The third annual Forum of the EU Mission ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters’ recently took place, which brought together over 1,800 stakeholders, including policymakers, regional authorities, researchers, innovators, and representatives from nearly 100 Horizon Europe projects
This event falls at the same time as European Ocean Days (3-7 March), which gives communities the platform to engage in a mission to reflect on the progress made and chart a path forward to restore Europe’s oceans and waters.
Restore our Ocean and Waters mission
The EU Mission ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters’ was launched in September 2021 with the ambitious goal of safeguarding the health of oceans and waters by 2030.
This mission addresses the ocean and waterways as interconnected systems, focusing on research, innovation, and citizen engagement to push the transition into a sustainable blue economy.
This year’s Forum will help assess the mission’s progress and share solutions to the challenges of ocean and water pollution, ecosystem degradation, and the impact of climate change.
Creating a stronger blue economy
Commissioners Ekaterina Zaharieva and Costa Kadis opened the Forum by focusing on action. Zaharieva emphasised that the goal is not just to talk about ambitions but to take real, meaningful steps towards cleaner waters, restored ecosystems, and a stronger blue economy.
She highlighted the importance of scaling up successful solutions and embedding them into EU policies to ensure lasting change.
Kadis also stressed that while the ocean gives us multiple opportunities, prevention still must be at the ear of Europe’s governance, supported by innovation and research.
The mission’s four lighthouses
The Forum also showcased the significant achievements made across the mission’s four lighthouses: the Atlantic and Arctic, the Baltic and North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Danube-Black Sea.
Each of these regions serves as a hub for piloting and deploying solutions to restore aquatic ecosystems, reduce pollution, and promote sustainable practices in fisheries and coastal economies.
For example, projects to restore wetlands for flood resilience, deploy ocean-cleaning robots, and decarbonise small-scale fisheries were featured as innovative approaches being tested on the ground.
A key part of the Forum was the 17 Horizon Europe-funded projects. These projects are important in developing concrete solutions for protecting and restoring aquatic ecosystems.
They focus on various areas such as pollution prevention, enhancing circularity in the blue economy, and citizen engagement through initiatives like the Digital Twin of the Ocean, which uses data to model and predict ocean health. The event also underscored the importance of collaboration, with participants highlighting the need for regional cooperation and multi-stakeholder engagement to accelerate the mission’s objectives.
A collective effort to restore our oceans and waters
The growing involvement of citizens, businesses, researchers, and policymakers in this mission shows the collective commitment to restoring our oceans and waters.
It was clear that success would not come from isolated efforts but from a collective, coordinated approach.
The mission’s focus on regional engagement through its lighthouses allows for tailored solutions that respond to the unique needs of different areas while also contributing to the more general EU objectives of climate neutrality and nature restoration.
The Forum also showed the importance of citizen science and public participation in achieving the mission’s goals. The role of local communities, especially in coastal and river areas, in monitoring and maintaining ecosystems is crucial to the mission’s success.
Empowering citizens to take action and be part of the solution helps build a sense of shared responsibility for the ocean’s health and waters.
In the future, the mission will continue to focus on scaling up these solutions and ensure they are integrated into the EU’s long-term policies.
The event indicates that the next steps will include deploying and replicating successful projects, ensuring that the innovations developed through the mission can be implemented on a larger scale.
This will require continued collaboration and investment, particularly in research and innovation, which will play an important role in addressing the complex challenges of ocean and water restoration.
