Our commitment to the UN sustainable development goals

In 2015 the United Nations set out 17 goals for a better world by 2030. The goals are aimed at ending poverty, fighting inequality and stopping climate change. Guided by these goals, it is up to all of us to work together to build a better future for everyone.

Through our commitment to ethical and sustainable research and community engagement Love The Oceans is committed to the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Our holistic approach means whilst SDG14 is the obvious goal our organisation is working towards, we actually address many of the other goals in our marine conservation journey.

GOAL 1 – NO POVERTY

End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Poverty alleviation and successful conservation are intrinsically linked. This is the reason Love The Oceans takes such a holistic approach to conservation. By alleviating poverty, people begin to have the head space and financial luxury to think about conservation in their day-to-day lives. When it comes to conservation in developing countries, poverty cannot be ignored.

BUILD RESILIENCE TO ENVIRONMENTAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DISTASTERS

Goal: By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters.

2020 was the year that brought the world to a grounding halt with the pandemic reaping havoc across the globe. For our communities, if it demonstrated anything, it showed income in the area cannot be dependent on tourism. Love The Oceans’ Sustainable Fishing Project was a direct result of the pandemic and has helped people in the area become less reliant on the tourism industry for income. It is also helping the marine ecosystem recover, increasing environmental resilience for the future. Our other alternative livelihood plans also help build resilience to possible future disasters and enable communities to become more independent.

GOAL 4 – QUALITY EDUCATION

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Love The Oceans is committed to Goal 4, Quality Education, through our community outreach and education projects. Love The Oceans mission and work specifically aligns with the following target developed to create action to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education:

FREE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

Goal: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.

Love The Oceans works with two local primary schools delivering classes on Marine Resource Management and Sea Safety. Since 2015 Love The Oceans has taught over 1250 children, and delivered free swimming lessons to over 800 children. As part of Love The Oceans education projects, we paint educational murals and invest in improving existing teaching facilities and building new classrooms. As a result of Love The Oceans maintenance and construction work, parents no longer have to pay the mandatory maintenance fee that they previously had to pay to send their children to school, which means that our educational projects are currently sponsoring free education for almost 1500 children. Love The Oceans education projects is also facilitating the establishment of the first high school in the area: since we built both schools up to 10 classrooms each, government has agreed to establish one as the primary for the area, one as secondary, and upgrade the only secondary in the area to a high school. This will mean children will have access to education up to the age of 18 in our area for the first time ever.

Further to this, Love The Oceans has just launched it’s Ocean Conservation Champion Education Program (OCCEP). OCCEP will sponsor 2 of our Ocean Conservation Champions every year to complete their high school education. Love The Oceans firmly believes education is an essential tool for successful conservation.

GOAL 5 – GENDER EQUALITY

Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
As an organisation founded and ran by women, gender equality is something we feel passionately about and is always at the forefront of our minds.

UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS

Goal: Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences

During our swimming lessons, we noticed a large gender imbalance – from around 10 onwards we had much fewer girls than boys coming swimming on a regular basis. After some investigations we found this was because of lack of access to swim-safe menstrual management. As a result Love The Oceans is in the planning stage of a period poverty campaign to give girls and young women access to re-usable, hygienic menstrual management, education and sexual health classes, working to address this gender imbalance, keep girls in school longer, and reduce illegal child marriages.

GOAL 8 – DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Promoting economic growth through alternative livelihoods helps the ocean recover as it alleviates the pressure on the ocean to provide both financial security and food security, ultimately leading to less anthropogenic exploitation of marine resources.

PROMOTE YOUTH EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Goal: By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training.

Love The Oceans’ Ocean Conservation Champion Program is a crucial tool in our toolkit to get more children and youth interested in the oceans, gaining skills, and staying in education longer. In order to participate in our Ocean Conservation Champion program, our under 16s must stay in full time education (it’s free until 16 in our area). After this, they’re offered the opportunity to do further qualifications and training, including swimming instructing, diving and boat activities – largely marine eco-tourism based activities as with the creation of our Marine Protected Area, the job creation will be in the marine eco-tourism space.

GOAL 10 – REDUCE INEQUALITIES

Reduce inequality within and among countries.
Love The Oceans is a strong believer in equality for all regardless of sex, race, ethinicity religion, economic status, gender identity, ability, age or sexuality. Equality is one of our core principles and is why we feel passionately about having a diverse team, bringing different views and experiences to the table, increasing the efficiency of our conservation work.

PROMOTE UNIVERSAL, SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL INCLUSION

Goal: By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status

As well as the gender inequality work mentioned above, Love The Oceans is also working for racial equality. Mozambique is an ex-Portuguese colony and the remnants of this oppressive system are still in play today. Most businesses in our area are owned by foreign entities and people, with Mozambicans rarely employed at higher levels, so we’re supporting our communities to increase the number of Mozambique-owned businesses, also helping to address poverty alleviation.

GOAL 11 – SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
Sustainability is at the core of Love The Oceans work and we strive to incorporate it in everything we do.

PROTECT THE WORLD’S CULTURAL AND NATURAL HERITAGE

Goal: Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage.

Everything Love The Oceans does, leads to this goal. With our mission of establishing a Marine Protected Area in Jangamo, protecting the natural heritage of Mozambique is what we’re working to do.

GOAL 12 – RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
With an ever growing global population, this goal is becoming more and more important. When we look at partnerships we always apply this goal, as well as in our work on the ground.

SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT AND USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Goal: By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.

Sustainable use of natural resources is vital for both the human population’s survival, and wildlife as we know it. One of Love The Oceans’ main focusses is marine resource use and making it more sustainable. This is why the Sustainable Fishing Project was born, spearheaded by our Community Outreach Manager Pascoal Nhamussua and Fishing Chief Gemo Guilamba. This project educates fishermen on sustainable fishing practises, which fish are the best to catch and why conservation is important. It provides fishermen in our communities with the tools to sustainably manage their own fish populations but also be able to feed their families from the sea – an important food resource in developing coastal countries such as ours.

SUBSTANTIALLY REDUCE WASTE GENERATION

Goal: By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.

Since plastic’s invention, waste management is a big problem in our area, with no trash collection or recycling units available – the nearest recycling unit is over an hour away by car – which most people don’t have. However, plastic consumption isn’t just a local problem, it’s a global one, and has created giant garbage patches in the ocean gyres. We’re on the edge of the 3rd largest garbage patch in the world: The Indian Ocean Garbage Patch. Measuring over 5 million km2 we have trash washing up on our shores on a daily basis, largely made up of plastic, with little way of disposing of it.

This is why our eco-brick initiative was born. We use 2L plastic bottles thrown out by the resorts and bars in our area and pack them with beach trash. They form solid bricks which can be used in local construction projects which removes the trash from the environment. We’re working to role this out on a larger scale so households can manage their plastic trash themselves and not have to burn it – causing a whole other set of environmental issues, not to mention the danger to public health.

GOAL 14 – LIFE BELOW WATER

Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Love The Oceans is committed to Goal 14, Life Below Water, through the achievement of our mission to establish a Marine Protected Area in the Inhambane Province through a bottom-up, community-led approach. Love The Oceans mission and work specifically aligns with the following targets developed to create action to conserve and sustainably use the oceans:

REDUCE MARINE POLLUTION

Goal: By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution

Love The Oceans is working to reduce marine pollution through frequent beach cleans removing marine debris and documenting the extend of the problem through our Ocean Trash research. Since the start of the Ocean Trash research in 2017 Love The Oceans has removed over a tonne of marine debris from our local beaches, a stretch of less than 15 km. To show our commitment to reducing marine pollution in our region, Love The Oceans has committed to removing 2kg of trash for every piece of Love The Oceans merchandise that is sold.

PROTECT AND RESTORE ECOSYSTEMS

Goal: Sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems to avoid significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration in order to achieve healthy and productive oceans

Love The Oceans’ mission is to establish a marine protected area in Jangamo Bay, through a bottom-up, community-led approach. We’ve already had the area successfully recognised as a Mission Blue Hope Spot and launched our Sustainable Fishing Project, aiming to restore the coral reefs in the area. We’re well on our way to achieving the locally managed marine area with national recognition. This goal is intrinsically linked with our mission.

SUSTAINABLE FISHING

Goal: Effectively regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics

Sustainable fishing is at the heart of Love The Oceans’ mission: through our Sustainable Fishing Project, our capacity-building community workshops in sustainable fishing and our educational outreach, Love The Oceans aims to facilitate the transition from current unsustainable fishing practices specifically targeting sharks and rays towards sustainable fishing supplemented by sustainable livelihoods

CONSERVE COASTAL AND MARINE AREAS

Goal: Conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law and based on the best available scientific information

Love The Oceans’ end goal is to establish a Marine Protected Area, protecting the Inhambane Province’s coastal and marine ecosystems through a community-led, bottom-up approach. The envisaged Marine Protected Area will provide protection for breeding humpback whales, nesting turtles and endangered elasmobranchs; including manta rays, whale sharks and scalloped hammerhead sharks. As mentioned above, having recently established the area as a Mission Blue Hope Spot, we’re well on our way to achieving our mission.

INCREASE THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS FROM SUSTAINABLE USE OF MARINE RESOURCES

Goal: By 2030, increase the economic benefits to Small Island developing States and least developed countries from the sustainable use of marine resources, including through sustainable management of fisheries, aquaculture and tourism.

Love The Oceans aims to increase the economic benefits for the local communities through a transition towards sustainable fishing, supplemented by sustainable livelihoods, including aquaculture and ecotourism. On completion, our Sustainable Fishing Project will protect over 16,000 football pitches of ocean from unsustainable net use and provide 3 communities with the means to transition away from unsustainable fishing. Our Ocean Conservation Program and Capacity Building projects also play a huge educational role in reaching this goal.