The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, or Ocean Decade for short, runs from 2021 to 2030. The Ocean Decade focuses on developing the global scientific capacity to generate and share knowledge that directly contributes to meeting the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other relevant global legal and policy frameworks.

Urgent action on a global scale is needed to protect the ocean’s multiple ecosystems and support the ocean’s essential roles of climate stabiliser, carbon sink and provider of livelihood to 3.2 billion people. Acidification, pollution, overfishing: the very first World Ocean Assessment released by the United Nations in 2016 concluded that the oceans’ carrying capacity is near or at its limit. The ocean still holds many mysteries – unmapped seafloors, hidden and little-studied ecosystems, processes, and unsuspected stress factors. More is known about the far side of the moon than about the deep seas. And science is the key to understanding it all.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) hosted the official High-Level Launch of the Ocean Decade in 2021. At this event, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary-General António Guterres joined some of the world’s leading marine scientists to declare that the future of humankind lies in the ocean. The vision of the decade is: “The Science We Need for the Ocean We Want.”

Following the launch, seven Ocean Decade Laboratories took place, each dedicated to a specific area of marine research:

1. An Inspiring and Engaging Ocean (7 – 8 July 2021)
2. A Predicted Ocean (15 – 17 September 2021)
3. A Clean Ocean (17 – 19 November 2021)
4. A Healthy and Resilient Ocean (9 – 11 March 2022)
5. A Safe Ocean (5 – 7 April 2022)
6. An Accessible Ocean (10 – 12 May 2022)
7. A Productive Ocean (31 May – 2 June 2022)

2021: High-Level Launch of the Ocean Decade

The High-Level Launch in June 2021 marked the beginning of the conference and the active phase of the Ocean Decade with a show of high-ranking support. Hosted from a studio in Berlin, this launch to the Ocean Decade spanned across all continents with leaders and scientists virtually joining hands in the fight for a healthy, safe, clean and sustainable ocean.

“It is time for a revolution in ocean science. And this revolution now has a name: The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development”, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the opening of the event.

Former Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “The future of the Earth heavily depends on how we treat the ocean and Germany has proven to be a competent and reliable partner in this field.”

The event, attended by prominent international and national politicians, UN representatives, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), representatives from the private sector and members of the ocean research community, aimed to foster productive transnational collaboration on “Creating the Ocean We Want”, to generate and share knowledge that directly contributes to meeting the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other relevant global legal and policy frameworks.

The opening ceremony was also attended by His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, Audrey Azolay, the Director-General of UNESCO and Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, Youth and Sport and by Anja Karliczek, the former German Federal Minister of Education and Research.

As is usual with many digital Ocean Decade events, the participants called in from otherwise rather remote places. The President of the Republic of Seychelles, Wavel Ramkalavan, a country made up of flat islands rising just above sea-level made an emotional plea: “We do not have time. We have to act now.”   

Ocean Decade Laboratories

The conference entered its second phase with the Ocean Decade Laboratories. For a year, seven digital Ocean Decade Laboratories kept up the momentum of the High-Level Launch and provided opportunities for ocean stakeholders to exchange ideas.

With the help of a digital conference room, these Laboratories were true global meeting places. They were multidisciplinary, international and collaborative. 173 speakers – leading ocean experts on topics such as climate change, ocean litter, deep sea ecosystems, disaster management, fishing, tourism, indigenous knowledge and even sustainable fashion and surfing – shared their expertise and findings with a community of up to 1,000 participants per Laboratory. In general, about half of the participants were scientists, but many also came from government institutions, non-governmental organisations or the private sector, all contributing their unique expertise.

Each Laboratory lasted two to three days and included discussions, workshops, films, lectures and demonstrations. They were broadcast live from locations as diverse as European universities, research vessels in the Arctic or remote Pacific islands. Thousands of participants from over 140 countries joined in.

Christa von Hillebrandt-Andrade, Deputy Director of the International Tsunami Information Center, Caribbean Office (Puerto Rico), who co-hosted the Laboratory “A Safe Ocean” in early April 2022 summed up her feelings after the three-day Laboratory with participants from 116 countries: “My mind is in overdrive and my body is exhausted. I have spent almost 48 hours travelling across the world and I was enriched, inspired and challenged by the discussions of so many different aspects of a safe ocean.”

An Inspiring and Engaging Ocean (7 – 8 July 2021)

The first Ocean Decade Laboratory “An Inspiring and Engaging Ocean” provided an opportunity for a wide-ranging and fruitful global discussion on how to foster groundbreaking collaborations to create the “Ocean We Want”. 14 Satellite Activities, ranging from Fiji in the Pacific to Tokyo in Japan and northern Canada, literally engaged people from all over the world.

Reports and anecdotes helped to better understand the challenges facing the Decade. To protect the ocean, people from all nations and all professions are called upon to work together for the common good.

With knowledge of the ocean and increased marine research comes a certain responsibility.
Dr. Gerald Singh, Assistant Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, emphasised the importance of engaging local communities when conducting ocean science research and analysing the results.

 “Historically, more information has led to greater industrialisation and then to unsustainable actions taken on the ocean. We really need to ask who needs inspiration and for what engagement,” he said.

A Predicted Ocean (15 – 17 September 2021)

The second Ocean Decade Laboratory “A Predicted Ocean” brought together people from all over the world for a two-day global seminar.

“There is not a person on Earth who is not touched by the healthy state of the ocean or the changes in the ocean,” said Craig McLean, Acting Chief Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the beginning of the second Ocean Decade Laboratory “A Predicted Ocean”.

The Laboratory involved people from 89 countries and included 31 different Satellite Activities. Predicting the ocean means trying to understand the future of things like weather, climate, the fishing industry, and disaster risk management. It requires input from scientists and local stakeholders alike, and a big part of the Ocean Decade is bridging the gap between science and civil society.

 “We have to listen and we have to develop trust in order to become a joint group with the users [of the ocean],” said Detlef Stammer, Professor and Director of the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability at the Universität Hamburg in Germany.

A Clean Ocean (17 – 19 November 2021)

The Ocean Decade Laboratory “A Clean Ocean” focused on how to map the state of the ocean’s pollution, how to clean it up, and how to find sustainable ways to achieve the goals of “A Clean Ocean” – by 2030.

Co-moderator Jesse Huntley Ausubel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, summed it up in his final remarks on 19 November: “We are about one year into the UN Ocean Decade. Let's already now set targets and timetables so that by 2030 we have made real strides towards a clean ocean,” he said.

Ausubel cited the Integrated Marine Debris Observing System and setting standards for seabed mining as examples of immediate action.

This third Ocean Decade Laboratory featured 29 Satellite Activities. They presented and discussed projects from around the globe, all with the common goal of creating a clean ocean.

Mapping the state of pollution in the world's oceans is a daunting task. But it is possible to transform it into a clean state, as Jesse Huntley Ausubel pointed out: “I am from New York and when I was a boy and you fell into the New York Harbour, you had to get all kinds of vaccines to prevent infections from the dirty water. Now, there are humpback whales in the water. And last year, the water was clean enough for a woman to swim across the harbour to the Statue of Liberty.”

A Healthy and Resilient Ocean (9 – 11 March 2022)

Over 600 people from 78 countries came together from 9 to 11 March 2022 for the fourth Ocean Decade Laboratory – “A Healthy and Resilient Ocean”.

The Chairs of the Laboratory, Karen Wiltshire from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), and Tim Jennerjahn from the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) explicitly welcomed the diversity and globality of the participants. Not only scientists but people from all walks of life shared their interest in a healthy and resilient ocean.

“There must be more communication, more collaboration between science and society. And we need more events like this to bring people together, and to discuss these issues and spread the word,” remarked Tim Jennerjahn. Highlighting the aim of the Ocean Decade, Karen Wiltshire concluded, “We need to involve everyone because we are all custodians of this blue planet.”

The lecture “Ocean Accessibility and Fashion” by fashion designer and activist Runa Ray highlighted the complexity and global impact of fashion, as clothes for consumers in industrialised countries are produced in developing countries such as Bangladesh where wastewater is often not recycled but dumped directly into rivers or offshore.

“There is a saying that if a dog takes a swim in a river in Bangladesh, you can tell what colour is going to trend next. If the dog comes out of the water blue or yellow or green, you know that that’s the colour of the coming season,” Runa Ray explained in her Satellite Activity. “So it is important that a fashion student gets to study things like the dyeing or the shipping industry because those are an enormous part of the global fashion industry that we don't always think about.”  

A Safe Ocean (5 – 7 April 2022)

The Ocean Decade Laboratory “A Safe Ocean” discussed the threats to people in coastal regions. Participants from 116 countries joined the Core Event on 5 April, the 25 Satellite Activities and the Wrap-up on 7 April.

The Core Event opened with a moving account by two eyewitnesses of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption in the South Pacific in January 2022. After the unusually powerful eruption of the underwater volcano, ash spread over hundreds of kilometres. The ensuing tsunami caused destruction in regions as far away as Peru, and the Island of Tonga – just 60 kilometres from the eruption – was struck by an unprecedented disaster.

“This was very scary to me and to everyone on the island,” described IIiesa Tora, a journalist and media consultant from Tonga. “I remember looking up at those big clouds rising into the air. It was something no one here had seen before.”

The 5th Ocean Decade Laboratory and the 25 Satellite Activities brought together experts and stakeholders with a common interest in a safe ocean, including disaster preparedness, who could often relate to and comment on the recent experiences of the islanders.

Scientists demonstrated how new technology such as sensors on underwater cables, satellite images and geological studies of the Earth’s history can help predict events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

Christa von Hillebrandt-Andrade, Co-Chair of the Laboratory and Deputy Director of the International Tsunami Information Center, Caribbean Office (Puerto Rico), summed up the fifth Ocean Decade Laboratory after three days of discussions:

“For me, an islander from the Caribbean, it has been really special to share this activity with colleagues from the south-western islands in the Pacific. We sometimes think we are worlds or oceans apart but really we are very close.”

An Accessible Ocean (10 – 12 May 2022)

“An Accessible Ocean” from 10‑12 May 2022 focused on fostering the link between science policy and ocean science co-design and discussed how knowledge can be used to create much needed environmental changes.

The sixth Ocean Decade Laboratory started with a three-hour Core Event followed by over 20 Satellite Activities across the globe and ended with a Wrap-up on the third and final day. Over the course of the three intense working days, participants discussed the relationship between the ocean science and policymakers, focusing on three key questions critical to the future of the ocean and our planet:

1) What kind of knowledge is needed to support important ocean governance processes?
2) What does science offer to support sustainable transformations?
3) What kind of science architecture is required to provide relevant science for policy?

This Ocean Decade Laboratory brought together stakeholders from 71 countries. More than half of the participants did not represent the science community but instead business, industry, NGOs or other parts of civil society.

More than 20 Satellite Activities took place with discussions, workshops, and presentations of tools and projects, often at local level. A very hands-on example of data sharing and how citizens can contribute to gathering knowledge about the state of the oceans was the presentation of the “Save the Waves” app. This is a smartphone application that allows users to photograph “threats on beaches” identified by citizens.

Although the project “Save the Waves” was not set up as a scientific data collection initiative, it is an example of how people are fascinated by citizen science and data sharing on a basic level.

Sebastian Unger, second chair of this Ocean Decade Laboratory and Head of the Ocean Governance Research Group at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, summed up the importance of leaving no one behind when shaping the ocean of the future. He said: “We need to have processes that create trust between science, policymakers and the people that are affected by those decisions on the ground.”

A Productive Ocean (31 May – 2 June 2022)

From 31 May to 2 June, the seventh and final Ocean Decade Laboratory addressed the challenges of “A Productive Ocean”. The ocean is one of the Earth’s main sources of food and oxygen and the Laboratory reminded us that sustainability is essential for productivity.

The Ocean Decade Laboratory was conducted with scientists and researchers as well as industry representatives. The strong interest from the non-academic sector is no surprise, highlighted by co-host and co-chair Anna Jöborn of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, who quoted from an OECD study that predicts this “blue economy” will double in size by 2030.

The ocean is a great but fragile source of life and livelihood. As Jens Brandenburg, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research put it, “Science must create the basis for knowledge-based political and social action.”

In the roughly 48 hours between the first Core Event on 31 May and the Wrap up on 2 June, 13 Satellite Activities focused on the productive aspects of the ocean. Topics included “Marketplace of the Productive Ocean,” “Productivity Needs Sustainability” and “Air-Sea Observations for Offshore Wind Energy”. Participants joined from 59 countries, including many from Asia, where 90 percent of the world’s aquaculture production is located.

With the activities for the UN Ocean Decade, the BMBF and Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) have laid an important foundation for a wide range of international activities in marine and climate research – and for future research. The UN Ocean Decade is thus a decade of innovation. It provides new knowledge to shape the necessary transformation towards a sustainable world.

The Ocean Decade will continue for another eight years, aiming to increase the visibility of ocean research activities and to catalyse partnerships to achieve the Decade outcomes around the world. The next milestone after the First International Ocean Conference was the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, from 27 June to 1 July 2022 and many more will follow.