NECCTON at the Ocean Decade Conference 2024

The 2024 Ocean Decade Conference, held in Barcelona from April 10 to 12 and co-organized by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC/UNESCO), brought together over 1,500 participants from 124 countries and drew over 3,000 online viewers. Serving as the culmination of Ocean Decade Week with 120 Satellite Events (April 8-12), the conference's main outcome was the Barcelona Statement. This statement outlines priority areas for action for the Ocean Decade, focusing on co-designing and co-delivering science and knowledge to address global distribution, human health, ecosystem impacts of marine pollution, and to bolster sustainable aquatic food production and climate-resilient ocean economy projects. Click here to read the full Barcelona Statement.

NECCTON’s scientific lead, Stefano Ciavatta from Mercator Ocean joined the Conference to highlight NECCTONs contribution to tackle the challenges 2 (Protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity), 3 (Sustainably feed the global population) and 5 (Unlock ocean-based solutions to climate change), as project endorsed by the UN Ocean Decade. Equally important is the NECCTON contribution to achieve the expected outcome of a "Predicted ocean", by developing novel marine ecosystem modelling capacity and standards for European and global operational frameworks. Stefano engaged with the parent Marine Life 2030 programme and participated in the panel discussion of the event "An Ocean of Food: Science and Solutions for Ocean-Climate-Food Challenges", outlining the importance of merging observations with fisheries modelling for the sustainable management of ocean food resources. He presented NECCTON also at the event "Connecting the world around ocean prediction: A vision for the Decade and beyond", promoting novel marine ecosystem models, products and standards within the Ocean Prediction UN Decade Collaborative Centre.
Stefano made connections with NECCTON's stakeholders who will be co-creating case studies and/or share the challenges of defining standards and of promoting the exploitation of marine ecosystem products for the conservation of marine biodiversity and sustainable fisheries, including FAO, MBON, EMODnet, the Air Centre, UPWELL, MedPAN, the Horizon Europe EDITO, BioEcoOcean, and MARCO-BOLO projects and, naturally, the Copernicus Marine Service.

Jim Clark from Plymouth Marine Laboratory also attended the Conference. He joined a panel discussion on "Addressing Marine Microplastic Pollution", which relates to Challenge 1 (Understand and beat marine pollution). The event was organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), with support from the Air Centre, SINTEF Ocean and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. At the conference, he highlighted NECCTON's work on extending the Copernicus Marine Service to include products relating to plastic in the ocean, and the importance of thinking about how the Copernicus Marine Service might support the implementation of a future UN Treaty aimed at addressing the problem of plastic pollution. His work on plankton imaging was also presented in multiple sessions, and he participated in discussions relating to how plankton imaging can be used to support Challenge 7 (Expand the global ocean observing system), and how models such as those being developed in NECCTON can be adapted to exploit plankton image data."

NECCTON is funding through Horizon Europe RIA under Grant Number 101081273 and the UK Research and Innovation
NECCTON is an endorsed project of the UN OCEAN Decade, through the Marine Life Programme.