In the Pacific, UNICEF is working with children and their communities to promote a more sustainable future based on respect and understanding of their ocean and their environment. As a co-host and ambassador for the region Fiji will seek to impress that humanity has a common agenda, we are all connected by the same ocean, every second breath we take is generated by it, and, if we fail to reverse its declining health, it is our children who will feel the impact. Fiji is preparing to co-host the Ocean Conference at a time when the state of the world’s oceans have never been more stressed. Increasingly, they are coming to be seen as Large Ocean States, stewards of the ocean capable of addressing the world with a voice weighed heavy in authority. Whilst island nations have in the past been labelled “Small Island Developing States”, it is crucial that their growing role on the global stage is recognised and understood. A threat to the ocean is a threat to the very existence of these people, cultures and islands. Fisheries and tourism are vital sectors of the economy and ocean reliant activities are intrinsically linked to the health, wealth, history, culture and identity of Pacific people and their region. In Fiji some 60 per cent of people are thought to live in coastal communities, surviving on activities linked to the water. The vast majority depend directly on the health of the ocean for their livelihoods and survival. They live, love and bring their children into the world, never far from the water. This large blue expanse is home for the people living on small Pacific islands. The oldest body of water in the world it is also the largest and most bio-diverse, containing over 50 per cent of all our water. The Pacific Ocean makes up one third of the planet’s surface area and, covering more than 165 million square kilometres, is large enough to swallow all the continents combined. A view of the Earth centred on someone living upon one of the more than 25,000 islands of the Pacific reveals an ocean so large it occupies the entire face of the globe, its blue eclipsing all but a few hints of land. Perhaps as a result it has all too often been only at the edge of minds, when it should be framing them. The Pacific is an ocean cut in half by most maps, skirting their edges.
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