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I'm a marine biologist
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here to talk to you about
the crisis in our oceans,
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but this time perhaps not
with a message you've heard before,
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because I want to tell you
that if the survival of the oceans
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depended only on people like me,
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scientists trading in publications,
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we'd be in even worse trouble than we are.
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Because, as a scientist,
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the most important things
that I've learned
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about keeping our oceans
healthy and productive
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have come not from academia
but from fishermen and women
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living in some of the poorest
countries on Earth.
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I've learned that as a conservationist,
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the most important question is not,
"how do we keep people out?"
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but rather, "how do we make sure
that coastal people throughout the world
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have enough to eat?"
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Our oceans are every bit as critical
to our own survival
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as our atmosphere,
our forests or our soils.
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Their staggering productivity
ranks fisheries with farming
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as a mainstay of food production
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for humanity.
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Yet, something's gone badly wrong.
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We're accelerating
into an extinction emergency,
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one that my field has so far
failed abysmally to tackle.
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At its core is a very human
and humanitarian crisis.
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The most devastating blow
we've so far dealt our oceans
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is through overfishing.
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Every year, we fish harder,
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deeper, further afield.
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Every year, we chase ever fewer fish.
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Yet, the crisis of overfishing
is a great paradox:
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unnecessary, avoidable,
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and entirely reversible,
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because fisheries are one of the most
productive resources on the planet.
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With the right strategies,
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we can reverse overfishing.
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That we've not yet done so is, to my mind,
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one of humanity's greatest failures.
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Nowhere is this failure more apparent
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than in the warm waters
on either side of our equator.
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Our tropics are home to most
of the species in our ocean,
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most of the people whose existence
depends on our seas.
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We call these coastal fishermen and women
"small-scale fishers,"
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but small-scale is a misnomer
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for a fleet comprising over 90 percent
of the world's fishermen and women.
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Their fishing is generally
more selective and sustainable
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than the indiscriminate destruction
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too often wrought
by bigger industrial boats.
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These coastal people have the most
to gain from conservation,
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because for many of them,
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fishing is all that keeps them
from poverty, hunger or forced migration
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in countries where the state
is often unable to help.
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We know that the outlook is grim:
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stocks collapsing
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on the front lines of climate change,
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warming seas, dying reefs,
catastrophic storms,
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trawlers, factory fleets,
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rapacious ships from richer countries
taking more than their share.
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Extreme vulnerability is the new normal.
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I first landed on the island
of Madagascar two decades ago
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on a mission to document
its marine natural history.
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I was mesmerized
by the coral reefs I explored,
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and certain I knew how to protect them,
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because science provided all the answers:
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close areas of the reef permanently.
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Coastal fishers
simply needed to fish less.
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I approached elders here
in the village of Andavadoaka
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and recommended that they close off
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the healthiest and most diverse
coral reefs to all forms of fishing
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to form a refuge to help stocks recover,
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because, as the science tells us,
after five or so years,
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fish populations inside those refuges
would be much bigger,
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replenishing the fished areas outside,
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making everybody better off.
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That conversation didn't go so well.
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Three quarters of Madagascar's
27 million people
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live on less than two dollars a day.
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My earnest appeal to fish less
took no account
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of what that might actually mean
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for people who depend
on fishing for survival.
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It was just another squeeze from outside,
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a restriction rather than a solution.
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What does protecting a long list
of Latin species names mean to ??,
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a woman from Andavadoaka
who fishes every day
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to put food on the table
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and send her grandchildren to school?
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That initial rejection taught me
that conservation is, at its core,
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a journey in listening deeply
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to understand the pressures
and realities that communities face
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through their dependence on nature.
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This idea became the founding
principle for my work
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and grew into an organization
that brought a new approach
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to ocean conservation
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by working to rebuild fisheries
with coastal communities.
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Then, as now, the work
started by listening,
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and what we learned astonished us.
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Back in the dry south of Madagascar,
we learned that one species
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was immensely important for villagers:
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this remarkable octopus.
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We learned that soaring demand
was depleting an economic lifeline.
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But, we also learned that this animal
grows astonishingly fast,
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doubling in weight
every one or two months.
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We reasoned that protecting
just a small area of fishing ground
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for just a few months
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might lead to dramatic
increases in catches,
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enough to make a difference
to this community's bottom line
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in a time frame that might
just be acceptable.
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The community thought so too,
opting to close a small area of reef
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to octopus fishing temporarily
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using a customary social code,
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invoking blessings from the ancestors
to prevent poaching.
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When that reef reopened
to fishing six months later,
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none of us were prepared
for what happened next.
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Catches soared,
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with men and women landing
more and bigger octopus
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than anyone had seen for years.
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Neighboring villages saw the fishing boom
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and drew up their own closures,
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spreading the model virally
along hundreds of miles of coastline.
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When we ran the numbers,
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we saw that these communities,
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among the poorest on Earth,
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had found a way to double their money
in a matter of months by fishing less.
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Imagine a savings account
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from which you withdraw
half your balance every year
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and your savings keep growing.
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There is no investment
opportunity on Earth
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that can reliably deliver
what fisheries can.
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But the real magic went beyond profit,
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because a far deeper transformation
was happening in these communities.
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Spurred on by rising catches,
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leaders from Andavadoaka joined force
with two dozen neighboring communities
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to establish a vast conservation area
along dozens of miles of coastline.
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They outlawed fishing with poison
and mosquito nets
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and set aside permanent refuges
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around threatened
coral reefs and mangroves,
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including, to my astonishment,
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those same sights that I'd flagged
just two years earlier
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when my evangelism for marine protection
was so roundly rejected.
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They created a community-led
protected area,
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a democratic system
for local marine governance
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that was totally unimaginable
just a few years earlier.
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And they didn't stop there:
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within five years, they'd secured
legal rights from the state
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to manage over 200 square miles of ocean,
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eliminating destructive
industrial trawlers from the waters.
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Ten years on, we're seeing
recovery of those critical reefs
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within those refuges.
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Communities are petitioning
for greater recognition
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of the right to fish
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and fairer prices
that reward sustainability.
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But all that is just
the beginning of the story,
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because this handful
of fishing villages taking action
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has sparked a marine
conservation revolution
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that has spread over thousands of miles,
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impacting hundreds of thousands of people.
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Today in Madagascar, hundreds of sites
are managed by communities
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applying this human rights-based
approach to conservation
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to all kinds of fisheries
from mud crabs to mackerel.
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The model has crossed borders
through East Africa and the Indian Ocean
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and is now island-hopping
into Southeast Asia.
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From Tanzania to Timor-Leste,
from India to Indonesia,
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we're seeing the same story unfold,
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that when we design it right,
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marine conservation reaps dividends
that go far beyond protecting nature,
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improving catches
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and driving waves of social change
along entire coastlines,
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strengthening confidence, cooperation,
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and the resilience of communities
to face the injustice of poverty
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and climate change.
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I've been privileged to spend my career
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catalyzing and connecting these movements
throughout the tropics,
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and I've learned that as conservationists,
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our goal must be to win at scale,
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not just to lose more slowly.
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We need to step up
to this global opportunity
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to rebuild fisheries:
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with field workers to stand
with communities
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and connect them to support them
to act and learn from one another;
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with governments and lawyers
standing with communities
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to secure their rights
to manage their fisheries;
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prioritizing local food and job security
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above all competing interests
in the ocean economy;
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ending subsidies for grotesquely
overcapitalized industrial fleets
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and keeping those industrial
and foreign vessels
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out of coastal waters.
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We need agile data systems
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that put science
in the hands of communities
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to optimize conservation
to the target species or habitat.
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We need development agencies,
donors, and the conservation establishment
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to raise their ambition
to the scale of investment
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urgently required to deliver this vision.
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And to get there,
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we all need to reimagine
marine conservation
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as a narrative of abundance
and empowerment,
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not of austerity and alienation,
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a movement guided by the people who depend
on healthy seas for their survival,
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not by abstract scientific values.
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Of course, fixing overfishing
is just one step to fixing our oceans.
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The horrors of warming,
acidification and pollution grow each day.
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But, it's a big step.
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It's one we can take today,
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and it's one that will give
a much-needed boost
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to those exploring scalable solutions to
other dimensions of our ocean emergency.
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Our success propels theirs.
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If we throw up our hands in despair,
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it's game over.
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We solve these challenges
by taking them on one by one.
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Our overwhelming dependence
on our ocean is the solution
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that has been hiding in plain sight,
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because there's nothing small
about small-scale fishers.
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They're a hundred million strong
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and provide nutrition to billions.
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It's this army of everyday
conservationists
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who have the most at stake.
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Only they have the knowledge
and global reach needed
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to reshape our relationship
with our oceans.
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Helping them achieve this
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is the most powerful thing we can do
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to keep our oceans alive.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)