YOUMARES 14 – Reflections & Highlights🌊

YOUMARES’14 brought together early career ocean professionals, researchers, and changemakers for an inspiring three-day event focused on collaboration, learning, and action for the ocean. This page offers an overview of the event’s key moments, session insights, and community contributions.

📌Conference Materials

Conference Report | Book of Abstracts | Conference Book

📚 Featured Sessions

Marine Conservation, Biodiversity, and Sustainable Fisheries
This session highlighted critical research addressing marine ecosystems, species resilience, and sustainable management practices. Presentations covered coral responses to low-light stress, Arctic deep-sea meiobenthic communities, Mediterranean shark conservation, and microplastic ingestion in Boops boops. Novel methods such as bioacoustics in the Aegean Sea and oxidative stress assessment in harbour porpoises were also shared. The session concluded with a study on N₂O dynamics in the Fram Strait, reinforcing the urgency for sustainable practices to protect biodiversity and ecosystem health.

Community Engagement and Education in Ocean Sciences
This session emphasized the power of citizen science and local involvement. Highlights included the Meaningful Diving initiative in Colombia, where over 160 EcoDivers have surveyed thousands of square meters of coral reefs since 2017, contributing to early coral bleaching alerts and policy actions. Another sub-session focused on incorporating local insights into ocean education, illustrating how communities can play a central role in ocean conservation and awareness-building.

Ocean Sustainability and Governance
Focusing on systemic solutions, this session explored the UN Decade for Ocean Science and the role of early-career researchers in achieving its goals. Discussions also delved into adaptive governance strategies, presenting frameworks that balance ecological integrity with societal needs for sustainable ocean development in the face of climate change.

Climate-Resilient Blue Practices
This session explored innovations for climate adaptation in marine systems. Key presentations included the use of AI and deep-learning models for predicting megafauna distribution linked to Sargassum blooms, and novel waste reduction solutions to combat marine plastic pollution. In addition, the session spotlighted approaches to sustainable blue economy initiatives that align conservation with responsible economic activity.