Today Bronwen Maddox, Editor of Prospect is chairing a panel discussion and Q&A with The Global Ocean Commission and Somerville College, University of Oxford on "Valuing the high seas: economics, environment and governance in the 21st Century."
Speaking on the panel are:
José María Figueres, Co-chair, Global Ocean Commission; former President of Costa Rica; President of The Carbon War Room
David Miliband, Co-chair, Global Ocean Commission; President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee; former UK Foreign Secretary and Environment Secretary
Cristina Narbona, Global Ocean Commissioner; former Environment Minister of Spain; Counsellor of the Nuclear Safety Council of Spain Professor Alex Rogers, Professor in Conservation Biology, Department of Zoology and Fellow of Somerville College, University of Oxford. Scientific Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO)
Follow the debate live via the Prospect Twitter (@prospect_uk) using the hashtag #globaloceandebate. There will be full coverage of the event in the next issue of Prospect, and video will be made available on our website shortly after the event.
The Global Ocean Commission The Global Ocean Commission offers a unique opportunity to secure the health of the ocean for future generations. The ocean produces half of the oxygen we breathe, provides food for several billion people, and regulates the climate. But the ocean is on a trajectory of decline, driven by factors including climate change and ocean acidification, destructive fishing and pollution. On the high seas—the international part of the ocean that makes up nearly half of the Earth’s surface—the decline is facilitated by lack of effective governance. The Global Ocean Commission is an independent group of leaders who are raising these issues at the highest levels of government and business and building momentum for change. By mid-2014, the Commission will issue a set of ambitious yet pragmatic recommendations for reform that will, if enacted, reverse the trajectory of decline and restore the ocean to ecological health and sustainable productivity. The Commission’s Secretariat is based at Somerville College. Somerville College Somerville College, Oxford has always been at the forefront of ideas and research. Named after Mary Somerville, the noted 19th century scientist, it was one of the first women’s colleges in Oxford. It counts among its former Fellows Dorothy Hodgkin, the only British female scientist to win a Nobel Prize, and among its alumnae Margaret Thatcher, who was both the first woman and the first scientist to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Today it continues this pioneering tradition with a strong focus on sustainability. It is currently building the Indira Gandhi Centre for Sustainable Development, which provides scholarships for exceptional postgraduate students from India to pursue cross-disciplinary research into sustainable development with a view to returning to India to help shape that country’s future. It is a great privilege for Somerville to house the administrative base of the Global Ocean Commission in the College grounds. Somerville is also proud of its natural connection to the project, through the college’s students working as interns for the Commission and through Professor Alex Rogers, a Fellow and Tutor at Somerville and the Scientific Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, who advises the Commission.
