Getting to 2030 - Scaling effort to ambition through a narrative model of the SDGs

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals express a narrative about the relationships between people and nature. This paper builds a narrative from an ocean perspective – through the lens of a coral reef seascape, and the blue economy. The ocean, intimately connected with the land, freshwater flows and climate provides a vast array of benefits to humanity. These benefits are valued at trillions of dollars per year globally, supporting hundreds of millions of jobs, and contributing to all countries both coastal and inland, through living and non-living resources, transport infrastructure and natural products, and sustainable energy solutions; the coastal zone is home to half the world's population. Through these direct benefits, the ocean contributes to reduced hunger and poverty, improved health, and all these benefits may be shared across gender, social and national boundaries. However accessing ocean benefits results in pressures that may drive decline in ocean health. Managing this complex system for a sustainable blue economy requires developing and using the right knowledge, new governance mechanisms and investment by stakeholders from global to local levels. This ‘blue economy’ narrative builds on the links between ocean health (SDG14) and economy (SDG8), but the general model can be expressed from the perspective of any goal(s) towards the others. The model also applies across scales from local to global, the relationships defined in the model enabling monitoring and assessment. The model can thus help align global instruments such as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework with Agenda 2030, and linking from national to grassroots levels.