Science for Oceans – La Tercera

MR. PRINCIPAL

The recent incorporation of the Ministry of Science to the Council for Ocean Policy and the Interministerial Committee for the Implementation of Marine Protected Areas is great news for the promotion of research and the use of evidence for decision-making on an ocean that is a source. culture, food, which plays a key role in transport, and which, through the exchange of water, energy and carbon, supports essential habitats for life.

A step that recognizes that knowledge and science are constitutive elements of our sovereignty, and that emphasizes the importance of the ocean as an integrating axis of mitigation and adaptation initiatives to climate change, especially in a country that meets 7 of the 9 criteria of climatic vulnerability and in which a quarter of the population lives in 100 coastal communes.

This step will make it possible to modernize the institutional framework of the national oceanographic research system, strengthen the R&D capacities made up of more than 40 centers and more than 100 research projects, promote the development of talents in ocean science and turn the country into a sensor for the world by integrating ocean observation into the Climate Change Observatory.

With the participation of the Ministry of Science, we hope with ambition to position Chile globally in ocean research, reduce the information deficit on the South Pacific Ocean, share this information to contribute to coordinated climate action, thus guiding the country on a path of sustainability.

Andrés Couve C.

Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation