This year on World Oceans Day, For Blue teamed up with the WA Ocean Foundation to host a virtual summit that brought together a network of organisations and impassioned people to celebrate all things ocean.

We presented five short sessions across the course of the day, covering topics that ranged from Ocean Health and Technology Advancements, all the way through to Science Communication and Attracting Attention. You can view the agenda for the day here.

With over 150 participants from across Australia, it was a huge success! And a huge thank you goes out to all organisers, panellists and participants. It was this tribe of ocean leaders that came together to make the day informative and enjoyable, all whilst igniting passion and driving us to take further actions to appreciate and acknowledge the significance of the Indian Ocean.

The survey responses after were extremely positive about the format, presenters, topics and how it was run. The “attracting attention” session and sentiments expressed by panellists were very popular The summit was diverse and engaging, and has been monumental in shaping the vision and future direction of For Blue. We got a shared sense that this community and the conversations we were having, were truly the beginning of something big, and we’re incredibly excited to see this broader project progress.

We want to continue to share our knowledge and inspire the community to take action to promote the health of the Indian Ocean – so will be releasing videos of each Summit session on vimeo. Check out the session one: Pathways to Ocean Health which features panelists Alex Ogg (WAFIC), Tania Douthwaite (Fremantle Underwater Film Festival), Jessica Meeuwig (UWA), Grant Oldfield (WAOF) and Wade Hughes (Photographer).

And stay tuned, as we’ll be releasing further videos in coming weeks.

WA Ocean Foundation also generously donated some prizes from their store, including a copy of Wade and Robyn Hughes’ “Looking for Whales”.

Congratulations to Angela Rossen, Thomas Crutchett and Matt Watson who were the lucky winners.

If you want to collaborate further, including on World Oceans Day 2021 – the first in the UN Decade of Ocean Science – please contact us directly.