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 enhance 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 immediately, however there may be hope. There are organisations from all world wide which are combating to avoid wasting our Ocean.
While the Nice Blue Wall will act as a wall in opposition to local weather change impacts and biodiversity loss, it’s going to additionally shield coastal communities, their tradition and livelihoods, and create the enabling circumstances and essential mechanisms to speed up the event of a regenerative blue financial 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’s going to assist the achivement of a net-gain of biodiveristy by conserving and restoring at the very least two million hectares of crucial 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 befell 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 widespread entrance and work collectively turning ambitions into concrete actions to unleash the potentials of the Blue Financial system, and referred to as on nations and organisations with assets to associate with us on this journey to advertise and develop an inclusive nature-people blue financial system structure primarily based on the Nice Blue Wall, unlocking the complete potential of the event of the blue financial system pushed by conservation and regeneration.
Since its launch, the Nice Blue Wall has achieved many milestones:
Via 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 financial system by catalysing political management and monetary assist.
Once I was first offered with this initiative, I used to be instantly satisfied of its uniqueness, its objective, the outcomes it goals to realize and the nature-people relationship it’s in search of 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 will probably 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:
- “ 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 may inform their selections and unveiling the native information that may information their actions. This expedition will bear witness and be an actor in what will probably be remembered because the Rise of our Blue Guardians.”
As we speak, many individuals are taking possession of their responisibilty of the way forward for the Ocean behalf of current and future generations. As we speak, the Blue Financial system is seen as a driver of conservation and improvement and we’re unlocking its full potential. It may be sustainable. It may be regenerative. It may be people-centred.
To information its improvement and implementation, and to realize its objectives, the Nice Blue Wall is predicated on a premise of three key pillars – regenerative seascapes, local weather change and a regenerative blue financial system – to create resilient methods 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 financial system idea because the savior of our planet. As we speak, this actuality is being talked about in all nations world wide. There’s an ecological imbalance within the Ocean and its eAects are reaching us. It will be significant for all of us to do not forget that our relationship with the Ocean is one in every of reciprocity. While we’re depending on it for our survival, it relies on us to make sure it is ready to proceed to offer for us.
James Alix Michel, former President of Seychelles.
IPS UN Bureau
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