- A visit to the EU4Ocean stand during European Maritime Day in Brest resulted in a welcome invitation for TransEurope Marinas to become a member of EU4Ocean.
- Founded by the European Commission in 2020, the EU4Ocean Coalition on Ocean Literacy aims to make the ocean a concern of everyone.
At this year’s celebration of European Maritime Day in Brest, the EU4Ocean stand in the exhibition hall was a hive of activity, with an active videoconference taking place to advise school children on matters of ocean literacy and a crowd of interested followers. The level of enthusiasm for collaboration in this area was palpable and it was inspiring to see people from science, oceanographic data-gathering, and educational backgrounds in animated discussions.
Members of TransEurope Marinas recently identified a desire to improve their ocean literacy capacity and so the search was on for a group with whom we could collaborate effectively; learning more about local biodiversity, common pollutants and how to develop appropriate recommendations for boaters, whilst understanding how to engage in community outreach and civic cooperation.
A fully bottom-up inclusive initiative, founded by the European Commission in 2020, EU4Ocean serves to connect European groups and students across joint actions that improve our understanding of the ocean’s multiple functions, services and vulnerabilities, together with promoting sustainable ocean management and supporting ocean innovation. The project comprises three communities: the EU4Ocean Platform, the Youth4Ocean Forum and the Network of European Blue Schools.
The EU4Ocean Platform is a collaborative platform that brings together stakeholders from a wide range of sectors, including academia, civil society, industry, and government. There are currently more than 155 Platform Members across Europe including organisations, projects, networks and some individuals.
Contributing groups can seek to obtain proposal feedback from other members via the platform facilitators, to avoid project duplication and receive advice on how to improve their projects. Once developed, they can help others set up similar initiatives in other areas. In so doing, EU4Ocean works to reduce fragmentation, and both nourish projects and increase scalability of successful projects.
TransEurope Marinas members are very much looking forward to working with EU4Ocean in the near future. As EU4Ocean Platform facilitator, Nathalie Van Isacker commented:
“The more members that join EU4Ocean, the greater the sphere of expertise and the more profound the potential for both cooperation and the development of new initiatives. As TransEurope Marinas joins the EU4Ocean Platform, new opportunities for exchange of experience emerge that will benefit enhanced Ocean Literacy. We warmly welcome TransEurope Marinas to the EU4Ocean Platform!”
To learn more about EU4Ocean, visit their website within the Maritime Forum.
