The final day of the Ocean Visions finished with a plenary session where panelists and audience members took turns at the mic to reflect on the three-day experience and share their visions for what comes next. A number of these comments focused on the fourth pillar of the Ocean Visions network’s agenda to confront the ocean-climate crisis: Reach. Ocean Visions recently added its “Reach” pillar to the other three pillars in its strategy (Remove, Repair, and Reduce) to ensure that “a wide array of diverse perspectives and backgrounds are fully engaged in pursuit of solutions.”

As the field of marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) jumps from the laboratory into the field, can it advance in a way that avoids crushing coastal communities? That was the unspoken question at the heart of a panel discussion on “Working with Communities at the Ocean-Science Nexus” at the Ocean Visions Summit in Vancouver, BC earlier this week.

I came here on a reconnaissance mission to understand one particular set of ocean climate solutions: those categorized as marine carbon dioxide removal, or mCDR. Who is leading the charge on mCDR, how fast is the field moving, and what key governance and engagement onramps exist for injecting fishing community priorities into the conversation?

Despite our lack of familiarity with this subject, now is the time to learn what it’s all about, and to work together as an industry to define and advocate for a version of mCDR that is “fishery sensitive” — perhaps even “fishery friendly.”