Our Ocean, One Future: Leadership Summit

Next week U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will host the third annual Our OceanConference in Washington, D.C. on September 15-16, as a way to continue the wave global action to protect our ocean from the effects of human activity, including unsustainable and illegal fishing, marine pollution, and climate-related impacts.

This international gathering will assemble global leaders in government and civil society to take action to protect our ocean. Yet we know the effort to protect our ocean is a massive one that requires the support of the American and international public to move beyond policy and spur a movement on ocean conservation. So in addition to the two-day conference, the U.S. Department of State will host a series of events to engage local and international audiences in the effort to protect our ocean. Below are a few ways the public is participating in-person or digitally in the events surrounding the Our Ocean Conference next week:

September 10, 2016:

Our Ocean Film Showcase: The U.S. Department of State, the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, D.C. Environmental Film Festival, and BLUE Ocean Film Festival will host a film showcase in the Baird Auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History on Saturday, September 10, 2016. This showcase will feature four curated ocean-related documentary films highlighting the threats and solutions facing our world’s ocean: A Plastic Ocean, Humpback Whales, The Last Ocean, and Wild Galapagos: Pristine Seas. It will also include panel discussions with prominent figures, including National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dr. Sylvia Earle and Department of State’s Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Cathy Novelli.

The showcase, is be open to the public, will begin at 12:00 p.m. and run until 8:30 p.m., with scheduled breaks throughout the day. Click here for more information on how to attend.

September 15-16, 2016:

Our Ocean, One Future: Youth Leadership Summit: The U.S. Department of State, Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and the Sustainable Oceans Alliance are co-hosting the “Our Ocean, One Future: Leadership Summit” as a parallel event to the Our Ocean conference. High-level leaders will join a group of 150 university students as the Summit aims to engage the next generation of political leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, and civil society to identify solutions and commit to actions to protect our ocean so it can continue to sustain us all into the future.

Our Ocean Concert: The U.S. Department of State will host a concert at the Kennedy Center on Thursday, September 15, 2016 featuring Grace Potter, Leslie Odom Jr., and Eric Whitacre. Actor and Environmentalist Adrian Grenier and others will speak, and foreign ministers, civil society participants, young leaders from the “Our Ocean, One Future: Leadership Summit,” and others will attend.

Our Ocean Exhibit Hall: The Our Ocean Exhibit Hall at the conference will highlight new initiatives, and exciting ocean projects. It will include Washed Ashore sea life sculptures made entirely of marine plastic pollution. There will be a “mission control” exhibit which will feature some of the examples of projects in the Safe Ocean Network to combat illegal fishing. The exhibit also highlights the roughly three dozen partner programs that currently comprise the growing Safe Ocean Network. The exhibit hall will also feature ocean inspired art by well-known artist Romero Britto and photographer Brian Skerry.

Our Ocean Idea Stage: The Our Ocean Idea Stage will be located within the conference exhibit space. This effort will highlight solutions to the threats facing the ocean from innovative entrepreneurs, cutting-edge researchers, and big-picture thinkers. Recordings of Idea Stage participants presentations will be available on the Our Ocean conference webpage.

Our Ocean Film Stage: Working with Jackson Hole Film Festival and GoodPitch, this small movie stage will allow documentarians to give a short introduction before showing — in most cases premiering — a trailer or short-form of their film. The films come from a variety of sources, all with compelling stories of the interplay between humans and the ocean.

Our Ocean Social Media Meetup: As part of this year’s Our Ocean Conference, we have invited engaged members of the State Department’s social media community to join us for a social media meetup during the two-day event. Meetup participants will attend the 2016 Our Ocean Conference at the Department of State and the “Our Ocean, One Future Leadership Summit” at Georgetown University, sharing social media content from both venues. This social media coverage of the Our Ocean events will help shape the conversation in real-time on all the panels, exhibits, and creative works that are highlighting threats and solutions to protecting our oceans. Be sure to use #OurOcean, #ActOnClimate,#1KOceanActions to join the conversation.

Source:U.S. Department of State

By

Robert Williams

Editor in Chief