The meeting has been called “The science we need for the ocean we want” and constitutes the global forum in which governments, experts from different fields, maritime sectors, universities, NGOs, the private sector and civil society participate. Forty top international speakers are expected to participate and there are already more than five thousand requests to attend registered.
The Barcelona meeting will be key to consolidating the United Nations Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), also known as the Ocean Decade. Apart from the presentations included in the official program, the city will host more than one hundred and thirty parallel events, which will focus on the care of the marine ecosystem.
A program open to citizens
The satellite events will be spread across twenty venues grouped into four nodes with strong links to the sea and science and open to citizen participation. They are the following:
Among the activities there are debate tables, interactive workshops and dialogues that are complemented with proposals put forward by the City Council, such as a workshop, on April 8, at the Institute of Marine Sciences, which will analyze the challenges of the Decade of the Oceans from a regional and city perspective and will address topics such as the blue economy, the role of science in the Catalan maritime agenda or innovative initiatives for coastal management. Registration is required to attend, and after the event you can visit the Olympic Port transformation project or take a guided observation of the city’s seafront.
Other proposals are The Ocean Decade Day (April 8) at the Filmoteca de Catalunya, with a selection of short films that offer different visions of the ocean, the exhibition dedicated to Chinese nautical technology that can be seen at the Maritime Museum (from April 6 to April 14) or the symposium on maritime protected areas to be held on April 8 and 9 in the World Trade Center auditorium.
All parallel programming to the conference can be consulted here.
