If marine issues are to involve everyone, one project knew it had to set its compass for horizons beyond the ‘science education’ of traditional ocean literacy, dropping anchor in lands with names like ‘Blue Growth’ to get all actors on-board.

With the ocean beset by multiple challenges, such as climate change and plastics pollution, there is a concerted effort to increase ocean literacy (OL) to ensure the sustainability of marine ecosystems. OL encompasses awareness raising, capacity building and education about the ocean’s functioning, health and relationship to human activities. The EU-supported Respon-SEA-ble (Sustainable oceans: our collective responsibility, our common interest. Building on real-life knowledge systems for developing interactive and mutual learning media) project used participatory techniques (the living lab approach) to develop a range of OL products and interactive guidance for practitioners (a WebDocumentary), accessible to interested parties including educators, businesses, trainers, policy makers and the media. Information overboard?

Respon-SEA-ble reached clear conclusions about where to concentrate their efforts. “In many cases, there is too much information about the status of the marine ecosystem and too little about social and economic impacts. This is compounded by lack of clarity for targeted audiences about what action is most needed,” says project coordinator Dr Olga Mashkina. The project concluded that effective change comes from combining initiatives at different parts of the value chain, as evidenced by current efforts to ban microplastics in cosmetics. Additionally, the causes of many marine problems, such as plastics pollution, are actually land-based.

Respon-SEA-ble focussed on six thematic areas curated as ‘key stories’ – sustainable fisheries/aquaculture marine renewable energies eutrophication maritime transport sustainable tourism and microplastics – all contributing to marine ecosystems’ health connecting to existing policies and relevant to actors capable of driving change (e.g. policy makers producers and consumers). These key stories illustrate current knowledge on the (direct and indirect) links between human activities and marine ecosystems, different types of information and mechanisms for sharing it (also identifying gaps) and constraints/opportunities in terms of practical actions and behaviour change. The project created, tested and assessed a range of OL tools and products including: a series of games; short documentaries; cartoons; an IT platform for sharing marine knowledge with ferry passengers; an education module for children/schools and a training programme for fishermen. “To ensure their effectiveness, the tools were co-designed with key stakeholders,” says Dr Mashkina. “Additionally, we sought feedback on whether they made a difference to how users understood issues, felt about them and were ready to act.” The feedback so far has been positive, and analyses of assessment results are leading to recommendations for an interactive OL WebDoc platform which will be released at the end of the project (March 2019).

Lasting change Project learning has led to specific suggestions to maximise opportunities in existing policies (such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive), strengthening OL for different target groups. Specific attention has also been given to how OL could be embedded for regional seas by aligning with local sea conventions and activities, as well as contributing to Atlantic Ocean Research Cooperation, involving US/Canadian actors. “We have moved ocean literacy beyond schools and a purely scientific focus, making it inclusive, reminding everyone that we are all responsible!” says Dr Mashkina. “Seeing OL attracting more attention through research calls, policy documents or international initiatives, makes us feel that our drop has already contributed to ripples of change.”

More information : https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/401309 

Original article from the EC Cordis website

The Baltic Sea Action Plan is under revision. Originally adopted in 2007 by all coastal states and the EU, it was born with the vision to make the Baltic Sea become healthy again. Thus, combating eutrophication, bringing hazardous substances back to natural levels, guaranteeing thriving and balanced plant and animal communities were some of many actions on the agendas of HELCOM and the member states.

Now, two years before reach the finish line, we unfortunately must accept: the Baltic Sea Action Plan will not be able to meet its goals by 2021 – and needs to be revised and strengthened for the future.

Coalition Clean Baltic and ResponSEAble is convinced that the revision and improvement process should include environmental advice and perspectives from NGOs of the Baltic Sea Region. Therefore, they invited to a NGO brainstorm meeting in Helsinki on March 5^th, one day prior to the 40^th HELCOM meeting. The NGO meeting took place in the HELCOM secretariat and was keeping its goal to formulate a joint set of recommendations and suggestions to be integrated in the upcoming update of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. These recommendations were then presented at the HELCOM meeting and were perceived with open minds and the willingness to join forces.

The audience understood that raising awareness of the matter is not enough and that disseminating information alone does not change behaviour. Motivating pro-environmental behaviour change of all involved actors and stakeholders of an environmental issue by approaching them with improved narratives, speaking their languages and addressing their needs is urgently needed. Thus, the ReponSEAble approach and the concept of building capacity on ocean literacy was perceived as well-fitting concept to be followed up with. HELCOM agreed to use learnings and outcomes of ResponSEAble and accepted the ResponSEAble policy brief titling “Raising awareness and building capacity about eutrophication: Integrating ocean literacy in the Baltic Sea Action Plan” [add link to policy brief] as official HELCOM document.

We believe that ocean literacy must be the base for human environment interactions. Building capacity means to educate actors and stakeholders to understand the impact of and responsibility behind their actions. Therefore, we are happy and proud that the ResponSEAble approach and its findings makes its way into policy and decision making across borders.

The event brought together about 30 people from different organizations working with ocean literacy in Portugal (from schools and university educators, research projects to other practitioners, NGOs, etc). The workshop was organized by Celia Quico (Lusofona University) to share the findings of the H2020 project ResponSEAble and to understand Portugeese perspective.

Pierre Strosser (ACteon) opend the workshop with questions about ocean literacy – what type of knowledge do we need,  for whom and link between ocean literacy and behaviour change – ‘even if I am know, will I act? ‘Taking a look at the images in the room of the museum ‘XXx’ he highlighted the importance of understanding the story of what is important to know for people to change their behaviour: what economic activities, what drives us to certain activities, how this changes the state and the impact, and what is a response.

In presentations and discussions the importance of different channels for targeting different audiences was highlighted – illustration brought by Erik Bogaard (ProSea) working with fishermen, and trust/preference of certain channels over others was presented;

The participants were taken out to try out ‘ocean literacy ‘game – presented by Johanna Ballé-Béganton ( UBO/Oceanopolis)  – which gave another example and approach how to engage with different audiences (first time piloted during the World Ocean Day in Porte Dorée Aquarium in Paris.

Importance of assessing effectiveness was raised by Matthew ASHLEY, University of Plymouth and one of the conclusions of the workshop was to apply the approach in the future – to help understanding and improving the way the ocean literacy products (courses, media, etc..) is produced and applied..

The workshop was completed with a quiz  – where participants were invited to test their knowledge in a interactive form with mobile phone – cahoot.it

As a results : it doesn’t help to know whether you are good about the facts about the ocean. Most of the information that is usually checked in the quizes doesn’t help us to change our behaviour.

It is viewed by many participants as a good way to raise these issues.

After the workshop, participants were invited to visit the museum.

In collaboration with the journal Frontiers in Marine Science we are bringing together a selected group of international experts to contribute to an open-access article collection on this on the issues and options for effective OL worldwide.

It discusses:

1. existing experiences in OL (formal and informal education for children, training for professionals, tools for raising awareness of consumers  – and of investors in the marine sectors…) and their effectiveness (from understanding better to acting differently)
2. the role OL could play (in interaction with innovation, regulation, economic incentive, social norms…) to support human capital development as key component of sustainable growth;
3. pre-conditions for effective OL for different sectors and target groups.

Questions relevant to OL include: Which knowledge  – produced by whom  – to share and how? Who to target  – and how to effectively reach those targeted? How to design OL initiatives  – including by mobilizing those targeted (via living lab approaches e.g.)  – to ensure effective OL and pave the way for behavior change? What are the knowledge gaps that limit our capacity to design effective OL? As scientists, it is likely you have many more questions to offer and discuss.

It is expected that contributions will: (a) come from marine scientists, educators, training specialists, psychologists and social scientists, marine governance and sector policy specialists…; (b) cover different seas with clear cultural and sea-connection differences  – with some experiences from outside Europe used as source of inspiration; (c) investigate different scales  – from local to large scale such as countries or entire socio-economic value chains; (d) address the science-policy interface  relevant to OL, discussing how policy(ies) might be adapted to better support effective OL.

Editorial team:

Dr. Angel Borja,   Dr. Francesca Santoro,  Dr. Gail Scowcroft,  Dr. Stephen Fletcher, and  Dr. Pierre Strosser

Deadlines:

30 September 2018 – Abstract

15 December  2018 – Manuscript

• See more information and guidelines for submissions