Written by Dr Athena Trakadas, Co-Chair of ODHN
Last week in Nice, France, dozens of heads of state, high-level governmental leaders, national agencies, UN organisations, NGOs, Indigenous leaders, youth groups, and other stakeholders and rightsholders came together to address the challenges facing the world’s oceans at the third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3). UNOC3’s commitment was to “Raise awareness of relevant regulatory and policy frameworks and its members activities in support of their implementation, as a foundation for conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and their resources”.
A main takeaway from the conference was the need to support the generation of and access to ocean science data to address the health of the ocean in light of meeting the challenges of SDG 14. Above all, the urgency was stressed in the context of climate change. biodiversity loss, and pollution. This was pledged not only through scientific fieldwork endeavours but also through large-scale funding paradigms. Another topic was how to meet the implementation of the recently-passed Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ) in 2024. It has yet to be ratified, but 51 of the 60 ratifications were met by the end of UNOC3.
Amongst the estimated 10,000 participants of the week-long conference, spread between the high-level Blue Zone and more public-facing Green Zone, cultural heritage was sparsely represented. Some open side events included “Uplifting Indigenous Peoples leadership in marine and coastal conservation” and SeaVoice’s open-water swim alongside of Edinburgh Ocean Leaders. In the Blue Zone this included “Marine reserves of fishing interest: a key tool for sustainable development of coastal communities” as well as “UN-Oceans as a mechanism to mobilize multilateral ocean action and amplify collective impacts toward the implementation of SDG 14”.
In this last session, presentations focused on “how synergistic multilateral efforts combatting cumulative pressures, promoting sustainable aquatic food systems and ocean economies, preserving natural and cultural heritage, mobilizing finance, increasing climate action, advancing science-based decision-making and following a human-rights based approach, can provide efficient cross-cutting solutions supporting States’ efforts to achieve SDG14.” Fortunately, colleagues at UNESCO, ICUCH, and ODHN were able to ensure that an intervention was possible, to make a 3-mibute plea for Ocean Heritage and its contribution to ocean sciences within Panel 2, “Area-based conservation measures and ocean health monitoring and assessment”. The intervention, “The Role of Heritage in Ocean Science under the UN Ocean Decade” presented by myself on behalf of ODHN and UNESCO, made a plea for the inclusion of Ocean Heritage in ocean science – within the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-30 and even broader.
In reaction to this opportunity, but in light of the limited presentation and discussions around cultural heritage in general at UNOC3, ODHN led the drive for a UN Ocean Input, Sustainable Ocean Heritage Stewardship (Nice Statement). Joining in the drafting of the statement were Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology (USA), Nelson Mandela University (South Africa), UNESCO UNITWIN Network for Underwater Archaeology, ICOMOS International Committee on the Underwater Cultural Heritage (ICUCH), UNESCO Chair in Maritime and Coastal Archaeology, Aix-Marseille Université, and UNESCO Chair on The Ocean’s Cultural Heritage, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
This limited presentation of cultural heritage at UNOC3 was not unexpected, however, and ODHN and its endorsed Decade Action, the Cultural Heritage Framework Programme (CHFP), had already prepared its first Blue Paper “Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) and Beyond”, to reenforce and detail the arguments for including heritage in ocean science. This Blue Paper is now available for download, and we hope that its arguments, demonstrated also through presentation of its over 20 associated endorsed UN Ocean Decade Actions, becomes more broadly included as we move forward in meeting the goals of SDG 14.
