Sustainable Development Immersion Course’ 21

Bureau,Odishabarta

Bhubaneswar:School of Sustainability, XIM University, Bhubaneswar, and ConXerv, the committee for Sustainability, in collaboration with Eco-space, hosted an immersion course on Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) – Life below Water on 3rd July 2021.

The event started with a general introduction by Dr. TamoghnaAcharyya,on how oceans are essential in the world ecosystem and how pollution has affected the oceans.

Dr. Anu Gopinath discussed the Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) – Life below Water, which focuses on different targets and indicators for specific goals. She also discussed how long plastics take to decompose in the oceans.

Dr. Sarat Chandra Tripathy highlighted the importance of the Southern Ocean & Indian Research Activities carried out on it. He shared how the “ocean’s forests” – phytoplanktons play a significant role in maintaining the balance in the ocean ecosystem.

Dr. Amrit Kumar Mishra focused on the conservation of endangered species and safeguarding biodiversity. He also discussed how striking a balance between conservation and fishing activities would protect commercially important fish species.

Dr. Anil Mohapatra focused on the IUCN initiatives and species under protection. He also shed light on the IUCN red list and theorized a way forward while concentrating on CBD targets.

The speakers discussed the ten specific objectives in the areas of marine pollution and preservation, sustainable fishing, maritime technologies, and climatic changes as specified in SDG 14 and how they will impact the various sectors and their approach towards sustainable practices. They shed light on how the goals seek to prevent and reduce marine pollution; further the sustainable management and protection of marine and coastal ecosystems; address the impacts of ocean acidification; regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and destructive fishing practices; conserve coastal and marine areas; increase the economic benefits to small island developing States and least developed countries from the sustainable use of marine resources; and strengthen the means of implementation, including increasing scientific knowledge, the transfer of marine technology and implementation of international law.

The students were made sensitive to the objective of SDG-14 and how they need to incorporate these objectives to become competent sustainability managers who will move forward and impact how the various industries adopt these goals.