Meta-Portrait Series—Eight Steps to Ocean Health—30x30x30

Scientific and economic thinking is converging on the need to restore and conserve a much greater area of the Earth for our future security. Suggested long-term targets include as much as 50% of the biosphere, with science-backed NGO messaging aligning behind 30% of the planet or ocean by some measure protected by 2030—a call typically labeled 30x30. Why this is necessary and how it can be done while respecting socioeconomic needs have been the subject of some recent ground breaking reports, perhaps pointing to a new theory of the economics of ecological conservation and restoration.

This iteration of the Gravity Engine project, created in response to World Ocean Day utilizes text excerpts from the 2019 report authored by Dan Laffoley of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in collaboration with an international panel of scientists and academics and the support of multiple international research institutes outlining eight key strategies for future of the ocean—nothing less than a strategic plan for ocean health.

Here the Gravity Engine work seeks to illustrate (to account for, in some way) the inescapable gap between our direct experience of nature and reality and our communication around it—the idea that we construct our own reality via our text and that something of our direct experience is inevitably lost in translation—illustrating our drive for agency while registering that there are things we can never hope to capture. Here, 30 randomized text clips from the Laffoley et-al report have been used as data input into a program subsequently run 30 times to result in 30 unique images—the artwork not so much the output, but the software itself—the engine to generate images to account for gaps in meaning/truth/communication/understanding. 

Other relevant links include:

The 2019 Greenpeace 30x30 (Roberts) report outlining how a 30% protection target for the ocean can be achieved using detailed analysis and modelling—in many ways a report on the state of the art regarding our understanding of the benefits of and strategies for conservation.

The 2021 UK HM Treasury Economics of Biodiversity (Dasgupta) report proposing a framework for ecological strategy and thinking on economic grounds.

Calls by the Pew Charitable Trusts and other high profile NGOs in support of the 30x30 target.