THE SECRETARY-GENERAL<\/p>\n
World Oceans Day<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Oceans, Our Future\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 8 June 2017<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The oceans make our home a blue planet.\u00a0 The oceans regulate climate, generate oxygen, and provide ecosystem services, energy and minerals. The life teeming below their surfaces and along the shorelines is a source of food and medicines. \u00a0\u00a0Oceans connect all of us, linking people and nations in cultural ties, and they are essential for sharing goods and services across the world.\u00a0 The importance of our oceans to every single living being on our planet cannot be overstated. Today, we celebrate all that the oceans give us, and reaffirm our commitment to being good stewards.<\/p>\n On this World Oceans Day, we look to the future.\u00a0 Caring for, and using, our oceans in sustainable ways is critical to achieve ecological and economic goals for communities everywhere.\u00a0 However, the future of our oceans is burdened by numerous threats \u2013 such as climate change and ocean acidification, pollution, unsustainable and destructive fishing practices, \u2013 and the lack of capacities to address these threats.\u00a0 As a group of some 600 experts from around the world reported recently in the first World Ocean Assessment, the impact of human activities on the oceans has increased dramatically, particularly the cumulative impacts, and the oceans\u2019 carrying capacity is near, or at its limit.<\/p>\n The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is an ambitious framework which, together, we will use to address these threats and improve people\u2019s lives. The World Oceans Day provides an important opportunity to advocate for a sustainable future. Ready to launch a call for action, governments, intergovernmental organizations, and civil society have gathered this week at the United Nations Headquarters for a\u00a0high-level Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.<\/p>\n Looking forward, the conservation and sustainable use of oceans can be achieved only if we manage to address effectively the threats that oceans face. This requires collaboration at all levels and across many sectors.\u00a0\u00a0 Our future will thus be determined by our collective resolve to share information and find solutions to common problems.\u00a0 By going forward together, we can ensure that our oceans are peaceful, safe and bountiful, and remain healthy as our blue home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Caring for, and using, our oceans in sustainable ways is critical to achieve ecological and economic goals for communities everywhere,” he says. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230,"featured_media":27556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,4,30],"tags":[5952,6499,351,463],"class_list":["post-27552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-below-water","category-news","category-secretary-general","tag-goal-14","tag-ocean-conference","tag-oceans","tag-secretary-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}