CEO Notes from the Field: United Nations Ocean Conference, Nice, 2025
First off, a huge thank you to support from the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance for supporting our participation in both the Blue Economy & Finance Forum (BEFF) in Monaco and the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice, France.
At the BEFF, we had the chance to meet lots of different partners mostly focused around ORRAA, our Insurance Project, and presenting with them. We started to engage some of the larger foundations as well as significant programmatic partners, learning from the blue finance experts and bringing Save The Waves into the picture. BEFF was a high-level gathering, with heads of state, ministry representatives, and investors headlining panels and keynote sessions.
At UNOC, we continued conversations with new and existing supporters and partners. We hosted a successful side-event, post-event drinks and tapas at a local restaurant, and a virtual side-event. There was significant engagement, with events spread throughout Nice and significant civil society, philanthropic, and governmental participation.
Our Takeaways: Sharing What We’ve Learned With You
💰The Ocean is an Investable Asset, and innovative finance offers new pathways forward: There seemed to be a lot more individuals and organizations piling into the ocean innovation space and ocean startup world. There were lots of accelerators and a lot of private capital flowing towards resilience and conservation solutions. There seemed to be a lot more of these meetings that we participated in rather than larger governmental processes or grantor funded workshops. It might be the nature of our current funders (thanks again for all the support ORRAA!!!) but it seems like an interesting shift is going on to think of ways to invest in ocean health with financial return and impact with more potential sustainability. Exciting efforts led by 1000 Ocean Startups, Katapult, ORRAA, Outrigger, Builders Vision and many more are looking at the ocean economy.
✅ Bottom up-coalitions are proving to be the way forward toward 30×30 goals: There seemed to be a growing trend towards more of a bottom up approach to marine conservation, whether it was networks of small protected areas, OECMs, indigenously managed areas. It seems that creating coalitions with rather small actors to have outsized impact is gaining traction and attention. While there were a few giant treaties announced and multilateral agreements signed like the BBNJ (Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity Beyond National Jurisdictions), a definite growing trend was the community-based approaches, which is helpful for the Save The Waves model.
🏄Surfing captures people’s imagination! Whether it’s the aesthetic part of it, excitement of sport, or the international culture of surfing, the concept attracts a lot of interest and opportunity. It still remains a unique and innovative approach to conservation and gaining a hold in the policy worlds of the UN, which again is positive for Save the Waves and our partners.
🧑🤝🧑In-person events remind us that people are key to conservation: We have more ways to connect with people than ever before, but are we really more connected? I think there is no substitute to being in person and experiencing a shared reality together. The biggest takeaway of the conference was cutting past the presentations, outreach materials and speeches, and instead walking through the streets of Nice taking in the sights and sounds or dipping your feet together in the Mediterranean. These shared experiences are what build community, and allow us to connect with others.
Our Coalition at UNOC
We had helpful conversations with friends from Ecuador, the protected area delegation from Mexico, folks from the Azores (Blue Azores, Save Azores Waves, Oceano Azul), our long-time partners at Fundacion Rompientes from Chile, and our ambassador and new Stewardship Fellow Hannah Bennett from Fiji. We met with Dan Hammer and Project ODE, Blue Marine Foundation and UCSC’s Coastal Resilience Lab and AXA Climate for our insurance work. Also connected with Seatrees, who are leading interesting stewardship projects with restoration. Revive our Oceans and Dynamic Planet are a pretty interesting new project of Pristine Seas and Nat Geo, with lots of synergy with the STW model, working more broadly toward networks of small MPAs and creating businesses that support them. There were many more casual meetups with friends and thought partners such as Serge Raemakers from ABALOBI, Hoyt Peckham from WCS, partners at Conservation International, Rare and many more.
Our Events
BEFF Workshop: We were part of an insurance panel with AXA and Rare on creative financing, with STW representing an innovative application of parametric insurance that has drawn a lot of interest. We had great conversations ranging from technical details to fundraising with the AXA team, UCSC, Rare, and Outrigger after the Sunday morning event.
UNOC Side Event: We had the opportunity to host an in-person side event in the green zone (the better zone), with a smooth set of presentations by Andrew Hume from the Global Environmental Facility, Mara Arroyo from Save The Waves, Carolina Butrich from Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental (SPDA), Dias from Konservasi Indonesia , and Diego Sancho from Save The Waves as well. The whole cadre were rockstars and STW was positioned very well as the convener.
UNOC Afterparty: There wasn’t a lot of time to chat or answer questions after our side-event, so we held post-event drinks and tapas (an afterparty) at La Lupita Restaurant in Nice. It was a relaxed atmosphere where existing and potential partners, funders, and friends showed up and had a time to connect with each other. It was a great success and cemented many of the conversations that we had been having throughout the BEFF and UNOC.
UNOC virtual event: Our GEF project team presented on the work we’ve been doing in Peru and Costa Rica in a virtual side-event focused on surf ecosystem conservation in partnership with CI and SPDA.
Our Events
Program Outcomes: We had important conversations for our conservation programs in Mexico, Fiji, Ecuador, Peru, the Azores, as well as the insurance project in El Salvador, and reconnecting with our friends from Chile for future collaborations. We identified funding pathways for several projects and have been continuing the conversations started in Monaco and France after our return home.
