Progress report for
New Caledonia Towards Sustainable Blue Growth
Achievement at a glance
Following the first "Sea Day" organized by the New-Caledonia Maritime Cluster in July 2017 in Nouma (New Caledonia), five priorities have been identified i.e. : a/ sharing marine data and implementing Marine Spatial Planning ; b/ boosting the ecological transition and promoting marine renewable energies, c/ Training youth in marine technologies and know-how, d/ Setting up on the marine waters and EEZ of New-Caledonia a marine sustainable development "pole of excellence", e/ solving the problem of end of life boats by strategic recycling operations. Furthermore, the New-Caledonia Maritime Cluster has been active, presenting papers on Blue Growth Strategy in various national, regional and international events from 2017 and played an active role in defining and launching projects.Challenges faced in implementation
Among the main challenges it can be pointed out :<br>
<br>1/ New Caledonia has ben successfully identified (september 2019) as "Innovation Territory" following the PIA3 call (Future Investment Programme - French Prime Minister action) and choses its ocean and sea domain as ambition and innovation core. 14 projects from a "smart" cable implementation beetween New-Caledonia and Vanuatu to marine biotechnologies projects, including AUV fleet to investigate deep environment or the building up of a marine geospatial data hub will be developped in the framework of a 72 M programme
<br>2/ The recent New Caledonia government decided to set up and develop a maritime sustainable strategy facing the questions of economy diversification and boosting blue growth. For such a goal a "Blue Book" will be produced by mid-2020
Beneficiaries
- Maritime economic actors in various sectors of maritime activities
<br>- Public decision optimization,
<br>- Associations dealing with marine life preservation, sea culture and arts
<br>- General Public
Actions
- A French Maritime Committee has been set up in Nouma in september 2019 to boost the links between the potential beneficaries<br>- The second General States of the sea will be organized by the New-Caledonia Maritime Cluster in Nouma (8-9 July 2020) to enforce the awarness of the population and actors facing a sustainable Blue Growth strategy implementation.