Introducing the Steering Committe for the Decade Coordination Office for Connecting People and Ocean

The Decade Coordination Office (DCO) “Connecting People and Ocean,” hosted by the UNESCO-IOC Project Office in Venice, Italy, spearheads the implementation of Ocean Decade Challenge 10: “Restoring society’s relationship with the ocean.”

The success of the Ocean Decade hinges on rekindling humanity’s bond with the ocean, and on the recognition of its pivotal role in our efforts to confront global challenges like climate change, food security, public health, and the economy. Challenge 10 aspires to cultivate a worldwide understanding and empathy for the ocean, enabling society to co-create sustainable solutions to the threats it faces.

Acknowledging the significance of Ocean Literacy in valuing the ocean, the DCO will amplify awareness and initiatives that highlight the links between human health and ocean health, partnering with health and well-being stakeholders. The DCO will lead efforts to coordinate Decade Actions, fostering a society that cherishes the ocean’s contribution to human well-being and sustainable development.

Championing Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity (JEDI) in ocean science, the DCO supports multi-stakeholder collaboration and elevates Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) to honor the wide and varied heritage of oceanic cultures around the world.

Guided by a Steering Committee composed of 11 experts and stakeholders, the DCO reflects the multi-stakeholder essence of Challenge 10, with balanced geographical and gender representation. This committee includes representatives and members from endorsed Decade Actions aligned with the DCO, ensuring generational diversity by including Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOPs). Each member serves a two-year term, with a maximum of two terms.

The Steering Committee steers the design, implementation, and monitoring of the DCO-Connecting People and Ocean portfolio, coordinating endorsed Decade Actions under Challenge 10, pinpointing priorities, and initiating new Decade Actions to address key gaps. It engages stakeholders to meet the goals of Challenge 10 collectively, and also handles communications, outreach, resource mobilization, and capacity development.

Additionally, the Steering Committee provides guidance on the application and potential evolution of the Ocean Decade’s Challenge 10, in collaboration with the Decade Advisory Board and the Decade Coordination Unit.

The DCO Connecting People and Ocean Steering Committee consists of:

Timothy Beatley

Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last twenty-five years. Much of Beatley’s work focuses on the subject of sustainable communities, and creative strategies by which cities and towns can reduce their ecological footprints such as Blue Urbanism, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. Beatley believes that sustainable and resilient cities represent our best hope for addressing today’s environmental challenges.

Michelle Bender

Michelle Bender is Legal Counsel at Ocean Vision Legal, an international law firm entirely specializing in Marine Protection. Michelle created, and is the leading expert in the movement towards, “Ocean Rights”, an ecocentric framework to protect and restore Ocean health. She has contributed to laws in the US, Panama, the Philippines, and internationally. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and is a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law and UN Harmony with Nature expert. In 2018, she was named a Youth Ocean Leader by the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. Michelle graduated Summa Cum Laude from Vermont Law School and holds a B.S. in Biology from Western Washington University.

Rosabelle Boswell

Rosabelle Boswell, a social anthropologist and South African Research Chair in Ocean Cultures and Heritage. She has a PhD from the Free University of Amsterdam and an MA from the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on coastal and intangible cultural heritage and cultural diversity management. She has fieldwork experience in Mauritius, Seychelles, Zanzibar, Kenya, Madagascar, Namibia and South Africa. She is currently funded by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) and has previously received funding from NWO/WOTRO, CODESRIA, Wenner-Gren Foundation and OSSREA. She is author of several academic books, poetry anthologies and has produced policy briefs for UNESCO Ocean Literacy and short, ethnographic films on human relations with the sea in Africa. In 2011 and 2023, Rosabelle was the recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation residency at Bellagio, Italy for earlier work on democracy after slavery and for her current work on humanizing the ocean.

Nicola Bridge

Nicola Bridge is the Head of Ocean Advocacy and Engagement at the Ocean Conservation Trust (OCT) with over 18 years’ experience in the field of human centred conservation, ocean literacy, environmental psychology, and environmental education.  Responsible for developing, leading and evaluating the Ocean Conservation Trust’s formal and informal conservation learning programmes, as well as driving advocacy campaigns to support everyone to think about the Ocean in their daily lives. She is passionate about changing the narrative about what constitutes conservation, recognising that everyone on the planet is responsible for the health of the natural world that sustains us.

Nicola is also integrated into the community of Plymouth as a Trustee for Millfields Inspired, a Member of the Connect Multi Academy Trust and a board member for the Plymouth Sound National Marine Park Horizons Programme.   Further afield, Nicola is a member of the Defra Ocean Literacy Working Group and a founder of the We Are Ocean network. Nicola is President of EMSEA (European Marine Science Educators Association). She is Co-Chair of an Ocean Decade Working Group, focusing on global sustainable change in human behaviour to support the health of the Ocean.

Roberto Casati

Roberto Casati is a Senior Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research and Professor at EHESS in Paris, where he holds the chair Philosophies of the Ocean. He directs the Jean Nicod Institute at ENS/EHESS, a leading cognitive science research center where he heads the Navigation team. Casati has authored 130 research papers and book chapters on perception, spatial representation, and the use of maps and images, along with ten books translated into multiple languages. His work on Digital Colonialism has sparked significant debate on technology in education. His recent publications include Oceano (Einaudi, 2022; French translation La philosophie de l’Océan, PUF 2022), The Sailing Mind (Springer, 2022), and The Cognitive Life of Maps (MIT Press, 2024).

Leopoldo Gerhardinger

Leopoldo Cavaleri Gerhardinger is a concerned scientist working on marine ecology and ethnoecology, Ocean governance and institutional entrepreneurship research, also actively involved in building marine learning networks and media & information Ocean literacy (Educommunication) programs underpinned by inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches for transformed governability & a healthier ocean. Leopoldo is an Associate Member and Secretary of the Board of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, and also an Assistant Researcher with Ocean Sustainability Foundation.

Diz Glithero

Diz Glithero is the Executive Director of the Canadian Ocean Literacy Coalition – a centre for ocean literacy collaboration, research, and innovation that is administratively based at Dalhousie University (Ocean Frontier Institute) in Halifax, Canada. Diz led the co-development of Land, Water, Ocean, Us: A Canadian Ocean Literacy Strategy (March 2021), and co-founded Ocean Week Canada. Internationally, Diz recently served as the co-chair and co-author of the Ocean Decade Vision 2030 Challenge 10 white paper. With a PhD in Education from the University of Ottawa, Diz’s work as an interdisciplinary educator, social science researcher, and multi-partner project leader specializes in ocean, climate, and sustainability learning and civic engagement. She currently serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Marine Affairs Program at Dalhousie University, and co-leads the Ocean Literacy Research Community (OLRC) initiative.

Jarina Mohd Jani

Jarina Mohd Jani is a senior lecturer in human ecology at the Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. As part of the Biodiversity Conservation and Management Programme, she focuses on the complex interactions between nature and society. Her current research includes studying Human-Sea turtle interactions in the South China Sea and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation and Management of Marine Turtles and their Habitats of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea (IOSEA). Additionally, she works on projects related to natural resource-based livelihoods in coastal areas, striving to enhance local community well-being while preserving the environment. Through her efforts, Jarina bridges environmental conservation with human development, ensuring both nature and society can thrive together.

Sonia Levy

Sonia Levy is a London-based artist and research-led filmmaker whose work, marked by site-specific inquiries, delves into the implications of Western expansionist and extractive logics, exploring how these forces manifest in the transformation of aquatic environments. Her practice aims to probe the thresholds that shape and influence the conditions necessary for life to flourish. She studied in the Experimental Programme in Arts & Politics at Science Po, Paris. As the 2023-24 European Marine Board artist-in-residence, she contributes to the UN Ocean Decade. She has screened and exhibited globally, including Museo Thyssen and ICA London, and her work has been published by MIT Press and others. An Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, she co-convenes howlikeareef.net. She’s a guest researcher at THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities, Ca’ Foscari University.

Michael Palmgren

Michael Palmgren, manager and founder of the Marine Education Center in Malmö, has studied the Öresund marine environment since the late 1980s. He was involved in environmental monitoring during the Öresund Bridge construction. Palmgren has produced environmental films and marine surveys, and in 1999, he founded the Marine Education Center to promote ocean literacy. Currently, he focuses on nature-based solutions like creating new areas in harbor basins, coastal protection, and underwater breakwaters to reduce climate impact. The center employs seven people and is contracted to develop Ocean Literacy in Malmö.

Bodhi Patil

Bodhi Patil is a UN-recognized, award-winning GenZ ocean-climate “Solutionist” dedicated to improving the interconnectedness between ocean health and human health. He is the Founder & CEO of Inner Light, empowering a generation to build resilience from the inside out for people and planetary well-being. He is co-creator of Ocean Uprise and SeaDragon Studios and advises several love-based climate organizations on a mission to protect our blue planet. He has been featured by the United Nations, Forbes, Economist Impact, Wildlife Conservation Society, Oceanic Global, and has presented to world leaders at over 10 global climate conferences.