SDG14 - Life Below Water: Towards Sustainable Management of Our Oceans describes the dependence of human beings on shore and marine resources and highlights how oceanic life sustains the livelihoods of people living in coastal areas, affects global economy and plays a significant role for making earth habitable.

In The Marine Environment and United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14, leading marine experts assess the scope, achievements, and limitations of UN SDG 14 for the conservation and sustainable use of marine resources.

A global assessment of potential and anticipated impacts of efforts to achieve the SDGs on forests and related socio-economic systems. This title is available as Open Access via Cambridge Core.

The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. It encompasses 17 volumes, each one devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume is dedicated to SDG 14 “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development". Marine and coastal bio-resources, play an essential role in human well-being and social and economic development. This volume addresses this sustainability challenge providing the description of a range of terms, which allows a better understanding and fosters knowledge about it. Concretely, the defined targets are: Prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution Sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems to avoid significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration in order to achieve healthy and productive oceans Minimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels Effectively regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics Conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law and based on the best available scientific information Prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and refrain from introducing new such subsidies, recognizing that appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing and least developed countries should be an integral part of the World Trade Organization fisheries subsidies negotiation 16 Increase the economic benefits to small island developing states and least developed countries from the sustainable use of marine resources, including through sustainable management of fisheries, aquaculture and tourism Increase scientific knowledge, develop research capacity and transfer marine technology, taking into account the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Criteria and Guidelines on the Transfer of Marine Technology, in order to improve ocean health and to enhance the contribution of marine biodiversity to the development of developing countries, in particular small island developing states and least developed countries Provide access for small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets Enhance the conservation and sustainable use of oceans and their resources by implementing international law as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which provides the legal framework for the conservation and sustainable use of oceans and their resources, as recalled in paragraph 158 of “The future we want” Editorial Board Ulisses M. Azeiteiro, Anabela Marisa Azul, Luciana Brandli, Ernesto Brugnoli, Ana M. M. Gonçalves, Giulia Guerriero, Nathalie Hilmi, Walter Leal Filho, Filipe Martinho, Fernando Morgado, Saleem Mustafa, Nidhi Nagabhatla, Melissa Nursey-Bray, Jessica M. Savage, Teppo Vehanen

The ocean plays a central role in the life and development of human kind. Besides space for navigation and trade (roughly 10 billion tons of commodities are transported across the oceans each year), the provision of biological and non-living resources is the most important service of the marine ecosystems. Yet, these ecosystems are increasingly impeded by human activities and interventions. Human and naturally induced changes in climate are buffered by the ocean, but its capacity to compensate the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is at its limit. The increase of global temperatures and the decrease of oxygen concentration and pH are severe stressors for aquatic species and thus for the whole ecosystem. Urbanisation and population growth at the coast, along with severe levels of pollution, are stressing coastal environments and hampering or interrupting life cycles of species as well as the well established and naturally balanced internal interconnections within and between ecosystems. Mining for oil and gas is interfering with fisheries, competing for space with other sectors and increasing the risks for large scale pollution. The result is a decline in ecosystem services and a negative feedback into the socio-economic systems. The recent reports by IPBES and IPCC underline the degrading conditions in which the ecosystems are situated today. The IPBES report evaluates a number of direct and indirect drivers. Population increase, technical development, malfunctioning of governance and spreading of conflicts affect direct drivers such as sea use change, direct exploitation, climate change, pollution, invasive species and others. Following a series of summits and conventions that prompted the United Nations in recent decades, Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Johannesburg in 2002 and Rio+20 in 2012, all of which were rather land-based, the Sustainable Development Goals 2015 set a new landmark in which the ocean, too, was finally acknowledged as significant to global development. The Ocean Conference in New York in June 2017 led the international community to formulate clear goals for the development of the ocean. The volume Transitioning to Sustainable Life below Water will address critical issues in ocean use and reflect against goals and targets of SDG 14 and other relevant SDGs. Transitioning to Sustainable Life below Water is part of MDPI's new Open Access book series Transitioning to Sustainability. With this series, MDPI pursues environmentally and socially relevant research which contributes to efforts toward a sustainable world. Transitioning to Sustainability aims to add to the conversation about regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs. The book series is intended to reach beyond disciplinary, even academic boundaries. *The chapters listed below, are pre-publication chapters and the final page numbers will be assigned once the book is published as a whole. For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated below: (Author 1, and Author 2. 2021. Chapter Title in Transistioning to Sustainable Life below Water. Edited by Werner Ekau and Anna-Katharina Hornidge.

"In its resolutions 57/141 and 58/240, the General Assembly decided to establish a regular process under the United Nations for global reporting and assessment of the state of the marine environment, including socioeconomic aspects, both current and foreseeable, building on existing regional assessments. In its resolution 71/257, the Assembly recalled that the scope of the first cycle of the Regular Process focused on establishing a baseline and decided that the scope of the second cycle would extend to evaluating trends and identifying gaps. The programme of work for the period 2017-2020 of the second cycle of the Regular Process includes the preparation by the Group of Experts of the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects, of the second World Ocean Assessment, building on the baselines established by the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment (first World Ocean Assessment). In its resolution 72/73, the Assembly decided that the Group of Experts should proceed on the basis of a single comprehensive assessment. The present document was prepared by the Group of Experts in accordance with those decisions"--Summary.