The delegation has been led by the Chinese Vice Minister of Natural Resources and director of the State Oceanic Administration, Sun Shuxian, who has been received by Javier Moreno, CSIC Vice President for International Relations and the ICM Directorate.
A high-level Chinese delegation led by the Chinese Vice Minister of Natural Resources and director of the State Oceanic Administration, Sun Shuxian, has visited this Friday the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in the framework of the celebration in Barcelona of the 2024 Ocean Decade Conference. Completing this delegation were Lu Lihua, deputy director general of the Department of Territorial and Spatial Ecological Rehabilitation; Zhao Peijian, deputy director general of the Department of Marine and Terrestrial Zone Management; Wang Antao, deputy director general of the Department of International Cooperation; Le Tiegang, director general of the country's First Institute of Oceanography; Fang Yinxia, director general of the country's Second Institute of Oceanography; Zheng Rui, deputy division director of the Department of International Cooperation; Shi Shixiang, director general of the Marine Data and Information Service of the Ministry of Natural Resources; Hu Aimin, consul general of China in Barcelona; and Liang Juan, vice consul general of China in Barcelona.
At the ICM-CSIC they were received by Javier Moreno, CSIC Vice-President for International Relations; Valentí Sallares, ICM-CSIC Director; Marta Vendrell, ICM-CSIC General Manager; Francesc Piferrer, ICM-CSIC Vice-Director for Knowledge Transfer; Marta Coll, deputy director of Scientific Strategy at the ICM-CSIC; Marco Talone, deputy director of Internationalization at the ICM-CSIC; Sonia Sagristà, head of Institutional Development at the ICM-CSIC; and Marcos Portabella, principal investigator at the ICM-CSIC.
The visit began with a brief presentation of the Institute and its projects with various Chinese research centres in aquaculture and ocean remote sensing. Then, the delegation visited the ICM-CSIC's electron and optical microscopy service, the experimental aquarium area and the oceanographic engineering service.
"The meeting with the Chinese Vice Minister of Natural Resources, Sun Shuxian, and the rest of the Chinese delegation has been very positive and has allowed to strengthen the existing links between the ICM and the various Chinese research institutions present at the meeting, as well as to explore new possibilities for collaboration in the framework of the challenges of the Decade of the Ocean, particularly in the fields of sustainable aquaculture and remote sensing of the oceans", explained Valentí Sallares, director of the ICM-CSIC.
All in all, the visit, with representatives of the most prestigious and relevant entities in marine sciences in China, highly respected voices in ocean science internationally, has been a real opportunity to increase scientific collaborations between the ICM and the Asian country.
During his stay in Barcelona, the Vice Minister also participated in the opening session of the Conference, in which he highlighted the great challenges facing the ocean and the need to find the will and the means to overcome them. He also referred to his country's commitment to provide the ocean science we need for the ocean we want.
In this sense, he has mentioned the Ocean Decade Collaborating Centre of which they dispose dedicated to the study of the atmosphere-ocean interaction, which encompasses 5 programs, one of which is related to coastal management and is perfectly aligned with Ocean Cities, an international network led by the ICM-CSIC and supported by the United Nations to promote sustainable ocean cities.
Besides this delegation, the ICM-CSIC has received this week another Chinese visit led by Chen Qizhen, deputy director of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, and Wang Wentao, director of the Ocean Division of the same ministry. The meeting was coordinated by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, a Decade Implementing Partner of the UN Decade of the Ocean. Finally, at the Spanish level, the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, visited the ICM-CSIC during the Conference.
Globally, the UN Ocean Decade Conference 2024 brought together governments, experts from different fields, maritime sectors, universities, NGOs, the private sector and civil society, which has generated great international interest, with more than 1,500 attendees from over 120 countries and the contribution of more than 40 speakers.
The outcome of the meeting is the Barcelona Declaration, a document that calls for joining efforts on a planetary scale to define how to manage the oceans in the future. It also asks for increased investment in maritime science to design global policies and to ensure the sustainability of human activities in the oceans. Finally, the Declaration makes a third general demand: that every opportunity be taken to make visible and disseminate the conclusions that emerge from the work of the participants in the UN Ocean Decade 2021-2030.