Can you believe I was born watching this view?
Now, the important part:
What is the UN Ocean Decade?
Launched in January 2021, the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), the ‘Ocean Decade’, provides a convening framework for a wide range of stakeholders across the world to engage and collaborate outside their traditional communities to trigger nothing less than a revolution in ocean science.
In 2024 in occasion of the Barcelona UN Ocean Decade conference, together with Stéphanie, we drew up the 10 challenges (see our sea-pizza in the last picture…I just ❤️ it so much!) that the Ocean Decade is tackling, because friends, our Oceans are not doing good at all. And the wellbeing of the Oceans determines our wellbeing. A lot of people don’t realize that, and that is why it is relevant to become more acquainted with ocean literacy. All of us!!!
Please go visit the UN Ocean Decade website, read about the challenges, and check out how you could get engaged. And please think about the Oceans a lot more that you do now :-)
🌊 🌊 🌊 🌊 🌊 🌊
My love for water, the sea and the oceans comes from the place you see in this first picture.
This photo was taken by me a few days in Genoa, at 7am, when I opened the window of my parents’ house, where they have been living since the year I was born. I grew up seeing that view every single day, and back then, I did not realize how lucky I was.
Born and raised with salty wind in my face and hair, eating sardines and valuing highly every sea creature, my first real job was to organize regattas in Sardinia, and one of my favourite places to exist on this earth is underwater, swimming.
But since I moved to Barcelona 20 years ago (!!!), I had very little to do with the sea.
The beaches here are far too crowded for me, I do not have friends with a boat (if you have a boat here and want to be my friend, please call me). So, I feel I cannot have the same relationship with the sea I had in Genoa: honest, one to one. The sea has been like a kind of psychotherapist for me, and I though I had lost that.
However, on Monday, I went through Barceloneta in direction to the Moll de Levant in Barcelona, and suddenly everything felt very right to me, the cold morning wind charged with seaweed smell messing up my hair whispering that everything is going to be ok.
Barcelona Capital Nàutica invited me to visually harvest a workshop gathering diverse international stakeholders around the strategy pathways for UN Ocean Decade.
(Thank you, it was an honour.).
I am not going to post pictures of the harvest, because I don’t know if I can :-), but I made a few visuals with things I heard, and things I drew on my boards (hello, sardines).
UN Ocean Decade Challenges
