It was a busy year for the IMPAC5 Secretariat and partners, a group of Canadians from a number of organisations standing together to help protect the world ocean in September 2022. Here’s a quick recap of some of the milestones the IMPAC5 Secretariat while organising IMPAC5 in Vancouver, BC, Canada!
Spreading the news about IMPAC5
At the end of Ocean Week Canada last June, IMPAC5 Executive Director Sabine Jessen was featured alongside other ocean conservation leaders in The Globe and Mail, where she had the opportunity to talk about IMPAC5, Congress partners, and the Congress mission to chart a course to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030. #30×30
Don’t forget to bookmark www.impac5.ca, follow or tag IMPAC5 on social media – #IMPAC5 or #ProtectBlueNature – to share your marine protection news. Also, feel free to share this post with friends and colleagues.
A call for proposals and an ocean of responses
June is also when IMPAC5 launched the call for proposals. The secretariat invited ocean-loving people from all over the globe – MPA managers, Indigenous community members, policy makers, politicians, young activists and many more – to submit proposals, and were flooded with an ocean of responses! We received over 700 proposals spanning every continents and 66 countries.
The IMPAC5 Secretariat wants to thank everyone who sent a proposal and to thank the more than 230 expert volunteers currently hard a work reviewing all these proposals. Your efforts will help shape the IMPAC5 program.
Young voices will help shape the Congress
Another major accomplishment in 2021 was the selection of the IMPAC5 Young Professionals Committee. This global group of young leaders will help ensure that young voices are heard throughout IMPAC5 and beyond. Later in the year, IMPAC5 social media followers took a trip around the world to meet each of the 16 committee members and find out more about their individual ocean conservation journeys.
Diving into international waters in Marseille
Finally, many people at the IUCN World Conservation Congress stopped by the IMPAC5 booth and discussed ocean conservation issues and solutions for the world ocean crisis at many of the congress plenaries, workshops and events.
As the IMPAC5 Secretariat looks forward to the coming year, the team hopes you will continue to support IMPAC5. See you online or in person at the Congress in Vancouver in September 2022.
