Interview with new team member, Doriane Marin. Somewhere, beyond the sea, there’s sustainability, waiting for me.

On this occasion, we talked to one of our new Sustainable Professionals, Doriane Marin.

Doriane comes from the South of France, from a Mediterranean coastal region in the country and Corsica island. From an early age, she has loved the ocean and saw it as a fundamentally important part of the planet’s ecosystem. And this is exactly what she has decided to make the focus of her career so far.

But first, she started with her studies in public international law and international administration – in Bordeaux, Poland, Canada, and La Sorbonne University in Paris – where she learned some important skills she would need to kick-start her global career. Very soon after finishing her university studies, she found herself traveling further afield.

Her first experience was working in Myanmar for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). There, she focused particularly on analysing national legislation in order to mainstream climate change adaptation and ecosystem approach to fisheries management international standards, and prepared capacity-building training for the government, fishing communities and students of the University of Yangon.

This sparked a realisation in her that the oceans are not to be taken for granted. Seeing the importance of this field, she then went on to work for the EU’s DG MARE, on algae and aquaculture.

“Oceans are extremely important when thinking about sustainability”, Doriane says. “Just one example: it is estimated that the ocean concentrates 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere.” For some scientists, the Deep Sea and its water column may be the largest carbon sink on Earth.

What are your aims at #SustainablePublicAffairs?

“I would like to continue to do what I have been focused on so far – the sea and everything else this entails but also broaden my field of competencies in everything relating to the protection of natural resources”.

Right now, there are several high-priority files relating to this topic in the EU, such as the new algae initiative or the new Strategic Guidelines for the sustainable development of EU aquaculture. So, it is certainly a fast-moving and important field to be working on.

“But of course, this is not the only part of the equation”, she says, adding that she would like to “learn more about sustainability in other areas, contribute to the great goals of #SPA across the board, and make a true impact in the EU policy-making world”.

What is the biggest opportunity to improve sustainability?

Tackling the problems with the ocean is not simple – after all, they do make up around two thirds of the entire planet.

Some of the issues she sees as having a huge impact are biodiversity, the sustainable use of ocean resources, tourism and recycling. “The last thing we want to see is plastic bottles all over the place – someone has to be doing something about this”, Doriane says.

“Oceans are not the problem”, she says with a smile, “but they could be a big part of the solution for fighting climate change and preserving biodiversity”.

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