This in-person side event will coincide with the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), to be held from 9-13 June 2025 in Nice, France. It will be held from 15:00-17:00 CEST (local time).
The ocean is integral to our spiritual and cultural lives. This event will showcase how faith-based organizations draw on their faith traditions to promote a healthy ocean and a revolution of consciousness that realigns humanity’s relationship with the ocean. This event will also mark the launch of the Faith in the Ocean declaration, a multifaith call to action on ocean issues signed by international faith-based organizations. This event will examine how multiple faith traditions inform ocean action to meet SDG14 while conserving and living sustainably with the ocean. It will highlight co-sponsors’ Voluntary Ocean Commitments while drawing attention to critical ocean issues such as ocean-climate-biodiversity interlinkages, plastic pollution, and deep sea mining.
Background and Rationale
The ocean is the original womb of all life. Around 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of the coast, and the health of the ocean is intimately intertwined with the health of our human communities. Globally, around 84% of people are affiliated with a religious group. For many coastal communities, the ocean plays a role not only in their livelihoods, but also in their spiritual lives.
Faith communities are ocean protectors. This side event will showcase their commitment to ocean health through the official launch of the Faith in the Ocean Declaration signed by faith-based organizations from across the globe. This declaration is a call to fundamentally realign our relationship with the ocean in order to promote our mutual flourishing. It is also a deep call to action that spans all sectors of society as we work toward a blue future of integrated ocean action across UN mechanisms.
This side event will highlight different faith traditions’ relationship with the ocean and their efforts to mobilize for ocean protection. Speakers will acknowledge the ocean's connection with other critical concerns such as biodiversity destruction; climate change; plastic pollution; land degradation and desertification; massive species endangerment and extinction; and threatened mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrass. Of primary concern are the mounting threats of deep sea mining and industrial commercial overfishing, and the impacts they have on the delicate balance of life in the ocean and on land. This event will emphasize how the commodification of the ocean undermines the health of the ocean and erodes a values-based relationship with it, calling for a relationship with the ocean that is guided by respect, responsibility, and sustainability.
Perspectives presented at this side event will support a holistic, comprehensive, integrated, gender-responsive, and human rights- and ecosystem-based approach to ocean care. This event will highlight the traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous peoples, women and youth, particularly those from the most impacted communities and Small Island Developing States. Presenters will also have the opportunity to share their organizations’ Voluntary Ocean Commitments, showcasing faith-based organizations at the forefront of ocean protection.
Featured Speakers
List of speakers coming soon.
Co-Sponsors
Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace
Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
Maryknoll Sisters
Temple of Understanding
Missionary Society of St. Columban
Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University
Fondazione PROCLADE Internazionale-onlus
Language
This event will be offered in English.