The 2017 Life Below Water Conference was held in Malmö (Sweden) from 11-13 October, bringing together 250 delegates from four continents to inspire, learn, debate and drive action at a local level for the marine environment. The conference, opened by Mayor of Malmö Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, featured inspiring keynote addresses from NGOs, cities, academia and business as well as Sweden’s Minister for the Environment, Karolina Skog.

The conference highlighted the complexity and interrelated thematic challenges linking our activities on land to a range of threats to the ocean environment. The links with work in cities for circular resource management, sustainable food systems, waste management, climate mitigation and adaptation were just some of the most obvious connections. The conference focused heavily on the opportunities presented for economic development through improved management and use of our ocean resource, creating local jobs and making local economies work for marine protection.

The City of Malmö and ICLEI will present the findings of the Life Below Water Conference at Ocean Day, an event which aims to highlight the strong interlinks between climate change and marine environment. Ocean Day is being organised as part of COP23, the UN Climate Change Conference taking place 6-17 November, in Bonn (Germany). In addition, ICLEI and the Global Island Partnership will launch a global island/city initiative for climate, which also includes marine related protection, mitigation and adaptation measures. A roadmap for incorporating work for SDG 14 Life Below Water, will be developed in the run-up to the ICLEI World Congress in Montreal (Canada) 2018.

For more information about the Life Below Water conference, visit their website.