The ocean makes life on our planet possible. It delivers the oxygen we breathe, regulates our climate, and provides food for billions of people. Ocean health and human well-being are inseparable – and yet they are at a shared crossroads.

Continued overfishing and climate change are putting pressure on the ocean and damaging its ability to sustain ocean life, ultimately endangering our own well-being. At the same time, huge inequities exist among who can access those benefits and who pays the highest price for the exploitation of those benefits.

At the Packard Foundation, we envision a just and equitable world where both people and nature flourish. It is our mission to work with people and communities to create enduring solutions for just societies and a healthy, resilient natural world.

Enduring solutions account for the interconnectedness between the future of people and the health of our natural environment. These solutions address the root causes of the complex challenges facing the ocean and embrace the identities, values, and lived experiences of all people.

Many of these solutions already exist – we just need to act on them.

Here are four ways in which these solutions are already making progress:

  1. Protect and restore marine and coastal ecosystems
  2. Better understand how climate change is affecting the ocean and local communities 
  3. End overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and other destructive fishing practices 
  4. Use science and technology to improve ocean health 

Read the full article about ocean solutions at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.