Despite the importance of kelp forests as refugia for biodiversity, climate services, and carbon sinks, stressors have increased in number and severity over the past half-century. The longest monitoring programs suggest resilience is declining globally.

Forests of the Sea is driving a global alliance to protect and preserve kelp forests around the world through science, media advocacy, and policy. This alliance will partner with key stakeholders from the environmental movement (global and regional) alongside governments, scientists, brands, and people of influence to maximize impact and scale for the protection of these ecosystems.

These partnerships will enhance understanding and raise awareness of these unique, globally important habitats. ​​Through leveraging media advocacy, science and funding, the project will advocate localized marine ecosystem protection and regeneration and will mobilize conservation efforts around the world.

A recent analysis showed that current funding gap to achieve SDGs amount to USD 2.5 Trillion while global ODA and philanthropic contribution together amount to only USD 158 Billion. In parallel, the global capital market currently represents an opportunity of USD 212 trillion.

The way forward is clear: we need to find new ways to unlock private capital and channel it into bankable Ocean Ventures that will achieve impact at scale, and fast.

The Ocean Ventures Studio aims at establishing a unique mechanism to accelerate the creation of these Ocean Ventures by driving the creation (from ideation to minimum viable product) and development (from incubation to acceleration) of blue conservation enterprise that will deliver at scale socio-economic and conservation outcomes. The Ocean Ventures Studio will focus on business models that have the potential to implement and scale-up nature-based solutions and other business solutions that can deliver ocean impact at scale.

Marine Conservation Institute curates and tracks the status of marine protected areas (MPAs) on the website MPAtlas.org. This provides a real-time snapshot of MPA coverage as self-reported by countries. As countries increasingly commit to 30% protection of coastal and marine waters by 2030 as a tool for improving climate resiliency, tracking and evaluating this progress is critical. There is a growing need to create an accurate baseline to monitor future progress from the current 3% strong protection level. With the recent publication of The MPA Guide, there is now a reliable science-based tool for tracking the stage of implementation and the level of protection for MPA coverage. The proposed MPA Watch project will incorporate The MPA Guide framework across marine ecoregions to assess progress as MPAs evolve and take the necessary steps to increase conservation effectiveness to meet future climate challenges.

Despite worldwide calls for a deep-sea mining (DSM) moratorium, there is a significant risk that DSM will begin somewhere in the high seas or EEZs as early as 2024. Currently, governmental, scientific and conservation organizations are ill-prepared to manage the potential environmental impact of seabed mining given a profound lack of scientific knowledge about deep-sea habitats and how they and the wider oceanic ecosystems and services may be impacted. Systemic flaws in the current governance structures and a lack of social license, with important stakeholders, including the public, largely in the dark, are further complicating factors. We propose the creation of a tool which could be entirely new or an enhancement of existing tools to shed light on this potential industry. Through the incorporation of biodiversity data from the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), existing imagery and knowledge, as well as AIS tracking of vessels plus satellite imagery, this tool will work to raise awareness of the deep sea, the little-known inhabitants in key areas, the ecosystem services they provide, and DSM, in collaboration with international scientific, research, conservation, and philanthropic organizations.

Drifting FADs is one of the main issues as far as tuna management is concern. Among the numerous impacts of the increasing use of this fishing technic, reef pollution particularly affects the islands of French Polynesia as more and more abandoned FADs crashed on our reefs, entangling protected species, destroying coral reef and creating hazards for the navigation. Hence, despite French Polynesia forbid purse seine inside its EEZ in 1997, its ecosystem is still a victim of this fishery. The control of FADs is an issue that must be address Pacific wide but progresses are very slow. In order to protect its EEZ, French Polynesia wish to claim for a FAD free zone in the International waters around its EEZ. It would consist in a buffer belt where it would be forbidden to launch FADS and compulsory to recover those drifting in the belt before they enter French Polynesia EEZ.