Boredom, Despair And Numb Buttocks. It Must Be World Oceans Day!

June 8^th was World Oceans Day. You didn’t notice? Well that’s not surprising considering the bright sparks who organised this global invent decided that it should be held, of all days, on a Monday. There were apparently lots of events held around the world, but you almost certainly didn’t notice those either as you were probably working. Even the media coverage of the event seemed lacklustre at best. Despite being a Monday and the general sense of apathy, we decided that since we are always going on about marine conservation, that a few of us should go along to the event held at The Royal Geographical Society in Kensington, London. “Realising the potential of our oceans and coasts” was billed as chance for the public to hear and discuss how governments, communities and the private sector can respond to the challenges of pollution, overfishing, climate change and habitat destruction and how many of the benefits and opportunities provided by oceans and coasts are being missed or lost. 

 

The event was jointly organised by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), The Prince’s Charities’ International Sustainability Unit, University College London (UCL) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). At 6:30 in the evening we were guided into the lecture theatre, complimentary reading matter in hand and took our seats. Some fifteen minutes later, backsides feeling a little numb from the ridiculously uncomfortable bench seating, our host introduced himself. Unfortunately we were so engrossed in discussing the disturbed mind that could have created such torturous seating that we missed his name, but he was a well-dressed gentleman with a perfect coiffure of grey hair and the slight air of a car salesmen. He gave us a quick run down of the evening’s timetable. There would be a few short presentations followed by a high level question and answer session with a select panel. He then introduced a video message from H.R.H the Prince of Wales no less. His Royal Highness apologised for not being able to attend in person – he probably had something better to do. H.R.H. mentioned the challenges the oceans face and the fact that he was launching a photography competition to celebrate the importance of our blue planet. The winning images would be featured in a special exhibition in Malta in November this year. Why the exhibition was being held in Malta wasn’t explained. Perhaps the staff of his International Sustainability Unit didn’t fancy the notorious cold of a November in London - a little tip to the sun anyone? H.R.H. then informed us that he had been assured that we were all in for an exciting evening, though he didn’t sound too convinced, and as the numbness began to travel down our legs, nor did we. 

The coiffure of grey hair then introduced His Excellency Kamalesh Sharma, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. Mr Sharma is an amiable man with extensive diplomatic experience and well-known interests in the empowerment of young people, women’s rights and the eradication of poverty.  Unfortunately what he didn’t seem to be interested in was making sure his microphone was working – it wasn’t. What followed was a twenty-minute mumble. Occasionally we picked up the odd word here and there such as “economic functionaries” (whatever they are) or global warming (climate change Kamalesh, climate change! We don’t say global warming anymore) but along with the rest of the audience we were too polite to demand that this heavyweight of global politics should speak up. Thus, none the wiser about what he had been saying, we joined in the courteous applause as he left the stage and the building. He probably had something better to do as well.

By the time the next speaker was introduced, the numbness in our lower extremities was becoming a serious concern, and a few audience members had made a bolt for the door. No one it seemed, wanted to hang around for the Q&A – did they know something we didn’t? 

John Tanzer, a rotund Australian and Marine Director of the WWF, bounded onto the stage with vigour and thankfully, a fully functional microphone. How do you get to be a Marine Director of WWF and how much does it pay? Are just some of the things we really we wanted to know. Mr Tanzer though didn’t want to tell us. Instead he talked about the WWF report called: Reviving The Ocean Economy. He talked about NGO’s and lamented that the WWF sometimes doesn’t get invited to the meetings where real decisions are made. Sometimes, he told us sadly, he feels irrelevant.  Later, he showed us a slide of a bemused looking girl from Mozambique; the same girl appears in the WWF report. Mr Tanzer didn’t explain too much about the girl other than to say she illustrated his point. What that point was we weren’t sure, but we did wonder why the poor girl looked so bemused. Was it because she had just had a camera shoved in her face? Then we wondered if she had received any money for having her image used in the WWF report or even if there were any legal requirements about such images. Can anyone use your image in publications without your agreement or do they have to pay? Perhaps she had agreed. Perhaps someone else had agreed for her?  Perhaps that was why she was bemused? Anyway we agreed we didn’t know and turned our attentions back to Mr Tanzer, who was talking about himself, though not about his earnings. Mr Tanzer informed us that he had dabbled in politics and it showed, he is a good performer and self-promotion appears not to be one of his weaknesses but did we get any real sense of what the Marine Director of the WWF actually does, or what the report is all about? Sadly no. 

The sound of a gentle snore emanated from the back seats, and a few more members of the audience made a dash for freedom as the next speaker was introduced, the one and only Ben Miller. Our ears pricked up, our stone-cold buttocks suddenly warmed a little. Ben Miller, the comedian? Sadly we had misheard, it wasn’t the amusing Ben Miller but the academic Ben Milligan. Mr Milligan is a Senior Research Associate at UCL (how much does that pay?) and despite not wearing a tie and having the sort of trendy classes you might associate with a socialist comedian he was not remotely interested in making us laugh. Ben thanked John Tanzer for his very personal view (did we detect a hint of condescension in his voice?) before turning his attention to the audience. He talked about marine protection, marine management and marine investment. He mentioned carbon credits and blue bonds though oddly, nothing was said about over population. Ben then showed us some slides, which like Mr Tanzer before, he too insisted clearly illustrated his points, but again we weren’t too sure. Clear explanation didn’t seem to be the point of these little presentations. Perhaps the speakers didn’t have enough time or perhaps they didn’t think we, the general public, would understand or perhaps they really didn’t care. Ben continued his talk. He showed some more slides and talked about natural flood barriers in Florida and told us all that he really was hopeful for the future – perhaps he’s secured some more funding or maybe he too had something better to do afterwards. Ben finished his time on stage by asking a question: What do we do now? At least that’s what we think he asked. The buttock inducing numbness of the seats might have finally reached our ears or perhaps the bleakness of the evening had fuddled our senses but we were sure that was the question. We didn’t know about the rest of the audience, but we knew exactly what we were going to do. Before the select panel had taken their seats for the question and answer session we were off. Enough really was enough. We needed to restore the circulation to our lower limbs and some spark to our minds. 

At a local hostelry, a cold beer in hand, we reflected on the evening. Perhaps the question and answer had turned into a whirlwind of intelligent debate. Perhaps the audience had thrown up some intriguing ideas or asked some searching questions. We didn’t know. What we did know was that this event was supposed to have been organised so that the academics, professional charities and conservation heavy hitters could engage with the public, to explain the challenges and the opportunities. And more importantly, tell us what they actually all do. In essence this was their chance to inspire. On that front unfortunately, it was a hapless failure. All we felt was abject despair. We felt disengaged, uninspired and we now knew how poor John Tanzer felt when he and the WWF don’t get invited to those really, really important meetings. We felt irrelevant.

Of course we should not have been surprised at this, In fact we really should have known better. The number of conservation organisations, charities, sustainability units, NGO’s, committees, projects and funds are increasing at a bewildering rate. Conservation has become big business and this event was the industry giving us the old sales pitch. Yesterday it was the rain forest, the day before polar bears, and the day before that it was global warming. Today however it is the oceans and the great conservation gravy train rolls on.

The coiffure of grey hair had stated that he wanted us, the audience, to spread the word via twitter and social media. And that message was that we should all support the WWF, IIED, NGO’s, professional academics, bureaucrats and the hordes of charity directors, managers and sustainability officers out there. They need our help, our social media sites and our donations. In fact, we were bit surprised that a collection plate wasn’t passed around between speakers – give generously please.

So what are we to finally make of this event? Well clearly there is a business opportunity for furniture manufacturers to supply more comfortable seats to the Royal Geographical Society and audio recordings of the presentation could be marketed as a cure for insomnia.  As for raising the awareness of marine conservation and discussing possible solutions to the challenges, we have to award the event and its organisers a gold plated zero! We must also sound a warning here. The field of conservation really is in danger of becoming a perverse piece of theatre. The players, all those NGO’s, academics and sustainability units will prance about the world stage holding discussions, lobbying governments, formulating policy documents, making decisions and raising revenue, whilst the rest of us will be reduced to the role of an audience. Silently watching on, possibly bored witless but nevertheless, totally irrelevant to the drama playing out. The great conservation show and its industry players appear more and more to be self-serving, self perpetuating and increasingly self-important. And that must stop.

Perhaps though there is a silver lining to the clouds of despair. Milligan, Sharma, Tanzer and the World Oceans Day industry might not have inspired us but they have done something else. Disengaged and uninspired we may be but more importantly we are disgruntled. So in the coming weeks, months and years we will be paying close attention to work of the WWF and it’s publications along with the IIED and all the rest, and we are rather certain that we will not be a very compliant audience

One last thing, if any of you out there think that if we had paid more attention to what was said and less time worrying about our numb backsides, we might have learnt something. Then we can only respond in the words of disgruntled Vietnam Veterans everywhere: “You don’t know man… You weren’t there!”

A PDF of the WWF “Reviving the ocean economy” can be found here.