Seychelles is seeking United Nations support and assistance for its blue economy projects, efforts and initiatives.

This came to light during a meeting organised on the sidelines of the 13th Ocean Race Summit that Seychelles held for the first time on Monday. The meeting was with Ambassador Peter Thomson, the United Nations’ special envoy of the Sea, in Seychelles to take part in the summit and promote ocean issues and the objectives of SDG14 which concerns the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

The meeting, which took place at Maison Collet, was chaired by the Minister for Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, Flavien Joubert, and attended by the Minister for Youth, Sports and Family, Marie-Celine Zialor; the Minister for Investment, Entrepreneurship and Industry Devika Vidot; the PS for Blue Economy Kenneth Racombo; the PS for environment Denis Matatiken; as well as Philippe Michaud, consultant in the Ministry of Fisheries and the Blue Economy.

Speaking to the press after their talks, Minister Joubert said the aim was to discuss further collaboration with the UN office on ocean issues, the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

Minister Joubert noted that Ambassador Thomson has an important responsibility to report to the UN secretary general on important issues raised from countries he has visited and have further talks on matters related to ocean protection such as funding mechanisms as well as others which would advance ocean conservation and protection.

Minister Joubert stated that Ambassador Thomson is very much interested with Seychelles’ various ocean and marine conservation initiatives and he has expressed his willingness to bring these matters related to Seychelles to the UN.

Minister Joubert said Seychelles will have to take part in the forthcoming UN Ocean Conference to take place in Lisbon later this year as a lot of important matters will be raised such as the protection of biodiversity and resources outside exclusive economic territories, decisions related to exploitation of resources found at the bottom of the seas in those areas.

“It is therefore important that we start the discussions now to begin developing our arguments and collaborations to be presented with concerned entities to be present there. Seychelles has and is still doing its part so it is important that other international partners join with us as they too have to do their part at the regional and global level,” Minister Joubert highlighted.

He stressed that it is important for Seychelles to be part of these talks as through Ambassador Thomson’s office we aim to establish more links through which we can further collaborate.

Meanwhile Minister Joubert said the talks also involved the different ministries so they can elaborate their areas of collaborations, initiatives and activities that could be carried out in the sea.

“We have to bear in mind that one big agenda under the blue economy is to explore ways to get young people to be more conscious of efforts, ideas and initiatives that should be adopted to develop and diversify our economy using the sea. There are more ministries that will be involved in these talks,” Minister Joubert pointed out.

At the end of the meeting Ambassador Thomson said the meeting was a welcoming opportunity to know more about the different ocean and marine resources conservation initiatives of Seychelles as well as initiatives relating to the sustainable blue economy which he said he believes is the future of humanity on the planet.

“At present we only know 20% of the scientific properties of the ocean and that other 80% will be the pharmaceutical frontier where we will get our medicines in the post antibiotics age, it will be where our grandchildren will be getting their food for they will be eating different food from us just like we eat different food from our grandparents. They would be farmers of the sea. Furthermore the energy from the sustainable blue economy … waves, tides, offshore winds … we can get 100 times the energy that we need for our societies from the ocean. We are now going into circular economies and this is why the sustainable blue economy is so important and that’s the future,” Ambassador Thomson said.

“I will continue to promote SDG14 as we have the UN Ocean Conference coming up in less than 100 days in Lisbon, Portugal and we are hoping that Seychelles will be well represented there,” he said.

Source: Seychelles Nation