Exploring new partnerships and pathways towards
global sustainability of oceans and coasts
Planet Under Pressure: new knowledge towards solutions. In London, 26-29
March 2012. A major international conference sponsored by the International
Council for Science to prepare scientific inputs to Rio+20.
March 29th is day four of the conference. This day runs under the motto of “Ways
ahead: a vision for 2050 and beyond, and exploring new partnerships and
pathways towards global sustainability”., With colleagues from Canada, the US
and South Africa, Marion Glaser from the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine
Ecology in Bremen, Germany will be convening and chairing a panel discussion
on: Toward a Sustainability-Science Knowledge Network on Marine Ecosystems:
achieving innovative transdisciplinary stewardship across multiple scales.
The session brings together experts from a range of natural and social sciences
to discuss how to adapt to, and mitigate, the effects of global change on marine
ecosystems and humanity; to identify key challenges, and to discuss potential
ways ahead. Viewing the - uninhabitated - earth’s oceans as integrated socialecological systems poses special challenges. New approaches to networking are
required to link the very diverse ocean and coastal stakeholders in around a
globally oriented stewardship endeavour. Such global-level sustainability cannot
succeed if driven by by top down models but needs to be founded on integrated,
place-based knowledge.
The session offers more than a dozen unique perspectives by scientists from
across the globe. It was initiated and masterminded by scientists from the two
major marine oriented global projects, IMBER and LOICZ. One objective is to
establish a new “network of networks” which aligns and strengthens existing and
emerging marine and coastal ecosystem science and management networks
throughout the world. A workshop at the London School of Economics entitled
“Toward a global large marine ecosystem sustainability-scienc learning and
knowledge network: Defining new partnerships, creating new opportunities”
(contact Suzanne @ suzannelawrence.net). on March 30th will further pursue the
network of networks vision.
Marion Glaser, an environmental sociologist, is member of the LOICZ Scientific
Steering Committee and of the Executive Board. LOICZ is an international
research project. LOICZ is special since it is one of the few Earth System
Science projects that is scientifically sponsored by both the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human
Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) . It supports
sustainability and adaptation to global change in the coastal zone across
the globe with explicity interdisciplinary approaches. This is done via
research in a global expert network including over 400 projects which provide the
knowledge needed to coastal communities and other stakeholders. LOICZ
operates through a Scientific Steering committee of elected natural and social
scientists from across the globe.
Contact
Marion Glaser
Email: Marion.Glaser@zmt-bremen.de
March 25 till April 2
At The Strand Palace Hotel 372 Strand, London, WC2R 0JJ
TELEFON: +44 (0)20 7836 8080
Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT)
Germany
Tel: + 49 421 23800 66
-----------------------------------------------Disclaimer
The research discussed in the press release, the conclusions drawn and the opinions offered are
those of individual speakers or research teams at the Planet Under Pressure conference.