Las Californias Blue Carbon Initiative

On January 12^th, we held a meeting with Monica Vega, Secretary of Environment for the State of Baja California, and Pamela Rodriguez, Director for Climate Change, to discuss how the IOA can assist the state develop a blue carbon strategy—not only by identifying high-value priority areas through modeling, but also through assessing the wetlands and nearby ecosystems’ value added through fishing and other economic activities.

Ship-borne Marine Pollution

Continuing with our 2021 and 2022 efforts to bring awareness on the shipping industry’s large ecological footprint, particularly from scrubber’s technology and its residual waters, we held multiple meetings with government officials from the State of Baja California Sur during January and February. With the help of the state’s congressional commission for ecological protection, the IOA will be organizing, along with other local partners, a workshop for authorities to build capacity on this highly technical topic.

Rocky Reefs in the Gulf of California

Towards the end of 2022, the Gulf of California Marine Program (GCMP) coordinated data analysis for the annual Rocky Reef monitoring program. This adds to the 22 years of data the team has curated, allowing scientists to track the health of these valuable ecosystems in the Gulf of California. The latest results show that, while some reefs communities remain stable with healthy biomass levels, others are showing signs of stress. The GCMP will continue to monitor these ecosystems in the hopes of improving our understanding of how natural disturbances and human activities impact these ecosystems.

Building a Wider Network for Collaborations

In early February, the GCMP and dataMares visited Mexico City to promote research collaborations and science communication initiatives. We met and caught up with several UNAM affiliated groups—like UNIVERSUM—and the University’s publishing department, which we had the pleasure of meeting back in November 2022 at the FIL Guadalajara. Finally, we visited the Pabellón de la Biodiversidad to meet the team behind the new academic program “Cátedra UNESCO de Diplomacia Científica y Patrimonio de la Ciencia”.

Started by the U.S. Department of State and sustained by a growing community of international hosts and global commitments to action, the Our Ocean Conferences bring together governments and non-state actors to make concrete commitments to protect ocean health and security. 

Don’t miss this IOA webinar co-hosted with BBA Deals that will feature Evan Van Hook, Chief Sustainability Officer at Honeywell; Claudia de la Vega, Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability at Walmart Mexico and Central America, and Gabriel Bustamante, Senior Partner at Bustamante + Freyre law firm and BBA Deals & Disputes Member.

A World Economic Forum report found that nature-positive solutions will create US$10.1 trillion in business opportunities and 395 million jobs through key sector transitions. On the other hand, biodiversity loss can impact businesses through transition, physical, regulatory, and systemic-wide risks that have the potential to impact investment value. However, nature-related investments have historically been overlooked by the capital markets. Similarly, risks brought by biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation have typically been ignored by businesses and regulators.

Just as with sustainability efforts and the transition to net-zero, challenges for businesses to assess and disclose nature-related risks are significant and will take time and capacity building. Here, voluntary initiatives like the Task for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) can pave the way for future mandatory disclosures and proper management of risks tied to nature degradation and biodiversity loss.