Wen Family Chair in Conservation: Spring Public Lecture

Wen Giving, supported by Hawaiian, has generously endowed, in perpetuity, a Chair in Conservation at The University of Western Australia. The inaugural Chair, Professor Jessica Meeuwig, focuses on ocean conservation and the role of highly protected marine parks in building ocean resilience. Since 2014 Professor Meeuwig’s, Marine Futures Lab, has collaborated with National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas program which finds, surveys, and helps protect the last wild places in the ocean. 

UWA gratefully acknowledges Wen Giving, The Jock Clough Marine Foundation, Forrest Research Foundation and the Oceans Institute for their support of the Wen Family Chair in Conservation Spring Public Lecture.

SPRING PUBLIC LECTURE- Protecting the Ocean's Vital Places

GUEST SPEAKER: Dr Alan Friedlander
Chief Scientist, Pristine Seas National Geographic Society, Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology

Without the ocean, human life on Earth would not be possible. But increasing overexploitation, habitat degradation, pollution, and global warming are depleting ocean biodiversity and bringing the ocean to a tipping point, beyond which we may never recover. Our understanding of what is natural in the marine environment is increasingly compromised by the absence of locations that are not impacted by human activities.

Over the past 15 years, the National Geographic Pristine Seas program has redefined our perceptions of life in the seas by sending divers, submersibles, and cameras to explore waters largely untouched by people. These remote locations offer an unparalleled glimpse into how these ecosystems function in the absence of direct human influences and are the only true baselines we have to understand what we have lost elsewhere and to provide the fundamental insights needed for effective conservation and restoration efforts. The establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) is a proven and cost-effective tool to ensure a healthy ocean and prevent environmental catastrophe, yet currently less than 3% of the ocean enjoys strong protection.

Using a wide variety of tools from simple to complex to study everything from whales and sharks down to microscopic organisms, the Pristine Seas team has conducted expeditions from pole to pole and to depths of thousands of meters in order to provide scientific baseline for strategically using MPAs to revive and boost the productivity and resilience of our oceans. Building on our legacy of helping to establish 26 marine protected areas worldwide, covering over 6.5 million square kilometres, Pristine Seas has recently launched The Global Expedition, a bold new 5-year ocean venture to explore the remote tropical Pacific to support local conservation efforts in the world’s most diverse ocean ecosystem. There is now a global commitment to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030 to minimize the threats of extinction and the loss of valuable ecosystem services. Therefore, there is now an urgent and critical need to increase the support for ocean conservation so that both people and nature can thrive.