(UN News) January marked the beginning of what many within the UN and beyond view as “the most critical decade of our lives”, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on Wednesday
[3 February 2021], launching a major initiative to protect the world’s oceans through the next ten years.
Coral Reef Image Bank/Philip Ham |
A school of fish in Quintana Roo, on the Yucatán Peninsula’s Caribbean coast of Mexico.
It aims to raise awareness of the immense challenges and opportunities the world seas provide to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“At the beginning of the third millennium, oceanography has the capacity to identify problems and offer solutions, provided we stop neglecting its contribution”, UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said, ahead of the event.
‘Make peace with nature’, UN chief urges at Ocean Decade launch
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January marked the beginning of what many within the UN and beyond view as “the most critical decade of our lives”, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on Wednesday, launching a major initiative to protect the world’s oceans through the next ten years.
“At the beginning of the third millennium, oceanography has the capacity to identify problems and offer solutions, provided we stop neglecting its contribution”, UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said, ahead of the event.
‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity
While 2021 has already been dubbed a “super year” for the ocean, UNESCO maintained that it signaled the launch of the UN’s own “massive commitment to our Blue Planet”.