World Oceans Day – Protect and restore our oceans

Oceans are a significant part of everyday life. The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund is delighted to have supported Atlantic Salmon Trust and The Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit at World Resources Institute, to inspire action to protect the ocean and sustainable use of marine resources.

On World Oceans Day, we highlight the contributions and achievements of The Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit (ISU), which addressed critical challenges facing the world, particularly the question of how to sustain the health of the environment while advancing development goals.

The ISU built on the success of The Prince’s Rainforests Project and implemented programmes focused on key environmental areas including marine ecosystems and the linkages between climate change and health. ISU’s achievements are reflected in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and UNFCCC COP21.

The marine programme focused on driving change towards sustainable ‘blue’ economies, finding solutions to the increasingly serious problem of plastic debris building up in the ocean and explore new ways of funding the recovery of sustainable use of seafood resources.

The ISU’s activities in this area set out to reveal how economic growth and ocean conservation need not be in conflict, and how indeed sustainable development depended upon a healthy marine environment, especially for those countries that were dependent upon ocean ecosystems.

The Prince of Wales and the ISU launched competitions to encourage innovation for solutions and facilitated discussions to assist with system-wide approaches. ‘Out of the Blue’ photography competition which was part of The Prince of Wales’s Commonwealth Environmental Photography Awards at the World Oceans Day on 8th June 2015 highlighted the value and importance of the marine environment to the Commonwealth countries.

PWCF would like to encourage its supporters and beneficiaries to take practical action to restore and protect the ocean.