Ocean Justice Forum

Urban Ocean Lab partnered with AzulTaproot Earth, and Center for American Progress to establish the Ocean Justice Forum. With a goal of addressing the shortcomings of ocean policies that have left frontline communities behind, the Ocean Justice Forum brought together eighteen grassroots, justice-focused, community, Indigenous and national environmental groups from across the U.S. to collectively envision what a just ocean future should look like.

In September 2022, the Ocean Justice Forum released the Ocean Justice Platform: a forward-looking policy platform that lays out the elements of ocean justice and sets clear principles to guide policymakers’ approach to just and equitable ocean policy. The platform prioritizes the role of frontline ocean communities in the development and implementation of ocean and climate policy.

We are welcoming signatories, and would love for your organization to join us by signing onto the Ocean Justice Platform.

 

Priorities of the Ocean Justice Platform

An equitable and just approach to ocean policy must:

  1. Protect the ocean and the benefits it provides for all.

  2. Alleviate the disproportionate burdens placed on ocean justice communities due to ocean pollution.

  3. Promote an economy that sustains the ocean and communities that rely on it.

  4. Uplift justly-sourced renewable energy from the ocean.

  5. Prioritize community social cohesion in disaster response and adaptation investments.

It is time to confront deep-rooted inequity with meaningful and just policy action informed by the very communities who have the most at stake.