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Beyond celebration, we urgently need to understand our oceans better
Living on a planet where the ocean dominates its surface, it is fair to say that ocean affairs should provide important content and context in our education.
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Blue economy: Coastal ecosystems sequester as much as five times the amount of carbon as terrestrial forests. (Reuters/David Gray)
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ast month, I moderated a seminar held to mark World Hydrography Day (WHD) in Bali. Despite the fact that it was a global celebration, its popularity cannot rival that of other world events like Paris Fashion Week. Most millennials and Gen Z-ers certainly do not know about the international day.
Simply put, hydrography is not everyone’s cup of tea. Ocean issues do not easily go viral on TikTok and Instagram.
Does it matter? Is it a problem if ocean issues and hydrography are not in the top of everyone’s concerns? Let’s talk about it.
We know very well that 70 percent of the surface of the Earth is water, not land. When it comes to potential, the ocean offers more room for opportunities. On the other hand, the ocean also offers more space for issues and problems to take care of. It is not too hard to imagine what can happen if we lack the knowledge of the majority of the surface of the planet where we live.
A shocking statement came from a NASA oceanographer, Gene Feldman, who said “We have better maps of the surface of Mars and the Moon than we do of the bottom of the ocean”. This confirms our lack of knowledge of our own oceans.
It seems that our interest in something far away from us is bigger than that in our own planet. In a more anecdotal example, if we ask Indonesian kids to draw natural views without any briefing, it is almost certain that they will draw mountains (usually two of them) with sun rising in between them, a road passing in between the mountains and rice fields along the road.
What does this tell us? They don’t have much of an ocean in their imagination. Now, how can they contribute innovative ideas to dealing with the ocean if they don’t even have it in their imagination? As Einstein once put it “the true sign of intelligence is imagination”.
