Opinion: From Nice comes the call to protect our oceans

The French city of Nice and the Colombian capital are separated by 8,944 kilometers; the distance is not only geographical but also cultural and social. But what is happening there right now should be the focus of those concerned with environmental protection.

Indeed, the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference is being held there, focusing on supporting the implementation of SDG 14, on the conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas, and marine resources.

Colombians probably don't fully appreciate the importance for the country of the decisions being made in this distant setting, much less amidst the local social and political turmoil, which, for obvious reasons, captures our attention and requires objective and in-depth reflection.

Among the relevant issues being debated in France are microplastic pollution, ocean acidification, rising sea temperatures, illegal and overfishing fishing, and the loss of marine biodiversity. All of these regrettable problems, without exception, affect the Colombian Caribbean and Pacific regions and are a source of national concern and a need to advance robust research in the search for solutions to highly diverse systems, which are arguably this country's most valuable asset.

This also requires a change in our awareness and vision of the sea. We must emphasize that the oceans do not separate the continents; on the contrary, they connect the planet through different pathways, such as current systems or species migrations, or through the interactive ocean-atmosphere dynamics, a fundamental regulator and modifier of the climate.

We live in a country where nearly 50% of the national territory is associated with marine-coastal and oceanic ecosystems, and nearly 30% of the population has a direct relationship with the services provided by these natural systems.

We are privileged to grow up in this tropical ecoregion; we are land and sea, and this imposes a greater responsibility on us toward nature. As a country, we are an example to the world by meeting the third goal set in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which establishes having at least 30% of marine territory under protection. However, we still lack a better response to the solutions required by the marine problems we have created.

This conference sends us the message "our ocean, our future, our responsibility." Allow me to shift the message slightly to "our ocean planet, our present, our hope." May the Neptune Mission discussed in this conference be for us Colombians the ColombiaMar Mission, which must be in our minds and actions every day of our lives.

Andrés Franco Herrera, Ph.D

Jorge Tadeo Lozano University of Bogotá