Oceanus

In her immense adoration and enchantment by the sea, Sophia de Mello Breyner described her soul as salt air and stated that, when she died, she would return to seek all the moments she had not lived by the sea. Over time, all the poets sang the sea, our sea, deeply Portuguese, which now brings us sustenance, work, adventure, joys and glory, sometimes it crushes us with suffering and death. For the Portuguese, the sea is the extension of the land. Ruy Belo once said: “My country is what the sea does not want!”. Definitely, the sea served as a backdrop for many great civilizations and enriched Western literature, right from the start with the Odyssey, archetype of all maritime epics.

Unfortunately, in recent decades, the oceans have suffered profound aggressions that jeopardize their biodiversity and, consequently, their sustainable development. Every year, we introduce about eight million tons of plastic waste into the ocean, and excess carbon dioxide acidifies the waters, helping to destroy coral reefs. The warming of the atmosphere can also lead to an increase in the average water temperature and the disappearance of several species of fish. These threats, and many others, that affect this immense ecosystem, led the United Nations, in 2017, to declare The Ocean Science Decade 2021 - 2030. Under the motto: The science we need for the ocean we want, the overriding objective it is to mobilize the scientific community, legislators, companies and civil society for a program of joint research and technological innovation.

CLIP, as Escola Unesco and Escola Azul, will initiate and continue different projects, promoting several activities that will have as a backdrop the sea / oceans that we all want to know better and, above all, take care of.
Ambitious, don't you think? Let's dive in, then!

                                                                              Isabel Sousa

                                                                              Coordenadora do Projeto Unesco