Maria del Carmen Patricia Morales vertritt Mundus maris asbl im belgischen Ozean-Dekade-Komitee. Der Ausschuss, der wissenschaftliche Beratung leistet, traf sich zu seiner letzten Sitzung des Jahres am 1. Dezember 2023 in den Räumlichkeiten des InnovOcean Campus, der dem Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Oostende angeschlossen ist. VLIZ ist Decade Implementing Partner (DIP) und stellt den Vorsitz und das Sekretariat des belgischen Ozean-Dekade-Komitees (NDC-BE).

The agenda was dominated by reviews and planning of scientific and innovation activities as a contribution to the Ocean Decade. Several talks addressed issues around the Belgian Indicator Report on Marine Research and Innovation.

Patricia gave a short talk about a cross-section of Mundus maris activities in 2023, which were contributions to the Ocean Decade agenda in one way or another. The focus was on promoting ocean literacy through a combination of accessible science with the arts, whenever possible. The slides are available here.

The Ocean Decade Committee is also interested to support the update of the FishBase Guide app in response to user feedback. It’s all about enhancing user experience and promote the use of this educational tool with potential to raise awareness of minimum reproductive sizes of fish species, particularly those for human consumption. Respecting the minimum sizes everywhere would be a major contribution towards recovering many overfished populations. It has potential to increase wild catches once populations are again in good shape.