{"id":28181,"date":"2025-07-21T15:45:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T19:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/?p=28181"},"modified":"2026-03-02T16:17:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T21:17:58","slug":"macdonald-speaks-on-panel-at-2025-u-n-oceans-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/2025\/07\/21\/macdonald-speaks-on-panel-at-2025-u-n-oceans-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"MacDonald Speaks on Panel at 2025 U.N. Oceans Conference\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" style=\"object-position: 45.4005% 35.573%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/UN-Ocean-25-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28183\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/UN-Ocean-25-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/UN-Ocean-25-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/UN-Ocean-25-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/UN-Ocean-25-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/UN-Ocean-25-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/UN-Ocean-25-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/UN-Ocean-25.jpg 5712w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>UCI Director Tony MacDonald (fifth from l) and fellow panelists in Nice, France.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) Director Tony MacDonald attended the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice, France, from June 9-13. UNOC 2025 brought together over 15,000 diverse stakeholders from governments, UN agencies, international NGOs, civil society and the private sector to discuss ways to accelerate action to conserve and sustainably use the ocean. In addition to representing the UCI, MacDonald attended in his role as chair of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalacademies.org\/osb\/ocean-studies-board\">National Academy of Science Ocean Studies Board<\/a>\u2019s U.S. Decade Committee for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and as a <a href=\"https:\/\/globaloceanforum.com\/\">Global Ocean Forum<\/a> (GOF) board member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>MacDonald served as a panelist in the conference session \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/council.science\/events\/unoc3-2025\/bridging-science-policy-and-action\/\">Bridging Science, Policy and Action: Enhancing Cross-Sectoral Collaboration for Inclusive and Equitable Ocean Management and Governance<\/a>.\u201d MacDonald\u2019s remarks addressed how regional ocean management efforts supported by UCI, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.midatlanticocean.org\/\">Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean<\/a> (MARCO) and <a href=\"https:\/\/portal.midatlanticocean.org\/\">Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal<\/a> could be used as a model for other countries and leveraged to advance cross-sectoral conservation and sustainable use and of marine biodiversity under the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) treaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The panel was moderated by Mar\u00eda Jos\u00e9 Gonz\u00e1lez-Bernat, Ph.D., co-director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) Ecosystems Program, and Peter Ricketts, Ph.D., former president and vice-chancellor of Acadia University (Canada) and GOF Board member. Other panelists included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>H.E Ambassador Julio Cordano, director of environment, climate change and oceans, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>H.E. Ambassador Viliami Va\u2019inga Tone, permanent representative of the Kingdom of Tonga to the U.N.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf, former minister of education, culture and science of the Netherlands<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Peter Haugan, policy director at Institute of Marine Research, Norway<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lynne Shannon, principal researcher leading the Marine Sustainability group in the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Professor Jean-Christophe Martin, University Cote d\u2019Azur<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Professor Mar\u00eda Fernanda Morales Camacho, Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Louise Lieberknecht, senior expert in marine sustainability, GRID-Arendal<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Jasmine Nyagah, University of Nairobi, Kenya<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"245\" style=\"object-position: 52.12% 44.32%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/IMG_2979-002-UNOC-Syliva-300x245.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28184\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/IMG_2979-002-UNOC-Syliva-300x245.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/IMG_2979-002-UNOC-Syliva-1024x835.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/IMG_2979-002-UNOC-Syliva-768x626.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/IMG_2979-002-UNOC-Syliva-1536x1252.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/IMG_2979-002-UNOC-Syliva-150x122.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2025\/07\/IMG_2979-002-UNOC-Syliva.jpeg 1591w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Kate Killerlain Morrison (l) and Sylvia Earle of Mission Blue.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the many ocean colleagues at UNOC 2025, MacDonald had the privilege of running into 2015 UCI National Champion of the Champion honoree and ocean explorer Sylvia Earle, Ph.D., and Kate Killerlain Morrison, former MARCO executive director and current managing director of Earle\u2019s conservation organization, <a href=\"https:\/\/missionblue.org\/\">Mission Blue<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2025\/06\/1164381\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">More information on UNOC 2025 and its outcomes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) Director Tony MacDonald attended the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice, France, from June 9-13. UNOC 2025 brought together over 15,000 diverse stakeholders from governments, UN agencies, international NGOs, civil society and the private sector to discuss ways to accelerate action to conserve and sustainably use the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":28186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 21:55:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28181"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29061,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28181\/revisions\/29061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/uci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}