UN Oceans Conference: Day 3

UN Oceans Conference: Day 3

On the third day of the Oceans Conference, we did not have any specific plans so I showed up a little later (around 10) and Gerald ( a Nereus senior fellow) and I decided to see attend the Oceans Day ceremony in the General Assembly. This event was very publicized, with ocean “celebrities” such as Sylvia Earle, Richard Branson, Brian Skerry,  Leonardo DiCaprio (video message), and many more giving short inspirational speeches about the ocean and its importance. The event from 10-1 but we only stayed for about an hour. The speeches are meant to very inspiring, but it is a difficult to stir this emotion when in such a formal setting and I think my colleague and I got a little bored. I know that sounds bad, but being in the field these types of speeches do not really bring anything new to the table for us. We met our communications officer and went to Ippudo ( a chain ramen place) for lunch.

Oceans Day General Assembly (Sylvia Earl speaking)

Later in the afternoon we met the Nippon foundation chairmen, Yohei Sasakawa. I was not aware that we were going to meet him and really did not know what to expect. We were in a hotel conference room and while waiting for the chairmen, the director had all fellows practice their “elevator pitch”. The seats that the Nippon Foundation executives were to sit in faced the door, which is a Japanese business culture thing.  Everyone was very nervous to meet him and their nervous energy made me nervous. When he arrived and we all met him, we felt much more comfortable as he was very nice. It definitely a unique experience that I am grateful I have had.

We loaded the shuttle after the meeting and headed to Princeton to begin our Nereus annual meeting.

 Overall UN thoughts


I was really inspired by the passionate attendees and genuine desire for sustainable oceans. It was really cool learning about topics that I had heard in school discussed on a very high level. I have a much better understanding on the current conversations of sustainable oceans. I spoke to my director afterwards and he had an interesting take on the conference. He did not enjoy how a lot of conversations had to do with money. For example, a organization would decide to provide millions of dollars to a developing country or SID without accounting for the corruption present in the government. As an anthropologist, this was very upsetting for him, as it should be. However, he brought up a good point that I had not thought of. I think I was very inspired by the whole conference due to its high profile event, but it is important to look into the critical side of what happens in ocean conservation.

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