27th April 2023
Launch of the Ocean Census project
The launch of the Ocean Census project in London
Ocean Census, the largest and most ambitious global program in history to accelerate the discovery and census of life in the oceans, was launched in London on April 27, 2023. Following on from the support that the Principality of Monaco gave to the “Census of Marine Life 2010” project, the Société des Explorations de Monaco is committing itself on behalf of its stakeholders as a founding partner of the Ocean Census project.
The audience at the Royal Institution learned that the goal of this project is to discover 100,000 new marine species over the next decade, before global warming and overfishing lead to the permanent disappearance of entire marine populations.
A project initiated by the Nippon Foundation and Nekton
The Ocean Census Global Alliance was founded by the Nippon Foundation, Japan’s largest philanthropic foundation, which addresses global issues through social innovation, and Nekton, a leading British marine research institute. Other partners in this initiative will include scientists, businesses, media and members of civil society. The program will be based at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in the United Kingdom.
“The ocean is an invaluable asset that is now seriously threatened by lack of management.”
Rupert Grey, President of Nekton. Ocean Census launch conference. April 27, 2023.
A race against time
Scientists involved in these ocean life census operations will embark on dozens of deep-sea expeditions over the next decade, taking advantage of the rapid evolution of DNA mining, gene sequencing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to describe more species, faster. Each new species discovered will add to the knowledge of the “tree of life.”