About the 9th Our Ocean Conference
Greece will host the 9th Our Ocean Conference in 2024. The Conference is scheduled to take place in Athens, at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, on the 16th and 17th of April. The Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit will be held parallel to the main conference, starting the day before, on the 15th of April.
By hosting the 9th Our Ocean Conference Greece reaffirms its commitment to transition to a “Blue economy” to harness the advantages of a new balance between economic development (growth), social cohesion, and sustainability as well as addressing some key challenges such as biodiversity loss, climate change, unsustainable fishing, marine pollution especially from plastics, and unsustainable maritime transport.
KEY FOCUS AREAS
In this context and within the 6 main areas of action, the 9th Our Ocean Conference to be hosted in Athens, will specifically address four aspects as horizontal elements cutting across the six areas of action of the Conference:
Sustainable tourism in coastal areas and islands
ensures an optimal balance between tourism development, marine environment conservation and overall sustainability of host communities, and can be a core driver to build resilience to climate change challenges.
Reduction of marine plastic and microplastic pollution
is an imperative task since this type of pollution, derived from either sea or land-based sources, negatively affects marine ecosystems, and may, through seafood consumption, harm human health.
Green shipping
encompasses a range of environmentally friendly actions to enforce emission control, to promote decarbonization, and to move towards a more sustainable shipping management with the aim to minimize the overall impact on the marine environment.
Green transition in the Mediterranean
sea connecting three continents, serving as a crossroad where culture, people, and civilizations meet, is a key challenge for Mediterranean countries and can deliver significant benefits for marine ecosystems.
