UN Ocean Conference Side Event: Seabed 2030, Mapping for People and Planet

Mr. Ariel Troisi, chair of the IOC-UNESCO, Mr Jamie McMichael-Phillips, director of The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, distinguished guests and participants.

The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project is an ambitious and exciting initiative that aims to map the entire global ocean floor by year 2030. Together with more than 160 organizations in more than 50 countries, we have already mapped about 23.4 % of the global ocean floor. I would like to take this opportunity to once again express my respect and appreciation for the efforts of everyone involved.

We humans have been developing our land-based and space-based technologies with great interest. However, our global efforts to deepen understanding and knowledge of the ocean has been lacking despite the fact that “Mother Ocean” occupies seventy percent of the Earth’s surface and nurtures all living things, including us human beings. Against this backdrop, The Nippon Foundation was already listening to the silent screams of our “Mother Ocean” 35 years ago, and have since been engaged in various initiatives to protect the world’s oceans and raise awareness of its importance.

Among other things, we believe that mapping the ocean floor is essential to understanding the conditions of our planet Earth. By clarifying the state of the ocean floor, we can expect to make great advances in a variety of fields, including the distribution of ocean floor resources, the state of marine ecosystems, the mechanism of currents, predictions of tsunamis, safety in ship navigation, and maritime search and rescue. That is why I believe that Seabed t2030 is one of the most important initiatives to protect the ocean’s abundant resources and to realize the SDG goal 14, which calls for the sustainable development of the oceans.

We will continue to need your tremendous support to map hundred percent of the world’s ocean floor. Let us work together to accomplish this ambitious and exciting challenge, a feat that will surely go down in the history of humankind. Thank you very much.