The increasing impacts of climate change, decreasing biodiversity, overexploitation, and other pressures continue to threaten and degrade the marine environment – and present significant challenges for human use and management of the ocean, now and into the future. Forward-looking thinking, tools and approaches will enable science and society to proactively prepare and respond to rapidly evolving marine socioecological systems.
This theme session contributes to emerging dialogue on the need to engage in ocean futures thinking, via a presentation and discussion of diverse marine interdisciplinary research projects and networks. Forward-looking thinking – and the tools and approaches to support this – can enable science and society to proactively prepare and respond to ever-changing marine socioecological systems.
The session will outline key topics for engagement in and support of futures thinking, including ocean literacy, anticipatory governance, foresighting, and inter- and transdisciplinary research transformation (such as the expansion of the global marine social sciences network - MarSocSci).
Background
The impacts of climate change, decreasing biodiversity, overexploitation, and other pressures continue to threaten and degrade the marine environment. These impacts present significant challenges for human use and management of the ocean, now and into the future. Thus, efforts to preserve ocean health and sustainability must improve how we can proactively think about, and take action for, the future. The nascent United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) aims to galvanize the global community to expand, share, and apply scientific knowledge of the ocean in efforts to maintain and preserve the marine environment and 'the ocean we want'. However, such transformations are reliant on more than just additional data and knowledge – they require changes to the ways that (natural and social) science and other types of knowledge are shared, used and implemented.
Entering into this new Decade, the global community - including science, research, policy, communities, and traditional owners - is confronted with many complex and interconnected ocean challenges. We sit at a crossroads that will determine the types of relationships we can and would like to have with the ocean in the medium to long-term future. Hence, there is a need to take stock, and consider the actions, pathways, opportunities and barriers, that will lead us to our future (sustainable) ocean.
