The 2021 Ocean Challenge
By: Maoi Arroyo
Tags: Impact Investing, Impact Ph, Un World Oceans Day

Today we celebrate World Oceans Day 2021. It’s a UN holiday that celebrates the major role the oceans have in everyday life. The UN hopes that the celebration can help inform everyone of the impact of human actions on the ocean and unite the world in its efforts for sustainable management of our important resources. This year’s theme is “The Ocean: Life and Livelihoods”.

As a Filipino citizen and an impact investor, this year’s celebration during the pandemic is particularly poignant. The bad news is that resolution of our geopolitical struggle for the West Philippine Sea is still up in the air. The good news is that the pandemic has allowed our marine ecosystem to recover from human activity. I was able to witness this firsthand on a trip to Palawan last January.

However, I believe that the biggest problem facing our oceans today is the lack of investments in the blue economy — or businesses that will help create jobs in our coastal communities. We are the largest archipelagic country in the world, with over 7,641 islands and 76% of the world’s coral species. 60% of Filipinos live on coastal areas but have an average income of $0.75 — $1 a day. Of the 21.9 million Filipinos in poverty, fisherfolk have the second highest poverty incidence rate (34%). How can we get people to care for the ocean when they face the daily challenge of survival, particularly during the pandemic?

The greatest impact and returns can be made from investing in:

Sustainable Fishing, Aquaculture, and Mariculture

Processing of Seafood

Ecotourism

Providing internet access and IoT innovations for maritime industries

I asked two other experts about what the biggest challenge for the ocean is and how we can solve it.

Ben Mead, founder of the Mead Foundation says:

It’s no secret that the world is facing major challenges as it relates to macro issues like rising ocean temperatures, acidification and plastics. These are big issues that need large, coordinated solutions and a domestic and international government policy level. Beyond that, there are other smaller and more localized issues where perhaps it is easier to see direct impactful outcomes for an individual. In the Philippines, lack of education, awareness and enforcement of the laws is a major problem. This is where one person can make a difference: talking with community leaders, investing efforts in education of adults and children at a local level, participating in local projects. Sometimes it’s a lack of basic knowledge in the community that is lacking, rather than a lack of regard for the environment.

We have learnt at the Mead Foundation is that sometimes you do not have to have all the answers before you begin an initiative. The most important step is the first step; getting started. We have an active program for coordinated marine conservation — from coral reef restoration to pawikan conservation initiatives — and these always involve a strong element of community engagement, education, and awareness. If you want to get involved, just get in touch, we would be happy to see what we can do to get you involved — so you can get started too.

Romy Trono, former Country Executive Director of Conservation International says:

Many ocean experts, marine scientists, marine conservation practitioners and NGOs, policy specialists have come up with lists of the most serious issues and threats to the world oceans. Common among their list are climate change; overfishing, sustainable seafood, and destructive fishing, marine conservation areas; plastic pollution; perverse fishery subsidies; deep water mining; and more… Many scientific research and policy development initiatives have been designed and formulated to understand better and address these issues and threats.

While I agree with their lists, I would like to add the lack of effective, responsive, and sustainable governance and enforcement. This sounds obvious because it is indeed obvious! And it has been staring us in the face for many decades already.

Every time we identify an issue or threat, old or emerging, to our marine ecosystems, we have a propensity to undertake in-depth threat analysis, scientific studies, monitoring, which take years to complete and arrive at conclusions. And based on these studies and analyses, we organize and conduct meetings, broad and in-depth stakeholder consultations, and conduct workshops, workshops, and more workshops to develop policies based on the most recent science and threat analysis. Once the policies are approved and issued, the resource or ecosystems we hoped to save have been severely damaged already. We more often than not, find ourselves trapped in a “paralysis by analyses” phenomenon.

We have an arsenal of environmental and fishery laws which are probably among the best in the world.

Agencies and local government units mandated to implement and enforce these policies are either remiss of their duties, ignorant about these policies, or worse, some local executives are even the ones violating the policies, e.g., they engage in activities and businesses, and approve projects that contribute to the destruction of coastal and marine environment and biodiversity and compromise the integrity of marine ecosystems

What do you think is the 2021 Ocean Challenge for #UNWorldOceansDay and how do you think we can solve it and make #ImpactPH?