As we’ve mentioned in past blogs, challenges remain in turning knowledge into action for the management, protection, and restoration of ocean life across the United States. While communities of knowledge holders, users, and supporters (Ripple et al., 2024) have been collaborating more than ever before to tackle these issues, their efforts have yet to coalesce at the national scale. Recently, however, we’ve seen promising developments that provide structure to guide and catalyze knowledge to action for ocean life in U.S. waters. In June 2024, the White House released the first of its kind National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy (“Strategy” hereafter). The Strategy offers direction from the federal government on how to set goals, build capacity, and convene partners to “make better use of existing knowledge and prioritize acquiring new biodiversity knowledge to enable better policy and management decisions….as guided by the nation’s diverse voices and ways of knowing, in order to maximize effective and equitable stewardship of the ocean’s diverse life and its benefits to people”.
The Strategy’s goals are straightforward. They call for an implementation plan to guide the expansion of useful and usable knowledge that can transform how we measure and manage diverse ocean life through a unified, coordinated interface for ocean biodiversity knowledge to action. But the Strategy’s implementation will require engagement by a broad swath of individuals and institutions, especially given the bevy of other biodiversity-relevant efforts that have emerged in the past few years (e.g., the National Aquatic eDNA Strategy, the National Strategy for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, the National Nature Assessment, the Ocean Climate Ocean Plan, and America the Beautiful, to name a few). So, the success of the Strategy will hinge upon how effective it is at connecting all the interacting parts in this dynamic space to organize, coordinate, and focus knowledge to action. And this is where the community roles and action can help!
We now stand at a critical juncture where many communities can align, coordinate, and collaborate with their past and current efforts under the new Strategy. With this, we’re calling on all groups to join in and contribute where they can to ensure decisions made to conserve ocean biodiversity are informed by the best available evidence.
With a National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy in place, now comes the challenging part – coordinating, convening, and collaborating collective help from the entire ocean biodiversity community in America. Will you raise your hand? Here are some initial thoughts on how community groups can make an impact:
Philanthropic community: Will you offer funds and leadership in guiding discussions, supporting knowledge in all forms, and empowering those who hold knowledge to work together with those who use knowledge to set a collective vision of success?
Scientific community: Dr. Sarah Gignoux-Wolfsohn has already offered a challenge to experts of all technical fields and worldviews to organize and synthesize the knowledge needed to catalyze action. Will you follow her lead and meet multiple stakeholders and rights holders on common ground and work together?
Federal agencies and management community: Will you commit to working across agencies to execute an implementation plan that focuses on the needs of knowledge users, then builds capacity for practical measurement and monitoring of marine biodiversity? Will you continue to develop innovative ways to include evidence stemming from diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous and/or traditional ecological knowledge?
State or local agencies and managers/practitioners: Will you commit to working to make the development of the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy implementation plan a success for all? Will you offer insight and feedback so that the Strategy synergizes state/local governance? Will you commit to building and bridging diverse knowledge sources to meet state/local needs, as well as working together to address transboundary challenges that emerge?
NGO community: Will you advocate for a new federal mandate for marine biodiversity so there is some permanence to the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy? Will you develop policies to foster cohesion among all the landmark national strategies and initiatives that have emerged recently (e.g., National Strategy on Blue Economy, National eDNA Strategy, National Nature Assessment, American the Beautiful, etc.)?
National legislators: Will you consider the consequences of ocean biodiversity loss in the United States and support the creation of a federal mandate that sets a vision, goals, and pathways to informed action to manage, protect, and restore ocean life?
State legislators: Will you find innovative ways to assess and manage biodiversity at the state level and work collectively among adjacent states that share transboundary ocean and coastal zones to ensure that knowledge leads your management decisions?
Indigenous communities: Will you commit to sharing your knowledge, culture, traditions, and worldviews to inform a co-designed path toward implementation of the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy? We acknowledge the past atrocities to you and your People and recognize that one way to help remedy those mistakes is to listen and to follow your leadership. Given this, will you continue to lead and remain open and accessible for those partners who want to learn from you and include your knowledge, wisdom, and ways of knowing into a new equitable vision for stewarding ocean biodiversity?
Technology community: Will you commit to developing a vision for the role, integration, and application of myriad available technologies to achieve the goals set out by the National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy? Will you collaborate with your community members across the private sector, public sector, academia, non-governmental organizations, and others to develop approaches that scale the growth and use of technologies to meet the needs of communities?
Of course, this is only a short list. For those not represented here, please stand up and tell us that you are ready to help. But for now, let’s all plan to look inward, come together, and move forward to conserve ocean life in the United States.
Ripple KJ, Hudson C, Knight E, Landrum JP, Bell V, Close SL (2024) Enabling usable science takes a community: Using our roles as funders to catalyze change. PLoS Biol 22(6): e3002675. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002675