News
World Oceans Day 2021: Life and Livelihoods
Peace Boat was delighted to celebrate this year's UN World Oceans Day under the theme The Ocean: Life and Livelihoods as a proud member of the 2020 Friends of World Oceans Day Group and a Partner of the UN World Oceans Day (WOD) website.
Peace Boat US organized several events for World Oceans Day focused around "Action for the Oceans". The highlight of activities was a youth story-telling program, co-organized with the creative changency Pendulum. Participants included many of Peace Boat’s Ocean and Climate Youth Ambassadors from Small Island Developing States and Youth for the SDGs scholars. Their presentations are now available to watch via the EarthX TV interviews below or on the Pecha Kucha virtual platform, including the presentations of Eve Isambourg from Mauritius and Khadija Stewart from Trinidad and Tobago, both Ocean and Climate Youth Ambassadors.
This year’s Ocean Film Festival organized by Peace Boat US celebrated the ocean and demonstrated some of the challenges we face as a society in protecting the oceans. The festival featured 8 films screened at the Selina Chelsea NYC Hotel and more than 35 short films on a virtual platform, in partnership with SIMA Studios.
We were also delighted to celebrate the launch of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA) NYC Hub together with the screening of Defend the Deep, produced by SOA and Black Parrot productions. The Sustainable Ocean Alliance is a global community of youth, entrepreneurs, and experts in their field, all collaborating to solve the greatest challenges facing our ocean. They have collaborated with Peace Boat for WOD events onboard Peace Boat’s ship and in onboard education programmes.
Action for the Oceans included musical performances, presentations, visual projections of ocean artwork, poetry, virtual discussions, the “30 x 30” youth led talks from Heirs to Our Oceans and Virtual Reality (VR) movie experiences with Immerse from Hydrous, From Sea to Rising Sea. We went live with Peace Boat’s Ocean Youth leaders as part of EarthX’s feature of Planet 911 report. We also had the opportunity to hear fro Fabien Cousteau, a supporter of Peace Boat’s Ecoship Project and founder of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center, who shared his work in the Carribean and discussed the importance of coral restoration in Curacao.