“No data, no action.” This is the central message of the new international statement launched on 7 June, just two days ahead of the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC).
Presented during the annual meeting of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO) — a network of nearly 60 of the world’s leading marine research institutions, including CCMAR — the manifesto issues a clear call to urgently increase global investment in sustained and coordinated ocean observations.
"The UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) Declaration rightly draws attention to the full range of ocean pressures (climate change, biodiversity loss, marine pollution, eutrophication, deoxygenation, ocean acidification) and the legal instruments that are being deployed to address these. But highlighting problems and crafting legal solutions is only the beginning. The success of these instruments hinges on our ability to track the state of the ocean and detect changes over time."
While progress has been made in physical ocean observations (such as temperature, salinity and currents), biological and chemical observations remain scarce and underfunded. This gap undermines efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG14) – “Life Below Water” – and to track progress towards international commitments such as the Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the BBNJ Agreement, and others.
Sustained ocean monitoring provides critical data needed to inform national plans that protect communities, marine life and infrastructure from the growing impacts of climate change.
By signing this statement, Adelino Canário, President of CCMAR, reinforces the centre’s commitment to evidence-based decision-making and its role in promoting informed public policy at regional and global levels.
Full Statement: https://pogo-ocean.org/no-data-no-action-statement
“As observações oceânicas não são opcionais. Elas são a espinha dorsal de ações baseadas em evidências sobre clima, biodiversidade, resiliência a desastres e, em última análise, desenvolvimento sustentável. O momento de investir nelas é agora, para que nenhuma parte do oceano global, ou das comunidades que dele dependem, seja deixada para trás.”
