International Ocean Stewardship Forum

The aim of the International Ocean Stewardship Forums was to strengthen the interface between the legal and technical aspects of marine policy making and implementation in the Marine Environment. Recognising the need for common understanding across the range of ocean use, the Forums embraced the legal-technical interface for other issues including: CO2 shipping emissions, carbon sequestration, maritime territorial sovereignty and exploitation of marine resources, and the implementation of international law instruments such as UNCLOS, OSPAR, etc. The IOSF ran for two consequtive years, 2008 and 2009, addressing a variety of marine policy issues.

The 2008 Forum

The International Ocean Stewardship Forum held at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton 17 to 18 June 2008 provided an ideal opportunity for stakeholders from across the marine sector to exchange opinion and ideas on how science, industry and government can work together to develop and implement marine policy on national and international levels. More than seventy experts from Australia, Africa, America and Europe congregated over two full days to examine issues such as marine spatial planning, resource exploration and exploitation within and beyond national jurisdiction, and the resolution of disputes of sovereignty over maritime space.
The meeting focussed on:
1. Marine protected areas and sustainable use of marine biological diversity - Mature versus emerging policies - are they working?
2. Legislation of maritime space - Implications for access to maritime resources.
3. National maritime policies - Are they good models?
4. Problem areas in the use of the oceans - 'Old chestnuts and new players'
5. United Nations Convention on Law and the Sea (UNCLOS) - Is it working today? - The future

IOSF coffee discussion

The 2009 Forum

The Second International Ocean Stewardship Forum took place at NOCS between the 10th and 12th June 2009, and drew delegates together from as far afield as the United States, France, Germany and Australia to examine governance issues around the two principal topics of this year - the Arctic Ocean and Marine Geoengineering. Thirteen presentations were given, five of them keynotes, and two parallel focus groups were convened to work through selected elements of each theme before reporting back to the plenary session. As a result of this, two initiatives were set in motion, one to develop a proposal to the Arctic Council Observers Group, to present to the Governing Meeting in November, and a second to organize an NGO awareness forum on marine scientific research related to ocean fertilization. An Editorial Board was established to prepare a summary meeting report of the IOSF 2009 for submission to a popular science journal "policy" section.