Building Ocean Literacy – The ResponSEAble way

Connecting people to the ocean

Jurmala, Latvia

April 5 – 6, 2017

The Jurmala Dialogue is an interactive workshop that will bring together people with knowledge about the oceans from a number of spheres to help us answer the three basic questions – and fill knowledge gaps.

We’re looking for contributions from those who

1. Work actively with those stakeholders that are depending on the sea and marine ecosystems for their living
2. Have an economic interest in maintaining healthy marine ecosystems through technology development, innovation, supply to industry, etc.
3. Implement policies, strategies and projects to protect marine ecosystems or promote sustainable practices to reduce pollution, protect marine species, halt the destruction of marine habitats, etc.
4. Develop education and other literacy activities to raise awareness about the importance of our oceans to society and promote sustainable practices to ensure healthy marine ecosystems
5. Broadcast about the ocean at any media channel or utilise and visualise knowledge on the ocean for communication and professional, even artistic expression.

Why the Jurmala Dialogue is important

We want your feedback on our approach to knowledge, actors in the value chain and perception of the knowledge. We also need you to share your experience and knowledge on ocean literacy. This mutual experience exchange will contribute to EU debates on how to make literacy more effective so it supports positive changes in behaviour and contributes to sustainable production and consumption of goods, services and knowledge that benefit the ocean.

During the workshop you will have access to the experience and views of professionals, stakeholders and policy makers from the marine, socio-economic, literacy and communication communities. Based on your knowledge and experience, you can help identify ways to expand Europeans’ understanding of why the oceans are important.

What will be discussed

1. 1-the current state of our seas and identify activities putting pressure on, and/or benefiting from, marine ecosystems;
2. 2-the organization of “value chains” of consumer, retailer or industrial activities that put pressure on marine ecosystems – and the opportunities that might exist within them to do things differently;
3. 3-building ocean literacy through communications, awareness raising and other initiatives about the oceans for different audiences; and
4. 4-looking at “blue growth”, what it means and how it might be managed sustainably.

• Registration for the Jurmala Dialogue at our online registration platform by 15 March 2017

• Download the agenda

The ResponSEAble Photo contest was launched this summer to raise awareness and responsibility about our sea and oceans. To take part in the competition one had to express on social network “How we can all protect the sea today” and share a photo with a hashtag #responseable.
We have received a lot of photos and would like to thank all of you who took part in the contest and were thinking ‘responSEAble’ with us this summer!

After tough selection process by the jury  board we are happy to announce the winner of the ResponSEAble Summer Photo Contest – Maria Costanza Candi – an Italian journalist who lives in Turin.

Winner of the ResponSEAble contest – Maria Costanza Candi
Photo credit: Augusta Giovanolli

The jury would also like to acknowledge photos of Margherita Burchi and Tiago Garcia for receiving the second highest number of votes. Congratulations!

Maria receives ResponSEAble prize – BUREO sunglasses (https://bureo.co/) made out of recycled fishing nets (discarded fishing nets account for 10% of the plastic pollution in the ocean).

Our partners from CSP Eleonora Panto and Augusta Giovannoli had the opportunity to meet the winner to give her the prize and ask what the participation in our contest meant for her:

Question: Why did you participate?

Answer: As we are great sea lovers, it was so fun to engage in this kind of family contest focused on #responseable call. We spent more than 1 month in different areas of a beautiful Italian island Sardinia, with so many different landscapes to enjoy and photograph.

Q: Why/how did you take this winning picture?

A: We were close to Arbatax, a small village in the south eastern part of Sardinia, while we saw this beautiful old tower with an iron ladder we had to climb. While on the top, the view was so great with its 360 perspective, that my 7 years old son was impressed, starting to ask about everything he was looking at, from this very unique perspective. As #responseable was in my mind, I thought it would have been nice to see all that beauty from a kid’s viewpoint. And so, I took a picture!

Q: What do you think about ResponSEAble, what would you like your kid to know about the sea?

A: My kid never saw the Ocean before now, but as the Mediterranean Sea is so full of plastic and microplastic and so empty of fish and life we are used to talk about it. For instance we talk about the reasons why when snorkeling we don’t see animals, but plastic, even in very clean and pollution free areas. I would like to see a special project in schools explaining that everything is related, from what we consume everyday up to what you eat because pollution is definitely a crucial topic for their generation as it should be for our generation as well.

Q: What about your prize? Do you like it?

A: I find these sunglasses super-cool! They are so trendy both design and environmental responsibility content. Almost zero emissions! Thank you very much for that!

The Photo Contest had good participation, with a lot of expressive and very beautiful photos and it was not easy for the jury to choose just one picture…

The message that the project wanted to spread was very well understood by the participants who, through the immediacy of the images stressed not only the beauty but the problems faced by our seas today.

Many thanks to all who participated in animating social media with this important hashtag – #responseable: we hope to launch soon a new competition – this time a Winter one !