Culture and tradition became a clear priority for the UN Decade for Ocean science with consultations held last week in Noumea.

With the Pacific spear-heading the global deliberations, a major cross-cutting theme in the implementation of the ocean science decade from 2021 -2030 will be the inclusion of culture and traditional knowledge.

USP’s Head of Oceania Centre for Arts, Cresantia Koya Vakauta explains that the inclusion of the region’s connection to the ocean and to its people must be unequivocal in any formal framework.

“So for many of us, I guess our concern and our continuing concern is that that the UN agenda is obviously a blanket global agenda and there’s often very little leeway for inclusion and people often forget that it’s very important to be explicit in that documentation.”

Meanwhile, Pacific Community’s Head of Ocean Affairs Jens Kruger says he expected capacity building and the transfer of marine technology to be the strongest cross-cutting theme, but he was proven wrong.

Pacific culture he says is the biggest regional theme to unify the science to save the world’s oceans.

A recent UN report noted that the world’s oceans are failing and that we have until 2030 to prevent a catastrophe.