Co-Directors of IOI Ocean Academy India, Sunil Murlidhar Shastri (Consultant, Educator and Speaker in Ocean and Environmental Governance) and Vinitaa Apte (Founder and Director, TERRE Policy Centre, Pune India) participated at the 6th International Conference on Sustainability Education - Greening Education for a Sustainable Future2024 at the invitation of Ram Boojh (Convenor of the 6th ICSE and Advisor, Mobius Foundation). They contributed to the session on Blue Education for a Sustainable Future that was chaired by Harsh Gupta, Former Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Earth Sciences and Ocean Development, and moderated by Shweta Naik Khare, Executive Director of the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) India. The other speakers were Ana Vitória Tereza de Magalhães, Associate Programme Specialist, and Raquel Costa, Ocean Literacy Consultant, both from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the UNESCO in Paris, France.
Vinita, at the very outset, spoke of the unique and collaborative tripartite group that was created with the IOI, the TERRE Policy Centre, and Ocean Governance to create the IOI Ocean Academy in India, based also on a market survey indicating a genuine interest among amateur enthusiasts and professionals alike in ocean matters, and confirmed by the large numbers of applications that the im implemented programmes currently attract. She talked about how the programme rewards and encourages interest by asking prospective candidates to write a short motivational essay, and how an evaluating questionnaire adds value to the certificate that is given to the participants following a programme delivered over two weeks for 20 hours with every session conducted over a two-hour period. She said that she started her journey with many questions and that, in turn, has raised many questions, but the driving force for her remained the inspiration of the phrase “Greening the Blue” when working with the UNEP in her previous career. Vinita concluded her presentation by reciting a Marathi poem, the gist of which is that “there is always a beach for the ocean but for us the ocean is unending” (knowledge).
Sunil started his remarks recalling the management term ‘VUCA’ which stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, and this can be used to describe the ocean. But then he suggested that this vicious circle could be transformed with vision, understanding, clarity and agility and education and awareness playing a great role in this, including in ocean literacy, education and training. Sunil said that his entire career had been driven by realisations that our whole thinking must change; the change must come from within; each one of us must be an agent of change; we must do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. These principles can only be inculcated through education and awareness. He also reiterated that our narratives must change from “the ocean is too big to fail” – a callous narrative - and the “ocean is too big to fix” – a fatalistic narrative - to “the ocean is too big to ignore and we only ignore it at our own peril”, and that thought process can only be brought about through ocean literacy. Sunil reminded the audience about the Seven Principles of Ocean literacy, emphasising that there is only one Ocean and how both understanding the ocean and protecting the ocean are both being accomplished through two major global ’30 by 30’ initiatives.
(The IOI acknowledges with thanks the contribution of S Shastri and V Apte to this article.)