Week of Action on Oceans
Blue Planet Alliance team and volunteers doing beach clean-up on the Coney Island boardwalk
On the boardwalk of Coney Island, under the shadows of the world-famous Cyclone rollercoaster, a display of the ocean's riches was set up on a table. This was during World Oceans Week (June 5th to 10th), and those "riches" included a plate of red bottle caps, among collections of other sorted flotsam and jetsam. The presentation — which was later turned into a "trash mandala" — was the nonprofit Beautify Brooklyn's purposefully perverse celebration of garbage, intended to catalyze ocean cleanup and promote both public arts and ecological restoration.
That event was sponsored by Blue Planet Alliance, with our partners Peace Boat US, Oceanic Global, and the New York Aquarium. And back at UN Headquarters and around New York City, this week-long observation of the importance of oceans and their ecosystems dovetailed with so many of our BPA's initiatives — and BPA participated in and hosted a number of events.
Blue Planet Alliance Executive Director Francois Rogers at the “Indlela Yokuphila: The Soul’s Journey” event
On Wednesday, BPA and partners sponsored two separate events at UN Plaza, directly across the street from UN Headquarters. First was a theater performance from South Africa called “Lalela uLwandle” (“Listen to the Sea”) and a conversation on inclusive ocean governance, which wove together multi-generational stories of evolving connections to the ocean from the perspectives of small-scale fishers, traditional healers, marine scientists, and educators. And then toward evening there was the world-premiere of a South African animated film about the spirits of the sea, “Indlela Yokuphila: The Soul’s Journey,” which explored Indigenous knowledge on the role of the ocean in planetary ecological processes and areas of contact between Indigenous knowledge and ocean science.
The next day was World Oceans Day itself, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres hosted a special World Oceans Day program, featuring an array of BPA partners, such as "Her Deepness" Dr. Sylvia Earle (Mission Blue), Lea d'Auriol (Oceanic Global), and Fabien Cousteau (Proteus Ocean Group), as well as the dazzling performance of WHAIA Creation, a Maori vocalist whose stylized indigenous music is startling and awakening — the jolt we need to take collective action and protect the oceans. BPA also had one of its videos on a loop installation inside UN HQ of important visual evidence of the benefits of protecting oceans.
Friday saw another event at UN Plaza, diving into arts-based research and solidarity practices with Indigenous Knowledge Holders in Plural Ocean Governance. More lessons from voices in South Africa, focused on protecting the human rights of Indigenous and local knowledge holders within ocean governance, and how that could be adapted to collaborative projects and inclusion decision-making processes.
And the week concluded on Saturday with the Coney Island beach clean up, in which dozens of youth from around New York City participated. A week really isn’t enough to put the global focus on oceans — let’s make it a month next year!
