Li Junhua, head of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the Secretary-General, Jérôme Bonnafont, Permanent Representative of France to the UN and Costa Rican Ambassador Maritza Chan Valverde during a press conference ahead of the UN Ocean Conference in Nice: Credit: Twitter
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 2025 (IPS) – A greater understanding and appreciation of the world’s oceans is needed to protect them. As the global community prepares to convene for the ocean conference, they must also prepare to invest in scientific efforts and education that will bolster their joint efforts.
France and Costa Rica will co-host the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, France, from June 9-13. Over the course of the week, governments, the private sector, intergovernmental groups, and non-governmental groups, among others, will convene over the urgent actions that need to be taken to promote the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans.
This year’s conference will be the first to take place during the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), which brings together stakeholders in which the UN and its partners will oversee the actions that need to be taken to protect the oceans’ unique ecosystems and biodiversity and how to promote greater awareness and research into ocean sciences and how to better protect them.
UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) oversees and tracks the progress of the UN Ocean Decade, which brings together the global ocean community on the principles of understanding, educating, and protecting the oceans.
There will be an emphasis on strengthening the data-collection capacities in the global system for observing the ocean. Data scarcity and limitations in collection methods have meant that organizations have challenges grasping the full scope of the ocean and the changes they face in the wake of climate change.
Julian Barbiere, UNESCO’s Head of Marine Policy, told reporters that science-based discussions will be at the core of UNOC. For UNESCO, there will be discussions over how to translate scientific facts into tangible climate actions. This includes scaling up the current efforts at ocean-floor mapping. At present, only 26.1 percent of the seafloor has been mapped out by modern standards, with the goal to have 100 percent of the seafloor mapped out by 2030.
Seaweed is grown or farmed in the shallow waters of the Indian Ocean, off Wasini Island, Kenya, with plants tied to ropes in the water. Credit: Anthony Onyango / Climate Visuals
Joanna Post, head of the IOC’s Ocean Observations and Services, remarked that there is a “real need for recognition” of the critical functions that the system performs, such as in monitoring weather conditions, mapping the ocean floor, maritime security, and disaster risk management. She announced a new initiative that would mobilize at least 10,000 commercial and research ships to collect data and measure the ocean. Commercial and research ship vessels play a key role in tracking and collecting data on the oceans, which Post emphasized must be shared across global channels.
UNESCO’s agenda for this forum also includes encouraging stakeholders to invest in and strengthen global education efforts on the ocean. “Education is key if we want to have a new generation that is aware of the importance of the ocean system,” said Francesca Santoro, a senior programme officer in UNESCO, leading the Ocean Literacy office.
Santoro stressed that education is not limited to students and young people; private investors should also be more aware of the importance of investing in the oceans.
UNESCO aims to continue expanding the networks of schools and educators that incorporate ocean literacy into their curricula, especially at the national level. Ocean literacy emphasizes the importance of the ocean for students, educators, and local communities within multiple contexts.
One such programme is the SEA BEYOND initiative, in partnership with the Prada Group, which provides training and lessons to over 20,000 students in over 50 countries. Under that initiative, a new multi-partner trust fund will be launched at UNOC3 on June 9, which will be used to support projects and programs that work toward ocean education and preserving ocean culture. As Santoro noted, “For many people and local communities, the main entry point to start interest in the oceans… is in [identifying] what UNESCO calls ‘intangible cultural heritage.’”
Human activity, including pollution, “directly threatens” the health of the ocean, according to Henrik Enevoldsen from UNESCO-IOC’s Centre of Ocean Science.
He announced the development of a new global assessment, led by UNESCO and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), on marine pollution, to be launched on June 12. This would be a “major leap forward,” Enevoldsen remarked, adding that this assessment would be the first of its kind that provided a global overview of ocean pollution.
When the weather is bad, the residents of the Litoral neighborhood in Manzanillo, Cuba, are forced to evacuate their houses. When it’s calm, the sea penetrates the foundations of houses, leaving them vulnerable. Now the community is getting together to restore the mangroves and improve the environment to return their homes to safety.
A fisherman sits next to several boats at the GeoCuba Local Interest Fishing Port in the bay of Manzanillo, in the eastern Cuban province of Granma. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS
MANZANILLO, Cuba, Oct 2 2024 (IPS) – Every time a hurricane clouds the skies over the city of Manzanillo, in the eastern Cuban province of Granma, the sea pounds the Litoral neighbourhood, forcing many of the 200 families who live there to evacuate inland because of flooding.
When the weather is calm, the sea penetrates subtly and constantly, salinizing the water table and eroding the coast, affecting the foundations of houses and artesian wells.
“The water almost always enters this area. The houses were built too close to the sea and the mangroves are deforested,” community leader Martha Labrada, 65, told IPS.
Labrada has presided over the people’s council (local administration organisation) for 13 years, which covers the Litoral neighbourhood and a two-kilometer stretch of coastline that is home to about 5,000 people.
A mangrove forest in Manzanillo Bay, eastern Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS
Protective mangroves
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), mangroves extract up to five times more carbon than land forests, raise the ground level and thus slow down the rise in sea level.
This coastal ecosystem, typical of tropical and subtropical areas, usually consists of a swamp forest, a strip of black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) and a strip of red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle), the barrier closest to the sea, whose trunks absorb the impact of waves and protect against extreme weather conditions.
Mangroves act as nurseries for fish fry and as havens for honey bees, among a huge variety of fauna and flora.
They also serve as a protective area for fresh water. If degraded, salt from marine waters would more easily enter underground water basins, contaminating the drinkability of this liquid and disabling wells located miles inland.
Blanca Estrada, administrative coordinator of the Mi Costa project on behalf of the provincial government of Granma in eastern Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS
Protection from the sea
The Litoral neighbourhood is one of the most vulnerable in the municipality to climate change because it borders the mangroves, but it is not the only one in this situation.
In Manzanillo there are six people’s councils that are in direct contact with the coast. Some 60,000 inhabitants suffer the consequences, almost half of the total population of the municipality located 753 kilometres east of Havana.
The need to find solutions to the problem of rising sea levels was therefore born in the rural neighborhoods and villages of Manzanillo.
To counteract this prospect, small community projects emerged in 2018, also promoted by a national plan to tackle climate change known as Tarea Vida, which had been launched by the central government a year earlier.
As a result, 23 initiatives were set up in the municipality, which were later grouped in a single nationwide project called Mi Costa, the project’s coordinator in Manzanillo, Margot Hernández, told IPS.
Mi Costa seeks to create conditions of resilience to climate change through adaptation solutions based on strengthening the benefits provided by coastal ecosystems. In essence, its main task is to reforest and rehabilitate mangroves.
“In addition, we have to change living habits. That’s what we are working on,” Hernández added.
Ditch built in the middle of a mangrove swamp to contribute to its drainage and the recirculation of saline and fresh water in the municipality of Manzanillo, eastern Cuba. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo
Behind deforestation
Manzanillo, because of its low isometry and its 25 kilometres of coastline, is in a serious state of environmental vulnerability.
The deforested areas of mangroves amount to 708.7 hectares, being the most affected concentrated at the river mouths.
With a weakened natural containment barrier, the saline waters penetrate the riverbeds and, for example, in the Yara River, in the north of the municipality, they do so up to seven kilometres inland, according to Leandro Concepción, the project coordinator for the Granma Provincial Delegation of Hydraulic Resources.
In any case, the salinity penetrates through underground water basins and, according to Hernández, the coordinator in Manzanillo, “there are people’s artesian wells, which were once used for consumption but are now salinized.”
Mangrove deforestation has several causes: the lack or blockage of channels hinders the ebb and flow of the tide and alters the exchange of freshwater with marine waters.
It is also affected by the invasion of invasive exotic species such as the arboreal Ipil Ipil or guaje (Leucaena leucocephala), anthropogenic human intervention through the construction of infrastructure, agricultural and livestock practices near the coast, and even the felling of mangroves to make charcoal.
A group of people receive a class given by the Mi Costa project at the Manzanillo Training Center. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo
According to Labrada, the community leader in Litoral, several houses have been built almost adjacent to the mangrove, without the corresponding construction permits. Moreover, state-owned industrial infrastructures, such as a shoe factory and an inactive sawmill, cause the same damage.
Coastal and river pollution from industrial waste dumping also depresses coastal ecosystems.
For decades, the region’s sugar mills and rice industry dumped their waste into the rivers, Blanca Estrada, administrative coordinator of Mi Costa on behalf of the Granma provincial government, told IPS.
This situation is one of the examples of climate injustice in the area: upstream, the industrial sector caused environmental havoc that affected mangrove health and, at the end of the chain, the quality of life of coastal residents, making them more vulnerable to climatic events.
In 2023, decisive measures were taken to solve the problem and the few active factories no longer discharge their waste into the sea or use filters. In the second half of 2024, the results have already begun to show: “The migratory birds have returned, something you didn’t see months ago,” said Estrada.
However, the effects of climate change still persist in Manzanillo.
“The environmental situation today is quite complex for the keys,” Víctor Remón, director of Manzanillo’s Department of Territorial Development, which belongs to the local government, told IPS.
The municipality’s territory contains an extensive cay of 2.44 square kilometres, but Cayo Perla has already been submerged under the waters of the Gulf of Guacanayabo.
“It disappeared six or seven years ago. It was a beautiful key, with beautiful white sands. There was a tourist facility from where you could see the city of Manzanillo,” Remón said.
For his part, Roberto David Rosales, fisherman and Mi Costa contributor, remembers a path he used to walk along the shore until last year; now it has been ‘swallowed’ by the sea.
“Almost two meters were lost in this area in one year. These are things that force us to be protectors of the mangroves. The Mi Costa project came at the right time,” he told IPS.
Margot Hernández (left), coordinator of the Mi Costa project in Manzanillo, opens the training centre in the city of Manzanillo. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo
Steps towards a solution
Mi Costa was made official in December 2021, but heavy work began in 2023, due to a pause caused by the COVID pandemic.
In Manzanillo, the project brought together about 100 collaborators, who were divided into small community groups of about 10 people, who support the monitoring and cleaning of mangroves and ditches and awareness-raising among the population.
Labrada also has its own people’s council group, composed of six women and four men.
In addition, training centres have been set up in the municipality on climate change adaptability, environmental safeguards, gender and other issues. To date, 10,500 people have been trained.
“We are working with the coast dwellers, because the issue is that people don’t leave the coasts, but that they stay and learn to live there, taking care of them,” said Estrada, the government coordinator.
Sunset on the boardwalk in the eastern Cuban city of Manzanillo. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS
They have also built 1,300 meters of ditches, using picks and shovels, to achieve a form of water rotation, but this figure has yet to be multiplied.
The immediate challenge is to finish building the nursery where the mangrove seedlings will sprout and then be planted in the deforested areas.
“Once we have the nursery, there will be no difficulty at all in Granma to begin the process of rehabilitating the mangroves,” Norvelis Reyes, Mi Costa’s main coordinator in the province, told IPS.
Mi Costa’s area of action in Granma covers, in addition to the coast of Manzanillo, the northern municipalities of Yara and Río Cauto.
Nationwide, 24 communities in the south of Cuba are involved in resilience actions (1,300 kilometres of coastline), of which 14 are at risk of disappearing due to coastal flooding by 2050, including Manzanillo.
The southern coast of this Caribbean island country was chosen because it is more vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise, given its lower geographical isometry than in the north.
In addition, the south also has a higher concentration of mangroves, making it more necessary and effective to build coastal resilience based on adaptation and focused on the rehabilitation and reforestation of these ecosystems.
While implemented by the communities themselves and with the participation of the villagers, the project is supervised by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment and the country office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The Green Climate Fund provided funding of USD 23.9 million, while Cuban state institutions contributed USD 20.3 million.
The ultimate goal will be to restore some 114 square kilometres of mangroves, 31 square kilometres of swamp forest and nine square kilometres of grassy swamps in eight years. After that, a period of 22 years will be dedicated to the operation and maintenance of the implemented actions.
It is estimated that more than 1.3 million people will benefit on this Caribbean island, the largest in the region and home to 11 million people.
Panelists at SDG Media Zone at SIDS4, Antigua and Barbuda. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS
ANTIGUA & BARBUDA, May 29 2024 (IPS) – As leaders of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) meet for the 4th International Conference on SIDS in Antigua this week, top United Nations and World Bank officials are calling for urgent action to help SIDS tackle their unique challenges and plan for the next decade.
Selwin Hart, UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General of the Climate Action Team, had a frank assessment for a United Nations SDG Media Zone event on the sidelines of the conference, known as SIDS4.
“The international community has failed to deliver on its commitments to these small nations, but it’s not too late to make amends,” he said.
Hart says the world has the ‘tools, solutions, technologies, and finance’ to support SIDS, but change lies in the political will of the countries with the greatest responsibility and capacity, particularly G20 nations, which account for almost 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“A mere USD 3 billion of the USD 100 billion goal has been mobilized annually for the small island developing state and you compare that to the USD 36 billion in profit that Exxon Mobil made last year. It represents a tenth of the climate finance that SIDS are attracting and mobilizing. We need to correct these injustices and that has to be at the root of the global response to the demands and needs of small island developing states.”
Nature-Based Solutions for Nations on the Frontlines of Climate Change “Both natural and man-made disasters hit SIDS first,” the World Bank’s Global Director of Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy, Valerie Hickey, told the Media Zone. She said that for this reason, the international lending body describes SIDS as “where tomorrow happens today,” a nod to small islands’ role as ‘innovation incubators,’ who must adapt to climate change through the creative and sustainable use of natural capital, biodiversity, and nature-based solutions.
She says nature capital also shifts the narrative, focusing less on the vulnerabilities of SIDS and more on their ingenuity.
“We don’t talk enough about the fact that small islands are where natural capital is the engine of jobs and GDP,” she said. “It is fisheries. It is nature-based tourism. These are critically important for most of the small islands and ultimately deliver not just jobs and GDP but are going to be the only technology for adaptation that is available and affordable, and affordability matters for small islands.”
“The data is too fragmented. It’s sitting on people’s laptops. It’s sitting on people’s shelves. Nobody knows what’s out there and that’s true for the private sector and the public sector,” she said.
“In the Caribbean, where there is excess capital sitting in retail banks, USD 50 billion of that can be used to invest in nature-based solutions judiciously, to work on the kind of longer-term infrastructure that would be fit for purpose both for disaster recovery and long-term growth—it’s not happening for lack of data.”
As part of SIDS4, the world’s small island developing states appear to be tackling this decades-long data problem head-on. At the event’s opening session, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne said a much-promoted Centre of Excellence will be established at this conference and that this Global Data Hub for Innovative Technologies and Investment for SIDS will use data for decision-making, ensuring that SIDS’ ten-year Antigua and Barbuda Agenda (ABAS) is led by ‘accuracy and timeliness.’
Reducing Disaster Risk and Early Warning Systems for All
A discussion on SIDS is not complete without acknowledging the disproportionate impact of disasters on the island nations. Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Kamal Kishore, says mortality rates and economic losses from disasters are significantly higher in SIDS than the global average.
“If you look at mortality from disasters, the number of deaths normalized by the population of the countries, the mortality rate in SIDS is twice that of the rest of the world. If you look at economic losses as a proportion of GDP, globally it is under one percent; in SIDS, in a single event, countries have lost 30 percent of their GDP. SIDS have lost up to two-thirds of their GDP in a single event.”
Kishore says the ambition to reduce disaster losses must match the scale of the problem. He says early warning systems are a must and have to be seen by all not as generosity but responsibility.
“It is not acceptable that anybody on planet Earth should not have access to advanced cyclone or hurricane warnings. We have the technical wherewithal to generate forecasts and warnings. We have technologies to disseminate it. We know what communities need to do and what local governments need to do in order to respond to those warnings. Why is it not happening?”
The Early Warning for All initiative was launched by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in 2022. Kishore says 30 countries have been identified in the initial stage and a third of those countries are SIDS. Gap analyses have already been conducted and a road map has been prepared for strengthening early warning systems. The organization needs money to make it happen.
“The world needs to show some generosity and pick up the bill. It’s not in billions. It’s in millions and it will pay for itself in a single event. You invest in early warning in a country and one major event happens in the next five years, you’ve recovered your investment. The evidence is there that it makes financial sense, but we need to mobilize resources to close that gap.”
The Road Ahead
Thirty years since the first International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the three leaders agree that there is hope, but that hope is hinged on action—an approach to development in SIDS that involves financial investment, comprehensive data collection and management and nature-based adaptation measures.
“It’s not too late,” says Selwin Hart. “What we need now is the political will to make things right for small island developing states.”
The once-in-a-decade SIDS Conference opened in Antigua and Barbuda today, with a clear message: the world already knows the challenges that SIDS face—now it’s time for action.
King Charles III of Britain addresses the opening ceremony of the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, May 27, 2024. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS
ANTIGUA, May 27 2024 (IPS) – “This year has been the hottest in history in practically every corner of the globe, foretelling severe impacts on our ecosystems and starkly underscoring the urgency of our predicament. We are gathered here not merely to reiterate our challenges, but to demand and enact solutions,” declared Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Brown at the opening of the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States on May 27.
The world’s 39 small island developing states are meeting on the Caribbean island this week. It is a pivotal, once-a-decade meeting for small states that contribute little to global warming, but are disproportionately impacted by climate change. The Caribbean leader reminded the world that SIDS are being forced to survive crises that they did not create.
“The scales of equity and justice are unevenly balanced against us. The large-scale polluters whose CO2 emissions have fuelled these catastrophic climate changes bear a responsibility—an obligation of compensation to aid in our quest to build resilience,” he said.
“The Global North must honor its commitments, including the pivotal pledge of one hundred billion dollars in climate financing to assist with adaptation and mitigation as well as the effective capitalization and operationalization of the loss and damage fund. These are imperative investments in humanity, in justice, and in the equitable future of humanity.”
Urgent Support Needed from the International Community
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the gathering that the previous ten years have presented significant challenges to SIDS and hindered development. These include extreme weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic. He says SIDS, islands that are “exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally resilient, but exceptionally vulnerable,” need urgent support from the international community, led by the nations that are both responsible for the challenges they face and have the capacity to deal with them.
“The idea that an entire island state could become collateral damage for profiteering by the fossil fuel industry, or competition between major economies, is simply obscene,” the Secretary General said, adding, “Small Island Developing States have every right and reason to insist that developed economies fulfill their pledge to double adaptation financing by 2025. And we must hold them to this commitment as a bare minimum. Many SIDS desperately need adaptation measures to protect agriculture, fisheries, water resources and infrastructure from extreme climate impacts you did virtually nothing to create.”
Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS)
The theme for SIDS4 is Charting the Course Toward Resilient Prosperity and the small islands have been praised for collective action in the face of crippling crises. Their voices were crucial to the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
Out of this conference will come the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS). President of the UN General Assembly, Dennis Francis, says that programme of action will guide SIDS on a path to resilience and prosperity for the next decade.
“ The next ten years will be critical in making sustained concrete progress on the SIDS agenda – and we must make full use of this opportunity to supercharge our efforts around sustainability,” he said.
The SIDS4 conference grounds in Antigua and Barbuda will be a flurry of activity over the next four days. Apart from plenaries, there are over 170 side events hosted by youth, civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations, and universities, covering a range of issues from renewable energy to climate financing.
They have been reminded by Prime Minister Gaston Browne that this is a crucial juncture in the history of small island developing states, where “actions, or failure to act, will dictate the fate of SIDS and the legacy left for future generations.”
