Mundus maris Award 2015

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by Eco Generation | 10-03-2015 08:58 Comments 5 recommendations 0

Mundus maris Award 2015 – We Are All Connected To The Ocean

Date: NOW to 20/Apr/2015 Type: Online

– We Are All Connected To The Ocean

The Ocean and its amazing creatures have inspired cultures and traditions across the world. Legends, myths, stories, works of art testify throughout the history of respect and admiration that humans pay to the marine world today helped by modern science. The Ocean has a value in itself. Humanity could not survive without a healthy Ocean. Our Planet Earth itself would not be the same without it. Plant life in the Ocean produces every second breath we take. However, the abusive exploitation of marine resources, excessive and destructive fishing have degenerated marine ecosystems on an unprecedented scale. After years of industrial overfishing, the abundance of many big marine species is only a very small fraction of what it used to be.

The Ocean has absorbed already much of the CO2 human activities have released into the atmosphere and which provokes climate change. This assault on its integrity provokes its waters to become warmer and acidified. All kinds of waste – nuclear, plastic, pesticides, land-based nutrients, other harmful chemicals and litter - is thrown mercilessly into the Ocean and thus degrades both marine and human life. As a result of this violence, the Ocean is losing its capacity to sustain many species, including those directly providing food and medicines for us. Dead zones without oxygen are on the increase. Climate change in the form of warming also has major negative impacts on polar ice caps, glaciers, marine biodiversity and coastal populations that once lived in harmony with nature. And the Ocean is also the tragic scene of armed clashes, wars and desperate migration, aggravating the ecological damage and trampling human dignity.

Why is this? Can we imagine to stop the slaughter and the destruction? Can we all together change course, restore the Ocean e.g. through networks of large Marine Protected Areas and to stop the catch of babyfish? We believe that together, with the concern and determination of the citizens of the world, we can! We need our dreams, the best scientific knowledge publicly available and moral purpose to achieve this feat. We are all called to restore and protect the Ocean. We hope our collective efforts will be great enough to take care of this Life Support System, for present and future generations and Planet Earth as a whole.

The splendor of the sea near Antofagasta, Chile (photo: CE Nauen)

We invite you – young people up to age 24 (up to 12 years, 13 to 18 years and 19 to 24 years) - to participate in a contest for the Mundus maris Award 2015 for celebrating the World Oceans Day 2015, 8 June, together. We invite original and creative written and visual stories about the ocean. Stories are welcome from all over the world. The best in each age group will be published in an open-access e-book to help others to connect to the Ocean too.

Inspirational text for 2015 celebrations: ?The Ocean and the Human Family? (see the text on the previous page).

Forms of participation:

What would you do if you were to decide on how we could care better for the Ocean? Write up a story.
What is your dream for the Ocean in the future? Write up a story
What is your dream for the Ocean in the future? Draw up a cartoon

Maximum size: three A4 pages (for individual or collective work)

Language: English, French, German, Italian or Spanish

Illustrations (drawings, photos) as part of a written story are welcome.

Format: PDF or JPG (one jpg per page) – recommended. Please send pure text in word or open office (odt) format using Arial 11 pts font

Squids - photo by Bruno van Saen, HUGYCUP 2013

Please submit your participation as an e-mail attachment to WOD15@mundusmaris.org enabled to view it.

How to participate:

Participants have to submit in the same e-mail the following data: name and surname, age, nationality, postal address and contact e-mail.
Works can be individual or collective: specify the complete data of every participant of the team and mark team participation clearly.
For participants younger than 16 years, an adult has to authorise their participation (please provide the data of both).
Submissions have to be original and in harmony with World Ocean Day objectives. Any form of plagiarism will disqualify the work.
Materials shared in the public domain can be used, but the source has to be adequately acknowledged.
An international jury will examine all entries and select the winners. The judgement of the jury is final.
The jury will take into account the age of participants and allot awards accordingly.
The participation in the contest means the authorization of Mundus maris and other sponsors to share and recognize the submitted works in the public domain with due recognition of the authors.

Youth cleaning the beach in Hann Bay, Senegal, in 2014 (photo A. Sall)

The best entries will be especially recognized in an open-access e-book.

Deadline: The deadline for submissions is Monday, 20 April 2015, 17h Brussels time.

Awards:

For each category there are three prizes of 300, 200 and 100 Euro respectively.

The best entries will be honoured in World Ocean Day events in several countries and published in an open-access e-book to inspire others to connect to the Ocean.

Each participant will receive a personal ?Honorary Diploma? by e-mail in recognition of the effort contributed to celebrating World Oceans Day 2015.

Special events for World Ocean Day with award ceremony:

The winners will be announced on World Oceans Day: 8 June 2015, in several celebratory events in different cities around the world from Brussels and Buenos Aires to Rome.

The Mundus maris Award 2015 is in collaboration with:

Click on the logo to see the website of the collaborating organisation.

	AQUARIUM PUBLIC DE BRUXELLES Belgique - Belgie - Belgium OPENBAAR AQUARIUM BRUSSEL	ALDEBARAN

Eco Ethics Kenya	Centre de Recherche sur les Technologies Intermediaires de Peche (CREDETIP), Dakar, Senegal