Languages

sustainable development goals

UN Ocean Conference: Day 3

The third day of the UN Ocean Conference continued with plenary discussions between member state representatives on making fisheries sustainable and increasing benefits to small island developing States (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs).

UN Ocean Conference: Day 2

Continuing on the tone set during the first day of the UN Ocean Conference, day two showed the engagement and commitment of many nation states, NGOs, businesses and other stakeholders to achieving SDG 14 ‘Life Below Water’. It featured two important plenary meetings and partnership dialogues addressing targets 14.2 and 14.3: managing, protecting, conserving and restoring marine and coastal ecosystems, and minimizing and addressing ocean acidification. During those meetings, the need for enhanced international cooperation to address the common challenges were emphasized; with, for example countries such as the Soloman Islands, Israel, Tuvalu and Estonia expressing commitments to minimize ocean acidification.

UN Ocean Conference: Day 1

Today was the first day of the UN Ocean Conference, which is the first conference specifically focused on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life Below Water. The day started with a cultural programme and plenary meeting then a partnership dialogue on addressing marine pollution. The conference will include dialogues on each of the seven targets of SDG14. Interspersed were a number of interesting and informative side events.

REPORT – Oceans and Sustainable Development Goals: Co-Benefits, Climate Change and Social Equity

A healthy ocean will benefit global sustainable development in a number of ways, finds a new report published today by the Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program. With climate change and social inequity addressed, restoring the ocean will help alleviate poverty, provide livelihoods, and improve the health of millions around the world.

The UN Oceans Conference and Sustainable Development Goals: Are partnerships providing the way forward?

The global oceans provide hundreds of millions of people with livelihoods, food and nutritional security, and are crucial for employment, economic development, and export earnings in many countries and coastal communities around the world. The status of these important ecosystems and its fisheries resources are however rapidly declining, following decades of unsustainable exploitation patterns, overcapacity, and unsuccessful governance interventions.

Mexico needs to rethink environmental protection budget cuts, prioritize ecologically-sustainable human development

By Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor

Mexico recently released its budget for 2017, and among the top five largest cuts were environmental protection (down by 37%), culture (-30%), and education (-11%). Political rhetoric aside, these cuts reflect a continuing view of these issues as minor, long-term, or otherwise less important or pressing. The problem is, these views also directly contradict a growing recognition in international policy of the importance of the environment, culture and education, in and of themselves, but also as part of an interdependent suite of human development goals.

New Nereus Program fellow: Gerald Singh, UBC

Gerald Singh is a Nereus Fellow working with Yoshitaka Ota and Andres Cisneros-Montemayor and collaborating with the United Nations Development Programme. Gerald is characterizing the contribution of a sustainable ocean to achieving broad sustainable development goals. Using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework, Gerald is researching how the SDGs are dependent on achieving sustainable use and management of the ocean.