPS) – The Ocean is our life supply, however for many years it has been repeatedly marred by humankind. With the disposal of pollution into the Ocean, overexploitation of Ocean assets and the human-driven improve of world temperatures, the Ocean is altering and never for the higher.
Our Oceans are warming, corals are dying, fish shares are declining, poisonous chemical compounds are being launched into the Ocean – these eAects are clearly seen right this moment, however there may be hope. There are organisations from all all over the world which are preventing to save lots of our Ocean.
Backed by coastal communities, governments, the personal sector, NGOs and donors, is a rising world multi-stakeholder partnership led and pushed by the worldwide south.
The Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Nice Blue Wall Initiative stands out as a first-of-its-kind eAort to create a related community of protected marine areas to fight local weather change and world warming within the Western Indian Ocean. It’s a roadmap which spearheads the institution of a related community of regenerative seascapes.
This community might be related by a residing blue wall that can act as a regional ecological hall fashioned by conserved and restored important blue ecosystems resembling mangroves, seagrasses, corals and coastal forests.
While the Nice Blue Wall will act as a wall in opposition to local weather change impacts and biodiversity loss, it’ll additionally shield coastal communities, their tradition and livelihoods, and create the enabling situations and obligatory mechanisms to speed up the event of a regenerative blue economic system.
By 2023, the Nice Blue Wall will equitably and eAectively shield, preserve and handle at the very least two million km sq. of the Ocean; it’ll assist the achivement of a net-gain of biodiveristy by conserving and restoring at the very least two million hectares of important ecosystems and sequester multiple hundred million tons of carbon; and it’ll unlock regenerative livelihood alternatives and create at the very least two million blue jobs, while advocating and offering assist to nations within the world south.
On the twenty sixth session of the Convention of the Events to the United Nations Framework Conference on Local weather Change, which came about in Glasgow in 2021, I delivered the opening speech on the Launch of the Nice Blue Wall Initiative.
There, I urged all nations to proceed presenting a robust frequent entrance and work collectively turning ambitions into concrete actions to unleash the potentials of the Blue Financial system, and known as on nations and organisations with assets to companion with us on this journey to advertise and develop an inclusive nature-people blue economic system structure based mostly on the Nice Blue Wall, unlocking the complete potential of the event of the blue economic system pushed by conservation and regeneration.
Since its launch, the Nice Blue Wall has achieved many milestones:
By way of these milestones, the Nice Blue Wall guarantees to ship. It guarantees to speed up and upscale ocean conservation actions whereas enhancing socio-ecological resilience and the event of a regenerative blue economic system by catalysing political management and monetary assist.
After I was first introduced with this initiative, I used to be instantly satisfied of its uniqueness, its goal, the outcomes it goals to realize and the nature-people relationship it’s searching for to re-establish and strengthen. So, I pledged my full assist to the Nice Blue Wall and have promoted it ever since.
In November 2024, I used to be appointed as a Excessive-Degree Champion of the Nice Blue Wall on the twenty ninth assembly of the United Nations Local weather Change Convention in Baku, Azerbaijan. And through this convention, it was additionally introduced that the Nice Blue Wall might be partnering with the ODISEA expedition on an expedition to discover and shield biodiversity within the Western Indian Ocean.
On this press convention I used to be moved by the phrases of Thomas Sberna, IUCN Regional Head Coastal and Ocean Resilience of Japanese and Southern Africa:
[This expendition] is about giving a voice to the unheard and bringing a light-weight to the unseen. It is about telling their tales. It is about enabling them to provide the science that can inform their choices and unveiling the native information that can information their actions. This expedition will bear witness and be an actor in what might be remembered because the Rise of our Blue Guardians.
Right this moment, many individuals are taking possession of their responisibilty of the way forward for the Ocean behalf of current and future generations. Right this moment, the Blue Financial system is seen as a driver of conservation and growth and we’re unlocking its full potential. It may be sustainable. It may be regenerative. It may be people-centred.
To information its growth and implementation, and to realize its objectives, the Nice Blue Wall relies on a premise of three key pillars – regenerative seascapes, local weather change and a regenerative blue economic system – to create resilient techniques constructed upon strengthening connectivity and variety in any respect ranges and of all nature.
Fourteen years in the past, I noticed the structure of the blue economic system idea because the savior of our planet. Right this moment, this actuality is being talked about in all nations all over the world. There may be an ecological imbalance within the Ocean and its eAects are reaching us.
It’s important for all of us to keep in mind that our relationship with the Ocean is considered one of reciprocity. While we’re depending on it for our survival, it will depend on us to make sure it is ready to proceed to supply for us.
James Alix Michel, former President of Seychelles.
IPS UN Bureau
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