Ocean conference series 2011-2013

On the initiative of the Lübeck Dräger Foundation the most renowned marine researchers from Europe and the USA launched a series of ocean conferences in Hamburg in June 2011 to protect the ocean more effectively. The conference series was continued in New York in 2012 and concluded with a final conference in Lisbon in 2013. The aim of the "Sustainable Oceans: Reconciling Economic Use and Protection" series was to integrate the latest scientific findings more quickly and directly into political action. Around 70 scientists and lawyers discussed the value of the ocean and the environmentally sound use of its vast energy resources.

The conference series was organized in close cooperation with Columbia University and the Kiel Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean". It was supported by the EU Commission, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven and the Hamburg team of the media and research vessel ALDEBARAN, among others.

As part of the conference, a European Ocean Commission was to be established, following the example of the USA, with the task of translating the most urgent scientific and social problems of the ocean into comprehensible and political approaches for action. The aim was to protect the ocean, the world's largest and most important ecosystem, faster and more effectively than before. Close cooperation with the existing American Ocean Commission was planned in order to jointly solve global challenges such as ocean pollution and progressive climate change across continental borders.