Mission ‘restore our ocean and waters’ highlights some of the key challenges faced by the ocean, and how we need to come together as global citizens to bring about major change for our future generations.
The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is calling on political and financial investment to address one of the world’s greatest challenges of this generation.
Today (Wednesday 29 September), the European Union launched a moon-shot mission to restore our ocean and waters, with backing from research and innovation investment.
One of five EU Missions launched today, the ‘Restore our ocean and waters’ mission sets out ambitious goals to deliver concrete actions by 2030 in response to key human-made challenges including pollution, biodiversity loss and extreme weather events.
The four Mission actions are:
- The Horizon Europe programme, the European Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, Invest EU and other EU programmes will provide around €500 million in the period 2021–23;
- Create a network of lighthouses at sea and river basin scale to implement the mission and expand the networks of marine protected areas;
- Establish an EU-wide ‘Blue Parks’ initiative to provide new restoration and conservation opportunities;
- Support effective water management through a digital knowledge system with a European Twin Ocean and improved environmental monitoring of ocean health
The NOC – which undertakes and facilitates world-class scientific research and technology development to understand the global ocean and solve challenging long-term marine science problems – will continue to put collaborative working at its heart to ensure its research underpins international and UK public policy, business and societal outcomes.
Ed Hill, Director of the National Oceanography Centre and member of the Mission Assembly for Ocean and Waters, commented: “Mission ‘restore our ocean and waters’ highlights some of the key challenges faced by the ocean, and how we need to come together as global citizens to bring about major change for our future generations. At the National Oceanography Centre, we share many of these goals and will continue to lead the UK in driving ocean science and innovation, working in partnership with other world leading organisations.
“The problems surrounding our ocean and waters are too big to tackle alone, so we must come together to drive forward this agenda and support this mission for the future of our planet.”