The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has been developing a new strand of work, Valuing Oceans: The Gulbenkian Oceans Initiative (GOI). Over the next five years, we’ll work towards conservation and good management of the oceans for the benefit of people now and in the future. The Initiative will be run across the Foundation, with our London and Lisbon branches taking distinct but complementary approaches.

Oceans are often seen as dark and alien places, worlds away from our living, breathing societies on land. Yet we would not be living or breathing without them; oceans provide services critical for human well-being, such as climate regulation, food provisioning, livelihoods and recreation. These services depend on healthy marine ecosystems, which are increasingly under threat from human activity. Protecting oceans is very difficult, and marine conservation receives relatively little philanthropic interest.

The GOI in Portugal is already underway, and is centrally focused on an economic evaluation of marine ecosystem services. Quantifying the value of the oceans lends weight to the conservation lobby, and has the potential to influence a wide range of decision makers.

Over the past year, we at the UK branch conducted scoping research to gain a better understanding of what work is already being done to address marine issues, and see where we might be best placed to act. We hosted two events with the Environmental Funders’ Network Marine Funders’ Group, and found a keen appetite for future meetings and collaboration. Our Marine Funders Survey of funders in the UK and EU revealed striking diversity in the issues and geographical regions funded. We commissioned the non-profit Forum for the Future to map the ‘system change dynamics’ for marine issues in Europe. Two key areas for action emerged: improving knowledge flows, so that good evidence is communicated successfully; and creating platforms for collaboration, helping environmental organisations to work together and across sectors for greater impact. The full report is available here.

We will be launching the UK branch’s GOI strategy shortly. We’ve decided to take a broad approach across a range of marine issues, focussing instead on the key levers for change identified by our scoping research. Our aim is to help build the capacity of the marine conservation sector to influence change. We’re also interested in exploring the non-material, ‘intrinsic’ value of the oceans, to support and complement the Lisbon branch’s work on material valuation.

Valuing Oceans builds on our previous Environment work, supporting the development of a more sustainable relationship between society and the natural world.

Photo by Gonçalo Calado