00:10Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:14where we want you to consider and then we consider what you know of the news of the day.
00:19Now, Southeast Asia sits at the heart of one of the world's most biodiverse marine regions.
00:25And despite many of us living in maritime nations, we rarely think about how the ocean shapes everything
00:32from our climate to our food security and trade and our economy. So what happens when societies
00:40that depend on the ocean don't fully understand it? And can we protect what we do not understand?
00:48So to help us think this through, there's been a growing movement of educators, scientists and
00:54advocates who believe that ocean literacy might be the way to address this. Joining me on the show
01:00is Reza Zakaria, who is the head of the Maritime Law Policy and Governance Unit at University Malaya's
01:06Institute of Ocean Earth Sciences. He has recently been appointed as a member of UNESCO's Group of
01:13Experts for Ocean Literacy for the Westpac region. So Reza, welcome to the show. Thank you so much
01:19for joining me. You know, I often hear things like climate literacy and environmental literacy. But
01:24let's talk about ocean literacy. When we think about what that means, and for Malaysians specifically who
01:31are, we're part of a maritime nation, but we, many of us don't, you know, live by oceans or work
01:38in
01:38maritime industries. Why should we be ocean literate?
01:43Okay. Thanks. Thanks Melissa for having me again. So ocean literacy is actually something that people
01:51may be not heard of before. But in the definition side in UNESCO, under UNESCO definition is what we mean
02:02by
02:02an understanding of oceans influence on our life, our daily lives, and how we influence on the ocean. So
02:12it is a reciprocity kind of a relationship that what we have for the ocean and what ocean actually can
02:20contribute. And as a ocean literate person would understand, it's not just with regards to the
02:28science, not with regards to the environment, but how to control, how to manage and how to govern
02:35this ocean with the, you know, tools at hand. And globally, I mean, not just in Malaysia, I mean,
02:44ocean literacy has now been something that increasingly been seen as a pinnacle of, you know, for ocean
02:52sustainability and sustainability. And also how it changes our societal behaviour. And this is
02:59fundamental, especially in climate change in situation where everything is now been affected
03:06due to climate change. And just to give you an example, I mean, some of the ocean literacy work
03:13that is currently ongoing around, you know, the region or around the world is the Marine Framework
03:20strategy, directives, blue economy that incorporate the whole ocean literacy. And this sort of behaviour that
03:32we are pivot to having an ocean literacy is something that is welcoming, especially, you know, we are in the
03:41centre of ocean, we have like almost 70% of our coastal areas are surrounded by oceans. And over the
03:53years,
03:53I mean, Malaysia has now faced great challenges, risks in pollution in the ocean, when it comes to, you know,
04:01talk about plastic waste, you know, improper waste management, you know, dumping from shipping,
04:09from maritime areas. So this, not only just with regards to rural people, you know, we are talking about rural
04:17areas,
04:18but we are talking about development areas, you know, certain areas like in Malacca, in Penang Island,
04:24and these are not just small ports or small areas, but it also affects the residential, the populations in that
04:32region.
04:33And it changes how we as society look at it, especially, you know, in terms of how it affects the
04:45future,
04:46our generations to come. Because right now, older generations are very much tied to the olden methods of,
04:54like for example, ancient fishing techniques, or even, you know, how they would not go to the middle of the
05:01sea
05:02at a certain time of the year. But now it has changed because we believe that there are signs
05:09that they can prove all these elements that ocean is now changed the cost because of science.
05:16So we have all that to prove with data, to prove with scientific facts. And now how do we get
05:24that
05:24across to the public? How do we actually get that across, especially to our rural areas in Malaysia?
05:31And this is just not to save some, you know, hundreds of fishers, but in the future,
05:37how is this going to affect our future generation in terms of getting food on the table, in terms of
05:46ensuring that the fishermen can continue to get, you know, the catch to sell and put it on our table.
05:54So that is just more than just a literate kind of a thing that we provide to the public.
06:01Yeah. So that in general, what it means by ocean literacy.
06:04Well, that's so important, because what you're saying essentially is that ocean literacy is more
06:11than just an educational issue. It has to be seen as a policy issue. And that's quite scary. If the,
06:17if policymakers, if people who make decisions in business, even community leaders don't have a very
06:25strong understanding of ocean systems. Reza, you're part of this group of experts under UNESCO's ocean
06:30literacy for the Westpac region. Can you talk a little bit about that work? What are some of the
06:37approaches or the lessons that you're taking from the region in terms of building more ocean literacy,
06:44more public engagement with ocean issues?
06:48So the whole idea of having this group of experts from this region, especially, and include all the
06:59Western Hemisphere regions experts, is just to bring the communities together in terms of how do we share
07:10these common problems and common interests that we have at the same, I mean, we share the same thing in
07:16terms of the pollution that we have in the ocean and how it affects our daily lives. But now moving
07:25forward, how do we actually assist one another? So we share the common interests, but how do we actually
07:32assist this moving forward? So talking about like next year, in 2027, we have this big, huge ocean decade
07:42conference in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. So one of the ideas is that we can get all the people
07:49from this
07:50region, from the experts, not just to share this idea, to share the common interest, to share the common
07:57problem. But how do we get some experts into this whole area of this problem? So scientists, for example, and
08:06this trying to
08:08break the barriers between scientists and also the experts, and as well as NGOs, because most of the time, the
08:16NGOs and the scientists, they are not working together. And even policymakers, don't forget that policymakers, usually, they work on
08:25silos.
08:26So by that time, we would actually have a working group together. So this working group from
08:33Westpac, IOC, for this group of experts, we consist of people from engineers, we have people from
08:42environmentalists, experts from policymakers, government servants, academia, researcher, even lawyers, to come
08:52together to bring in whatever that they have, in terms of from their own region. And one thing that I
08:59can share that we all have this same problem with regards to climate change. So climate change is one of
09:06the most talkable issues that we have that we discuss. So for example, what happened in the Philippines,
09:13what happened in Thailand, what happened in Malaysia, it is echoed the same thing. And this is actually
09:19quite scary in terms of how we see things. So it seems like we are not alone, we are not
09:29on ourselves. So in
09:31terms of that, we share the same common interest there. And that's how I think we can bring everyone
09:36together. What does that look like, Riza? If you think about, you know, all the different stakeholders
09:42working together, you talked about how CSOs may not be working with scientists and government agencies
09:46are kind of operating on their own policymakers have their own ideas. If everyone were to work together
09:52in a concerted effort to address some of the ocean issues that Malaysia is facing, what does that look
09:59like if we work together to protect our ocean? Now, everyone or every of this agency, body or institution,
10:09they have a certain interest in this, you know, ocean, for that matter. You know, either it gives food
10:18security, it gives certain coastal, you know, protection rights, public health, trade, tourism, you name it.
10:26So, I mean, even state governments in like, for example, in Malaysia, we don't have to go very far,
10:32but state governments have a certain autonomy, and they give a lot of interest to the state governments
10:39in terms of tourism. Now, in Malaysia, I think we do have it in paper, it seems like we have
10:47it on paper,
10:48like the 13 Malaysia plan, that goes up to 2030. And this highlights, you know, blue economy, as I mentioned
10:58earlier,
10:59governance, priority in terms of include blue economy ecosystem to protect ocean, via ocean literacy.
11:10And it's good to see it on paper. But now, how about we transfer that into the implementation side? Now,
11:19that is what we are doing. We are trying to go to the field and then talk to the people,
11:25see whether it is
11:27actually something that is feasible. You know, we have that on paper in terms of how we can put the
11:33numbers,
11:34how can we save, you know, the climate change from not happening. Well, it is something that we can't
11:41stop. But how do we educate and put more awareness to the public? And it's good to look at it
11:52on the
11:52paper. But at the end of the day, how do we actually break that barriers? And to share with you,
11:58I mean,
11:59we have started this educational system in, you know, to provide this in tertiary. Now, how about we do
12:06this in the primary and secondary schools in Malaysia, you know, provide this in educational system,
12:13you know, work together with the Ministry of Education, with the Ministry of Science and work in
12:20terms of the curriculum to provide this ocean literacy work. And this is something that it is
12:29interdisciplinary between other ministries, other principles. And it's not just a one particular
12:37development from this one particular institution, or one particular country that does only this one
12:43particular area. And mind you, I would say that Indonesia has done tremendous amount of work,
12:50the Philippines has done so much of public awareness to the public, and they have thousands and thousands
12:57of NGOs that have done this work. And Malaysia is somehow catching up to their standards and to their
13:06levels, which I'm quite happy to see. But it seems that it's good on paper, but it's not there yet,
13:12because the implementation takes time, especially, you know, with a lot of
13:20bureaucracy and the situation that is caused with the government. Yeah.
13:24And there are also many other kind of competing issues trying to come for our attention. I'm glad
13:29you brought up the Philippines, Reza, because we will be speaking to an NGO in the Philippines working
13:35to protect their oceans. But thank you so much for joining me on the show. That was Reza Zakaria from
13:40University of Malaysia's Institute of Ocean Earth Sciences. We're going to take a quick break here
13:45and consider this. We'll be back with more. Stay tuned.
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