Canadian Ocean Literacy Strategy 2.0
What is the National Strategy 2.0?
In March 2021, COLC published Land, Water, Ocean, Us: The Canadian Ocean Literacy Strategy, making Canada the first country in the world with a national strategy. The aim of this nation-wide effort was to unite fragmented efforts, inspire collaboration, and establish a framework for action to build a more ocean-connected society across regions, sectors, and scales.
Now, more than three years into implementing the National Strategy, we’re reflecting on our progress, impact, and lessons learned to date, and creating an updated strategy to serve as a blueprint to guide ocean literacy efforts in Canada through the second half of the Ocean Decade (2025 to 2030).
The National Strategy 2.0 aims to:
- Celebrate progress and achievements to date
- Address challenges, gaps, and opportunities for growth
- Update goals and key initiatives to strengthen collaboration
- Continue to align efforts across regions and sectors
- Better bridge the gap between awareness-raising and action
- Accelerate sustained impact
Consultation Process & Timeline
To ensure the updated National Strategy is responsive, inclusive, and actionable, we’re engaging our network of partners and the broader ocean community through the following input opportunities:
- Public Webinar – January 15, 2025
- Community Input Survey – January 15 – February 7, 2025
- Focused Consultations – February 2025
- Draft National Strategy 2.0 shared for review – April/May 2025
- Official Launch of National Strategy 2.0 – June 2025
Public Webinar
On January 15th, we held a public webinar to begin the community input process, sharing an overview and insights from the initial National Strategy implementation phase (2021-2024).
Community Input Survey
This short survey (6 questions) creates an opportunity for anyone in the COLC and broader ocean community in Canada to provide valuable insights on the impact to-date, strategic goals for 2030, key initiatives upon which to move forward, ways to address notable gaps, and how to best capture all efforts throughout this next phase of work (2025-2030). The survey will close on February 7, 2025.
Focused Consultations
The purpose of these focused consultations is to bring together leaders and active members within each of these areas to discuss specific priority initiatives, collaborative opportunities, and collective impact tracking approaches to help shape the National Strategy 2.0.
These 90 minute virtual discussions will take place on the following dates:
- February 11 – Formal & Non-formal Education
- February 12 – Youth & Early Career
- February 18 – Academic & Government
- February 19 – Indigenous-led Groups
- February 25 – Communications & Media
- February 26 – Business & Philanthropy
Watch this space for updates!