"Not even 1 league under the sea"

John Crump

By GRID-Arendal

October 9^th, 2018

Later this month, thousands of people will gather on the Indonesian island of Bali to discuss the future of the world’s oceans and try to figure out ways to reverse their decline.

Our Ocean, Our Legacy is this theme of this year’s Our Ocean Conference, a theme which “reflects our choices and actions to maintain the sustainability of our oceans' resources and to preserve our ocean's health, as a heritage presented for our children and grandchildren.”

Participants are encouraged to make commitments to protect the world’s oceans. Past conferences have raised “around 18 billion dollars (USD) and 12.4 million square kilometres of marine protected areas," according to the conference website.

GRID-Arendal’s Maria Potouroglou will be there as one of the participants in the conference’s Youth Leadership Summit. Maria has been selected based on her commitment “Not even 1 league under the sea: Raising awareness about seagrasses.”

Maria Portouroglou is GRID-Arendal's seagrass expert. (Photo: Runa Lindebjerg/GRID-Arendal)

Banc d'arguin National Park, Mauritania (Photo: Karim Sall)

Maria is GRID-Arendal’s expert on seagrasses, with projects in Norway and West Africa. Seagrasses live in all coastal and marine areas – from shallow intertidal zones to 90 metres below the surface. They are one of the ocean’s most important habitats and serve as nursery and feeding grounds for fish, protect coastlines and store carbon, to name a few benefits.

Maria’s commitment is to “Promote awareness about seagrass ecosystems and their importance for sustaining the livelihoods of coastal communities, and the role they play for helping to mitigate climate change, maintain marine water quality and enhance biodiversity.”

The youth summit follows the format of the main conference where countries present their commitments and their financial support and seek for buy-in from other countries, Maria explained. “The aim of young leaders’ commitments like mine is to encourage government officials to make them part of their commitments for the next Our Ocean conference in Oslo in 2019.”

When asked what it means to be selected to take part in the youth conference, Maria points to the lack of awareness about the existence and importance of seagrasses in many places around the world.

“If people understand why seagrasses are important to them, then there is an infinite potential for communities to support seagrass protection,” she explains. “In turn, seagrasses will offer them food, clean water and stable coasts.”