This issue explores:
Continue reading Monthly Ocean Science Roundup – August 2020
Nature v Business was a virtual event hosted by Prospect Magazine with the kind support of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, UK Branch. Arising from the pandemic, it brought together journalists to discuss the need for a new reporting paradigm about the importance of protecting nature in economic recovery. During the first months of the pandemic, research showed that people across the world embraced nature and understood that we have lost balance with the natural world. More recently, it has identified an emerging narrative that deliberately decouples planetary health from economic recovery. The panel of journalists discussed the current reporting environment and the need for change.
This issue explores:
Source: Prospect.
Author: Andrew Barnett. CEO, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK).
Amid all the foreboding and uncertainty of this extraordinary year, a consensus is beginning to emerge, springing from millions of individual observations and realisations: people want things to be better and the vast majority of us are prepared to do something ourselves to help. We want a ‘new normal’ that balances inherent uncertainty about the future with valuing those aspects of life of enduring importance – our relationships with each other as humans and with the natural world that sustains human life itself.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not changed what we are working towards for the ocean, but it has necessarily changed the way that we communicate. Through weekly (and subsequently fortnightly) legacy and social media monitoring, we have regularly provided the OneOcean flotilla with recommendations on how to communicate sensitively and effectively in this period. Although some of our guidance has changed in response to the shifting communications landscape, some key recommendations hold true. These are summarised below.
A ‘new normal’ will need new paradigms, narratives and lenses to reflect what is happening. Will ‘jobs vs environment’ be a legitimate way to explore the challenge of rebuilding economies when, in reality, we don’t have a choice but to preserve the planet we inhabit?
Can we really decouple planetary health from economic recovery and present it as a choice – planet or people?
If we really are going to be and do different, we need to communicate in different ways. People and Planet; jobs and nature; growth and environment.
This issue explores:
We are all connected and so is the ocean. What happens in one part of the ocean can affect the others. There is only one ocean. Watch this new #DroptheS animation:
This World Ocean Day we are thanking the ocean for always being with us and for making our planet work. Watch this new animation:
An open letter
If we have learned anything from the Covid-19 pandemic it is that we are all inextricably connected with each other and the natural world. Without greater balance and cooperation we cannot survive as a species.
Human wellbeing is at the heart of what we do. Our work, to protect the ocean is driven by the reality that humankind needs a healthy planet that can sustain life, for the sake of our homes, health, livelihoods, and food.
