How strategic ocean literacy can be used to empower coastal communities in their transitions

Rapidly changing climate, economies and social contexts mean that coastal communities are facing a period of inevitable transition over the coming decades. Ocean literacy is now widely accepted as an essential element in addressing and accepting the challenges we face, and is recognised in the UN Ocean Decade White Paper, specifically Challenge 10: Restoring society’s relationship with the ocean. The EU Horizon EmpowerUs project promotes ‘socio-economic empowerment of coastal communities as users of the sea to ensure sustainable coastal development’. The project has been working with coastal communities at Transition Coastal Laboratories in six European countries Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Spain to identify the biggest transitioning challenges each faces. These include engaging home-owners in water management to save local fish stocks, and helping island communities to minimise outmigration and mitigate from the resultant infrastructure breakdown related to small isolated communities. Traditionally, ocean literacy or marine education may have been considered as outreach or awareness raising for challenges like these, but we ask ‘How can ocean literacy aim to empower communities to feel like they can have justice in their transitioning needs?’.  Underpinned by a blue justice framework, individuals across the EmpowerUs communities were asked about their feelings of justice in meeting their transitioning needs. An established framework comprising ten dimensions known to influence ocean literacy was then used to drive marine educators and practitioners in each community to question how they can move beyond outreach (pushing traditional knowledge and awareness), to ensure that the activities developed maximised their contributions to the other eight other dimensions known to affect ocean literacy. The framework was then applied to evaluate how the EmpowerUs project strategically considered targeting empowerment of both blue justice in a context of coastal transitions, and different elements known to affect society’s relationship with the ocean. We present our novel approach together with the challenges of working across diverse perspectives with the Leaving No-One Behind principle.