WEF, UCSB Partner To Protect $2.5 Trillion Ocean Economy

Davos: The World Economic Forum and the UCSB's Marine Science Institute have announced a partnership to improve health of world's oceans and maritime resources. The new partnership aims to protect world's $2.5 trillion ocean economy.

"This partnership will harness the potential of public-private cooperation and the fourth industrial revolution to help the international community meet the ocean sustainable development goal," said Dominic Waughray, Head of Public-Private Partnership and Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum.

It will be supported by the Benioff Ocean Initiative, an applied programme within the University of California, Santa Barbara's (UCSB) Marine Science Institute, using science to improve ocean health, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a fund to advance ocean science, protection and management.

"Through this new partnership with the World Economic Forum, scientists at UC Santa Barbara who are setting the global agenda for ocean research will also now play a role in setting the global agenda for ocean change," said Douglas McCauley, Marine Biologist and Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, oceans generate goods and services worth an estimated $2.5 trillion per year, equivalent to the seventh largest economy in the world. 

However, this value - in addition to the livelihoods of 80 per cent of the world's population - is threatened by the decline in ocean health, lack of adequate measuring and monitoring of ocean activities.