Kimberly Mathisen (00:00)
it's estimated that there's 20,000 collisions with whales in a year. And many of these collisions are lethal to the animals.

Lars Rinnan (00:07)
since 2009, we've lost 14 % of the world's coral reefs. And by mid-century, up to 90 % could vanish entirely. So what's happening? Are we actually losing this fight?

Kimberly Mathisen (00:22)
But when you get right down to looking at what areas we've really truly protected, The number drops down to probably under 2%.

We need to get to 30, Lars, to stop the fundamental decline of biodiversity.

Lars Rinnan (00:42)
So welcome to The World in 2029, the podcast where tomorrow's technology meets today's reality. I'm your host Lars. So today we confront the chilling question. If we can't see the ocean's decline, how will we know when it's too late? And can data still turn the tide? So joining us is Kimberly Mathisen, CEO of HubOcean, an independent nonprofit.

in Norway that's uniting government, scientists and industry on a mission to transform our understanding of the sea through data. Kimberley, thanks for joining us.

Kimberly Mathisen (01:19)
Thank you, Lars. It's a pleasure to be here today and always a pleasure to have a conversation with you.

Lars Rinnan (01:25)
Likewise, I'm so much looking forward to this. So let's dive in, you literally. We're talking about the ocean. So I learned this statistic, you know, that since 2009, we've lost 14 % of the world's coral reefs. And by mid-century, up to 90 % could vanish entirely. So what's happening? Are we actually losing this fight?

Kimberly Mathisen (01:31)
Dive in.

That's a great question. it's definitely true that there's been a serious decline and that's happened right under the surface and right out of sight as you've just said. Over the last 50 years the ingenuity of us humans to industrialize our processes like taking fish out of the ocean or providing ever-increasing energy to the world, know energy which

has damaging greenhouse gas emissions in it and processes by which then go directly into our ocean. And we've thought for many decades, we've thought this ocean in a sense could absorb absolutely anything we threw at it. And you know what, largely it has. It's incredible when you start to understand at a little bit deeper level the jobs that the ocean is doing for us. It's the single most important ecosystem on the planet. It's absorbing.

90 % of the excess heat we're throwing at it. It's sucking up carbon for us. There's these processes which are so crucial to us. They're actually providing every other breath we take. And yet by almost every measure, we are putting such a level of pressure on this ocean right now that we're starting to see us reaching what scientists are calling tipping points and...

You don't have to be a scientist to get a sense of what that means. If we continue to push past these tipping points, we're not sure we can pull it back, right? And so hallmarks of the destruction that's going on that we need to pay attention to are exactly what you pointed out with coral reefs. The facts are scientists do estimate that we stand right now to lose 90 % of the coral reefs on the planet by 2050.

We have already fished out 85 % of the large fish in the ocean. These are the sharks and the tuna and those fish that are so absolutely crucial, desirable for human luxury consumption, but absolutely crucial sitting at the top of a food chain, which we're badly disrupting. if those processes no longer work anymore, I mean,

It really is serious. It's as serious as saying, I mean, no ocean, no life in our ocean clearly means no life for human beings as well. But I don't want to say that that's the end of the story. We've got a whole podcast to fill and boy, am I ready to talk about opportunities and solutions in this because at the core, we must also focus on the fact that this ocean of ours is incredibly resilient beyond anything we even knew.

Lars Rinnan (04:24)
You

Kimberly Mathisen (04:38)
So it can and will and is, as we speak, healing itself, Lars. We just need to give it a fighting chance and take a little pressure off this ocean. And understanding it better, right? Starting with the data is really, really key because up to now, it's a highly exploited in a very poorly governed and still largely unmapped space. So we have much to do.

Lars Rinnan (04:47)
Yeah.

Exactly.

And this is under communicated, I think. You you never hear anything about this in the news. You don't read about it. Of course, a lot of people these days, they get their news from TikTok or some channel like this. And you don't read those kind of headlines. Why is that?

Kimberly Mathisen (05:24)
So thank you.

Well, thank you for having me here today, right? I mean, by each time we focus on this issue through channels like this, we make a difference. You know, why is that? There's a lot of signs and signals that would say the same. For example, if you look at how well funded our sustainable development goals are, that's a proxy for what kind of attention, right, do we put on the ocean or what kind of awareness do we have that we need to fund and fuel

the kind of solution making that I talked about. SDG 14, Life Under Water, is by far the most poorly funded SDG. I think so much happens under the surface of this beautiful ocean that it is literally just very easy to look away. And many, many, of our industrial activities, right, we're used to letting those activities be

be pretty opaquely carried out, right? We set these industries up, giving them permission in a sense, not to report a terrible lot of information or even measure much of what was going on in the ocean around where we were building all of these apparati, right? So shining a light on this is incredibly, incredibly important.

Lars Rinnan (06:38)
So is this due to a lack of knowledge? So we kind of take the oceans for granted it seems. So, but you're trying to bring that kind of information out into the open again and gather a lot of data to inform us about the ocean.

Kimberly Mathisen (06:45)
Yeah.

Absolutely. When I say this ocean is largely unmapped, it's a massive opportunity. But let's be clear, the data we have already, as you say, is oftentimes really fragmented, kind of buried under the surface. There's an unfortunate fatigue even, or hypothesis, a thesis out there by many, say those that work in the finance industry.

that are increasingly wanting to understand all of the risks and opportunities of a company and their portfolio or companies and their portfolio. We got better at measuring that on land, for example. If there's a mining operation on land, investors consider it a risk, an environmental risk often, and they want to understand, well, how good or bad is the footprint and the damage caused by that particular mine versus maybe others I might invest in? Is this really okay for me to be investing? And they want more

insights into that, but the ocean is far behind even the land, right? It's very difficult to put sensors in the ocean. It's a highly corrosive, very complex, right? Communications don't work well underwater in the same way that we use the airwaves. Everything about measuring this is difficult. So there's no question that our eyes and ears in the ocean just our chances to observe have run.

you know, have run far behind. And so what we're doing now at HubOcean, this is really the genesis of where we believe we can come in and, know, no one can do everything to solve this. But our hypothesis is that if we work very, very hard on bringing together all of the data that's already out there, finding new sources to onboard, finding addresses of data, which are long forgotten.

wonderful research projects which have stalled, stranded data assets which have never been used by many. There is industrial data to be unlocked which has been proprietarily held for both good and bad reasons and a lack of awareness. There's an enormous amount of data that can be scooped up and that's exactly what we do at HubOcean. We look at the data sources that everybody kind of knows but we go way, way, way beyond.

and we unlock other data sources, which are lesser known, bring all those together onto an apparatus that we've built. It's called the Ocean Data Platform. It's open, it's operational. It's a wonderfully effective platform that can harness all that data. It's super complex to have that data talk to each other. We bring it together, big data sets. Imagine 1 billion rows in a table, right? 1 billion recordings of

Lars Rinnan (09:28)
Yeah.

Of course.

Kimberly Mathisen (09:39)
temperature, salinity and waves that ultimately could be very critical to inform the condition of either the cold water or the warm water corals. Just to use an example, imagining bringing that all together, putting it in a place where you or I without a lot of coding skills and without a lot of domain expertise could just snap our fingers, draw the information we need, put it in fit for purpose data bundles.

smack it into our analysis and our operations, make those decisions that will have a positive impact and take pressure off our oceans.

Lars Rinnan (10:15)
Yeah, well that's amazing. so what kind of data is this and where do you get it from? mean, is it satellite data? Is it research data? Is it from shipping companies or where do you get it and what kind of data is it? Just to make it a little bit more concrete.

Kimberly Mathisen (10:30)
Yes.

Yeah, thanks for asking. So it's all of the above. So first, if we think about the very best data that we have is oftentimes the result of collaborations by governments across the world, set up for even collecting data from 100, 200 years ago. And this kind of data, it's all of the...

physical properties of the ocean, the chemical properties of the ocean. So we're literally talking about temperature, salinity, wave movement, oxygen levels, important, chlorophyll levels. Then you get into thinking about life in the ocean and all of the information about the habitats. Habitats are really importantly things like is the bottom of the ocean, is it sandy?

What's the consistency of it? What kind of life is growing on it? As you go up the stratosphere, what type of life is living in each and every level from the bottom of the sea floor to the surface? How is life migrating through the ocean? So we have a lot of data that we're interested in, obviously on the habitat of coral reefs, seagrass, salt marshes, mangrove forests. Those are really high value ecosystems.

both because they give life and biodiversity a place to really flourish, but they're also, you know, environments we can locate on a map. We need to get very deliberate about fueling, protecting, understanding the conditions of, right? And then we talk about species and all of the complexity around species move. you know, whales are a little bit difficult to understand. They have a tendency to move.

On the map, you don't find them today where you found them yesterday. You don't find them this year where you found them last year. There are some real consistent patterns. Interestingly, some things that we look at where you've got industry and nature interacting together. For example, ships that roll through on their path, places that are marked that happen to overlap with upwelling that attracts blue whales. And those two things don't go together.

Lars Rinnan (12:46)
⁓

Kimberly Mathisen (12:49)
in the same paths very well at all. It's just one great example that we work in the terrain of in order to start filling in the data gaps, making these things apparent, allowing for everyone to know first of all, but then to take decisions which matter.

Lars Rinnan (13:06)
Yeah,

exactly. mean, having some of larger ships, like freight liners ⁓ or whatever, colliding with some of the largest mammals we have, like blue whales, that sounds like catastrophe. This is happening all the time.

Kimberly Mathisen (13:19)
Yeah, it's not,

it's happening and it's not a small problem. It's the leading cause of death for whales in our world today is ships running and whales strikes. So if you think about, take the waters off the south of Sri Lanka, so off the coast of India and over to Sri Lanka, it's one of the

busiest trafficked shipping lanes in the world and also at a place called Dondra Head, which is just at the south of Sri Lanka. This happens to be one of these areas where blue whales go to feed. They literally directly overlap on the map. And so it's estimated, not just for blue whales, but it's estimated that there's 20,000 collisions with whales in a year. And many of these collisions are lethal to the animals.

And so

No shipping company wants to be plowing into ships. But unless and until the world, right, many actors strive to and succeed in putting visibility around this, action taking can't be expected to happen. It certainly can't even be monitored or measured or rewarded or...

De-incentivized, right? For those who don't want to get engaged in it. once you start thinking about those enormous opportunities, it gets really exciting, right? And at HubOcean, we see the opportunity to bring this kind of transparency into these systems where several stakeholders have a role, provide the data, provide the visibility, start the right accountable processes, right? For good things to happen.

Lars Rinnan (14:56)
I like that.

Exactly.

Because I'm guessing that these shipping companies don't do this by purpose. No, it's not a malicious act. It's more of ignorance. So if they had known where the blue whales were migrating or whatever, they could actually deroute their ships a little bit just to avoid all those strikes.

Kimberly Mathisen (15:23)
Yeah, indeed. And this is exactly what we're right smack in the middle of in this area that I talked about. several shipping companies, in fact, it's become pretty clear that just by migrating, by ⁓ remapping the ship route, say 15 nautical miles away from the current path, that darn near all of these blue whale ship collisions could be avoided.

And so a couple of shipping companies like MSC have already started to lean in, voluntarily rerouting their ships. And right now we're working together with, for example, Valenius Wilhelmsen, a very forward leaning actor in this space, and several others to see if we can systematically address a change for all ships. That would make an incredible difference in one of those endangered species, which is a hallmark species.

that we humans need to be saying, if we're going to survive going forward, then those blue whales have to thrive too.

Lars Rinnan (16:19)
Exactly. It's part of the ecosystem. So you built an ocean platform, ocean data platform. You also built a digital twin of the ocean. I mean, I've heard about digital twins, know, of factories and machines and, you know, this and that, but it's always kind of small and limited. But how do you even start to build a digital twin of something as large and complex as the ocean?

Kimberly Mathisen (16:29)
Yeah

Yeah, well, I'm so glad you asked that. And I want to be very humble and say, I don't think anybody in the world can claim that they've built a digital twin of the ocean. ⁓ But I'll tell you, HubOcean, together with a lot of folks as part of some big European projects we're involved in, and a lot of places in the world, have this as kind of an ambition. But we don't really think of it as building one digital twin for the ocean. It's such a vast space.

everything with this ocean at the same time. The real exciting key to this is thinking about those global data sets. Satellites help a lot in that regard. And these vast networks that we've out there so far, 4,000, for example, of a certain type of buoy to pick up some of this information, that helps us from a global level. But then always what you need to be doing is going deep

under the water as well, where the satellites have their limits. And then you need to be very hungry to bring together all of the data we have, but we need a lot more sensors and eyes and ears and equipment under the water as well. And what we seek to do is think about smaller level digital twins, right? Maybe we make a digital twin of the Oslo fjord, right? It's a tragedy, the decay that's happening in our own backyards here.

Lars Rinnan (18:06)
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Mathisen (18:11)
As both of you and I and this podcast, sit in Oslo today. Yes. It's a tragedy how, the, the, you know, the processes of pollution, essentially, and overfishing are affecting our Oslo fjord. ⁓ so sewage and chemical runoff and, fishing pressures are resulting in an ecosystem in decay that we have heard about for some time, but we're very focused.

together with several others about putting much more structured numbers that can be undeniable and clear, that can tell a powerful story about what is actually happening in that ecosystem. Because you know what? We know enough to act. Nobody needs more data to know that we should be acting on the Oslo Fjord as a very good example. But the trade-offs for any country, I mean, we're talking about a very rich country in the Northern Hemisphere, and it's already difficult, believe it or not.

for the right prioritization to stop that kind of human sewage from being a part of that problem and to prioritize and take the right action. imagine as we go across the globe to be specific and precise in our understanding, modeling the data, introducing in that simulation, that digital representation, one different action, three different investments.

looking to have an understanding of which ones will make the biggest difference. Money is not limitless. Our priorities, we have so many problems to solve. That's why and how these digital twins, ecosystem by ecosystem by ecosystem build up of this much deeper knowledge and connection and cause and effect even between factors is so vitally important to help guide us on our way.

Lars Rinnan (20:03)
Yeah, so you're trying to influence both commercial companies like ship line companies, et cetera, but also countries and governments, which is a huge undertaking, of course.

Kimberly Mathisen (20:12)
Absolutely.

Lars Rinnan (20:16)
So we have this thing called ocean sensitive areas. And I read that only 80 % of marine protected areas are still, you know, they're still poorly monitored. So will countries actually meet the pledge to safeguard 30 % of their waters or will they fall short?

Kimberly Mathisen (20:33)
Yeah, so that's the 60 million dollar question. protecting 30 % of our land and sea is a number that comes very clearly from some very good science. In order to stop the decline of biodiversity that we've seen, we need to dramatically increase the territory that we protect. Today, we've got less than 10 %

of our waters, our ocean protected under any designation, right? Marine protected areas or any designation. But when you get right down to looking at what areas we've really truly protected, areas that we, for example, set aside and don't allow bottom trolling for fishing or don't allow oil and gas platforms to be built and wells to be drilled, right? The number drops down to probably under 2%.

We need to get to 30, Lars, to stop the fundamental decline of biodiversity.

So you bet we have a job to do. To get to 30 % protected by 2030 is actually the goal. And it's what almost 200 countries through the United Nations processes have committed themselves to. So in June, we have one of the biggest ocean assemblies of people happens every two years.

on the planet, it's the United Nations Ocean Conference. One of the most critical things that we are going to look for countries coming there to talk about is if they've ratified the treaty, which bears the weight of their commitment to get busy protecting much more.

Lars Rinnan (22:15)
And how much of this is dependent on good granular data that you already possess?

Kimberly Mathisen (22:23)
Yeah. so spot on. I don't want to, I don't want to overplay the role of data because I think it's very, very important first to acknowledge that in a world with difficult trade-offs and uncertainties, the political will and political will is often born out of the voice and the will of people, right? That's kind how we want this to work. We need

to prioritize this and have the will to find a way to accelerate protecting. And beyond that though, data no doubt is absolutely critical to guide the way we invest in protecting. First of all, HubOcean is engaged in doing a deeper dive of where we should go with our protection efforts, right? We would want to get 10, 20, 30, 40, 50.

specific areas called out and countries making proposals even in their own territory, but also going together to make proposals to protect the high seas where it's technically everybody's territory, right? Which is one of the tough problems. Governing the high seas is by no means easy. But our data, what we intend to do with the backing of others, philanthropies, ships coming in, we have rev ocean, which will hit the water. ⁓

in the Aker family to add to the power of putting assets out there that can collect this data. These types of pieces of information are absolutely critical to strengthen proposals, to motivate proposals. And so we're looking to escort those first proposals that are being made by countries and certainly take away that as a barrier to progress, right? So ⁓ no doubt in my mind that we can have an accelerated power, but data is...

insufficient for this to happen. I want to be clear on that, but it's an absolutely essential component.

Lars Rinnan (24:21)
Yeah. Wouldn't you say that data and facts are actually something that could actually sway the opinion, the public opinion, but also the opinion of the policymakers, know, the politicians and the governments. mean, there's a saying that a good fact can kind of puncture any good debate. Isn't that true?

Kimberly Mathisen (24:43)
I love, I mean, I love that. That's a real inspiration for us. Cause you know, many times people will say, mean, frankly, Kimberly, this problem is obvious. Why isn't anybody taking any action? And why would you think that providing data is going to change anything? Well, you know, at the end of the day, there are so many needs. And if you've got some kind of vague notion, not backed up,

by super clear data, which has somebody's name on it, which says this impact can be reduced if you, dear company, take the following kinds of actions. Or if you look at a certain country, right, we've got wonderful successful examples of protection of territories, right? Galapagos was the first world heritage site and later became a really important MPA that many would point to as a real success in preserving the biodiversity there.

We've got Indonesia with an area of Indonesia where it's the highest concentration of coral reef species in the entire ocean in this one part of the waters of Indonesia. it's been very successful the way that that country has protected that territory. When you first establish a protection, you also have to be prepared to invest in monitoring and in policing, if you will, in having some

⁓ consequences in being able to go ahead and do the hard work over time to say, here's what's not allowed in this territory or what is allowed in this territory. And you need to be able to hold people accountable to that. If those ships would like to come through in areas where they really shouldn't, right? If those fishing activities should continue to happen, maybe not by boats under certain flag jurisdictions, but maybe from other countries and other places that aren't monitored quite so well.

Right? To police these vast, vast stretches becomes critically important and also requires data. If you've got better data on where these activities are happening, right? From the satellites combined with the in situ data, the better and more comprehensive we can put these types of data-driven solutions in the hands of, right? The authorities ⁓ were a lot closer to being able to engender consistent action.

Lars Rinnan (26:44)
Yeah.

Kimberly Mathisen (27:06)
And transparency is super key in keeping people's attention on these types of issues, right?

Lars Rinnan (27:12)
Yeah. So would you say that you are lacking some specific types of data at this point or let me reframe ⁓ it. What would be your favorite data to actually get hold of that you haven't gotten hold of so far that you kind of, let's say, lack in your data platform? What would that be?

Kimberly Mathisen (27:27)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Well, in some sense, I could go just about anywhere. We've got the helpful coaching of scientists that tell us we've got about 33 essential ocean variables, and all of them need help. But if I focus on a couple, a great example is how the world is collaborating, particularly countries and private sector are collaborating to get what we call bathymetry data.

Lars Rinnan (27:34)
Bye.

Kimberly Mathisen (27:59)
mapped. That's the bottom of the seafloor. Believe it or not, this variable, which is seemingly very easy to think about going out and getting, we have had a great consolidated effort now for the better part of 10 years, Seabed 2030, halfway through on our march, to plow together to get 100 % of that seabed mapped because it's so crucial to absolutely any

regulations, any modeling, any decisions. It's a crucial fundamental variable. And you know where we are today? After years of great effort, we've got something like 28 % mapped. And that's way, way up of the sea floor. Yeah. And that's a huge success. And then you scratch your head and you go, what about the other 33 that we haven't worked in such a consolidated way on?

Lars Rinnan (28:40)
28 % of the complete ocean bed.

Hmm.

Kimberly Mathisen (28:54)
We've got gaps all over the place, but I'm going to hold a candle for one favorite type of data. And that is the data that industry has inside their companies, which they've been collecting for as long as they've existed, which for good reasons and also for bad reasons, they've never made available, not to science, not to regulators.

That's the kind of data. Now, if you think about the oil and gas industry as a great example of having a network of assets, which have had sensors on them for more than 50 years, if you take the North Sea, the Norwegian continental shelf, the data that comes off of those platforms is better than any, you know, collective country funded infrastructure that's out there. It's unique. It's

voluminous, it's really, really key to unlock. And I'm happy to say we've partnered, for example, with AkerBP, who is now sharing a lot more of this great, they call it MetOcean data across Ocean Data Platform and getting that out into the hands of science, right? And getting all the good effects from there. Industry is increasingly understanding too. I don't want to go to industry.

to the seismic industry where TGS and PGS have opened up data, to the Aker Crill Company, Aker Biomarine, which is the most transparent fishery at scale, fishing krill, super important to be transparent. So we do not damage krill and whale and the environment and the species in Antarctica. But look, I don't want this to be a charity case. When I go to these businesses, right,

I want to say, how can everybody win? And yeah, you might need to be taken a little bit of risk, but think about it. You know, the very premise of an ocher biomerine, having a good partnership with the regulators, having really good trusted data on just exactly what that ecosystem looks like keeps everybody believing if it's right and the science points to that data, believing that we do understand enough of the behaviors of

Lars Rinnan (30:39)
Yes.

Kimberly Mathisen (31:04)
and the consequences to the ecosystem that we can keep fishing and we can keep it at a low and appropriate level, still allowing regeneration, right? So if AkerBP shares data, you know, and several other of the industrial companies out there share data, guess what? We can cooperate with the meteorological offices. We can enhance the model.

Lars Rinnan (31:15)
Yeah, exactly.

Kimberly Mathisen (31:31)
around our climate, our data. can predict and signal extreme weather, which can happen in pockets of violent storms, right, which risk lives out on those platforms, right? We can help the planning of operations be safer, be more sustainable. We can do a lot of things together. If we put on a mindset and we say, let's throw away the old barriers, let's open ourselves up to a different conversation, and let's hunt for mutual benefits.

Lars Rinnan (31:44)
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Mathisen (32:01)
It turns out there are many to be had. This is about the art of the possible.

Lars Rinnan (32:05)
Yeah, no, but I mean working together in a network instead of just trying to compete with everyone else. I mean that gives you a lot more data to make better decisions obviously and probably a lot of these kind of data sets, they're not strategically important or you know, there's no kind of competition clauses around them.

So why not share them and then everyone can be better. But of course that's the way to get industry on board. You give me your data, I'll share everything with you. You have better operations, more efficient routes, more efficient sailing, et cetera, et cetera. So that's a good way to do it. I think more and more people are opening up to sharing.

Kimberly Mathisen (32:46)
Yeah.

Exactly, exactly.

Lars Rinnan (32:57)
sharing data because they see that they get so much more in return. But it's a different kind of mindset and we human beings are sometimes very slow to change our mindsets.

Kimberly Mathisen (33:02)
Hmm. Hmm.

Yeah, yeah. And this really requires us to hold a few complicated things in our heads at the same time, right? The geopolitical situation. You know, in general, the increased need to invest in defense systems, right, in this day and age. Is that a threat to data sharing or is that an opportunity? Well, I would say it's both. ⁓ Real increased investments in the waters.

Lars Rinnan (33:32)
Yeah.

Kimberly Mathisen (33:36)
puts more eyes and ears in the water. And while we invest in, for example, better surveillance, we need to know if our cables under the water are at threat of being clipped, Or if someone would like to damage our energy infrastructure, we need more eyes and ears out there. Now there can be a tendency to lock down data out of this exercise and say, no, no, no, we're going to add ⁓ out of an abundance of caution, we're going to share less.

Lars Rinnan (34:06)
Mm.

Kimberly Mathisen (34:06)
Right?

But equally, what we do find is there will be so many more opportunities with this investment in our ocean that if we just think about it in terms of real clear responsible decision trees, what data can't be shared, what resolution quality of data can or cannot be shared, this is a tremendous opportunity. Make one investment, learn so much more about our ecosystem as well. The natural world.

Lars Rinnan (34:26)
Thanks for watching.

Kimberly Mathisen (34:34)
which remember if we can hold these two ideas in our head at the same time, this isn't a real choice. We might feel that it's a trade off this year. Do I get more secure? Right? But we have to understand the potential to tip our ocean into that never never land. It's too great for us to be taking that chance, right? So bringing these things together, you know, in however,

governments decide to let industry build increasing infrastructure on the water, increasing shipping on the water, right? When things clear, we're going to be relying on our ocean even more for supporting the very fabric of the change that we see to make. And meanwhile, our fish are migrating away from where people are counting on having them as their main source of food. That can introduce instability.

Nothing can throw a country into chaos faster than if their food and water supplies are disrupted, right? So data in advance, data proactively, data set in ways that we cannot deny where we make progress and where we fail to make progress and increasingly create the art of the possible, the success stories and hold people accountable when they are not moving fast enough.

Lars Rinnan (35:35)
Of course.

Kimberly Mathisen (35:57)
towards that responsibility taking behavior is all of those things is what data can do.

Lars Rinnan (36:02)
Yeah, so if you should pinpoint what kind of industries or what kind of regions or nationalities are really good at this, they see the opportunity of sharing and working in a network and who are on the flip side, who are the worst in class here in terms of industries that don't want to share data, don't want to cooperate, don't want to...

let's say be inside a cooperative collaborative network without naming names, of course.

Kimberly Mathisen (36:32)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know,

it's a tricky question, but a good one because, you know, our efforts are always towards to be as real and as open and transparent as possible. you know, nobody, let me say that no one country or region of the world gets this right all the time and no one company gets this right all the time. But wherever we can start to see forward leaning behaviors, one of the things we really want to do is call them out and reward.

forward leaning behaviors, right? So that we can create more incentives to be a front runner, right? I think that's one of the big challenges in this sport, in this area right now is those who are willing to make investments, to stand out from the crowd, the incentives for them are too far and few between. But anyway, to get to your point, look, when we think about collaborations across, for example, small,

small and threatened islands. We're seeing some very, very important ramping of collaborations across different geographical swaths pulling together. Indonesia is acting as a very important actor for a lot of islands in that part of the world, for example, starting to work more and more together. It's on the rise, funding and focus for those sort

geographical based areas, oftentimes in the global south, right? Where it's very easy to skip over and understand the gravity of the challenges and the funding that's still needed. So I think that there's some really important recognition and collaboration and funding that's starting to flow in areas like that. Countries like Palau, which have an incredible amount of ocean to protect have taken really meaningful steps, bold steps.

Lars Rinnan (38:00)
Mm.

Kimberly Mathisen (38:18)
right, to carve out a lot of their ocean territory as marine protected area and put serious protection provisions around that. Those are really good examples. Up in the north here, you know, I'm often asked about is Norway leading or lagging? I think that's a subject for an own podcast, right, because the answer isn't ever so clear. But we have some things where you can really look to Norway.

as very developed country, have put some investments into the way we have mapped our ocean, the way we have begun to think about marine spatial planning. We have work to do, but there's some good things that have come out of Norway. We're protecting in a different paradigm, we're protecting some of our waters in a very focused fashion. There's a lot to like about what we do in terms of focus, but there's much more to be done.

also in terms of reaching a 30%. When we think about industries, know, there's some nuts that I would love for us to crack. I think about aquaculture a lot. You know, for me, what an opportunity we still have to bring aquaculture to a better level of sustainability. You know, one in five fish are dying out there. We've got fish swimming around in very tight pins. We're very happy to congratulate ourselves on, you know...

Lars Rinnan (39:18)
Mm.

Yeah.

Kimberly Mathisen (39:34)
harnessing a biological complex process and taking it to where we are now. But what about where we need to go next? Perhaps we could say the regulations have stopped in a very, very inappropriate place and we need to be pushing this forward, right? And how could we do that? Look, data sharing amongst actors in this industry at a much deeper level. I start to get very excited about how that data, only when that data cross company is put together.

It's only then that I believe that this industry could do something fundamental to stave off these lice infections and these algae blooms, right? Or to minimize the damage both to the fish, the environment, and certainly their own bottom line. There's such a win-win-win there. Progress is slow. ⁓ It's just one of those examples where I would hold a candle for saying, my gosh.

Lars Rinnan (40:24)
Thank

Kimberly Mathisen (40:29)
I think we could do tremendous things here if we can get that mind shift and the willingness headed in that direction just a wee bit more.

Lars Rinnan (40:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. It's an industry that's enjoyed really high levels of profits, you know, for a number of years. And my take is that they've become a little bit fat and lazy. So there's not too much happening, but you know, if they don't take action pretty soon, I think they might be, you know, out of business in a few years, because the public opinion is swaying.

And people don't like to see pictures or video of damaged salmon or whatever. don't, you don't want to eat that. It does not look like something you want on your plate. So I think they definitely need to, they need to act. And then they need to share data, of course. First get data into your HubOcean and then do the right thing afterwards.

Kimberly Mathisen (41:13)
Right.

Right. And I think, yeah.

Absolutely. Benefits in all directions, huh? Let's get going.

Lars Rinnan (41:32)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

absolutely. So Kimberly, you know, this podcast is of course called The World in 2029. And the whole podcast is about looking forward, outlook towards 2029. How can we actually make the world a better place by that time? And I'm quite curious to see and to hear your take on this. I mean,

So by 2029, will our children inherit a barren blue desert or can actually data-driven action restore the world's oceans? What is your take on this? What is your outlook towards 2029?

Kimberly Mathisen (42:16)
So those are four to five precious years that we have ahead of us. Yes. So we must increase our speed and make things happen. No doubt in my mind, we can drive to a much better place already in those four to five years ahead. There's no way that we can reverse the decline, no way that the job will be even close to done, but we can already be on track.

Whereas today I would say we're a very mixed picture. The decline is definitely off track and we need to create a step change. But what would a step change look like and how would we help to drive it? You know, from the perspective of this unmapped ocean space, in a span of five years, you know, we have a vision at HubOcean together with a huge community acting in the space that we can bring together, aggregate, put at the fingertips.

of people, ⁓ vast amount more data. If you think about just doing great mop ups of these wonderful pockets of data, intensely focusing on that, us together with a big community for five full years, we've got the platform to put that on, to make that available and saying, we've got technology that's coming in and helping to make this easier. We can and should think about having a wonderful, powerful aggregation of data.

at the end of that, which has gone in all directions. For example, the scientific models that we so need, the research which is yet to be done to help us to understand much more about the actions we must take or not take to turn that regenerative loop back on in all of these different microcosms. We can fuel the scientific discovery process tremendously.

by making no scientists have to start out from a blank sheet, collecting data, that job that's been done a million times before them. No scientist in 2029 should start from a blank sheet of paper. All of them should have an address where Ocean Data Platform would be one among an interoperable set of many, where they can go to advance the innovative part, the real discovery part tremendously. Governments should benefit from that.

dramatically as well. If you think about that, science to policy making is a step that then could get much shorter. Governments could have a hundred percent of their territory mapped to some degree already in five years, if we put ourselves collectively to work to achieve this. Imagine how that would help them to protect, to invest, right? We can get the financiers of this world, the insurance companies of this world,

in a much better place in five years also with those structured fit for purpose data sets that guide and push the right kind of industrial action and behaviors. And ultimately it's the industries themselves that we're really counting on to do the job, to understand and invest in and map to and change their behavior. But it takes all of us to hold hands to create the powerful incentives to drag them there. That's

a powerful set of things that data and a lot more things like increased awareness, drive, dedication, and maybe most of all Lars, every day in 2029, I hope there's a lot more room for bold and courageous leadership to say that we cannot treat these ocean issues as an ore. We can't have them in the backseat. We can't kowtow to political pressure that in this moment supports or doesn't support.

This has to be a new fabric of transparency and already in five years we can create a much, much better place to be.

Lars Rinnan (46:17)
Fantastic. That's a powerful message, Kimberly. Amazing. So thank you so much for showing us how confronting our fears with the right data can spark real change. And what you're doing at HubOcean is so amazing. It's a super important work. And it's been a pleasure having you here. Thank you so much for joining us.

Kimberly Mathisen (46:33)
Thank you. Thanks.

You know, Lars, I'm so grateful that you carve out and make time for this topic and that you've had me here today. I want to put in a plug. We're actually filming this on a day, one day after David Attenborough's 99th birthday. And I want to encourage everybody, if there's one action you do, and it will just be such an incredible pleasure and thought provoker, I promise you, go.

Lars Rinnan (46:56)
Yeah.

Kimberly Mathisen (47:06)
and take several people you know, if you've got kids, take them there. If you've got your parents still with you, take them there. Get everybody to the theater or eventually to a Netflix or another streaming station and see this movie, Oceans. He puts out a wonderful message, which is both tremendously serious, but he really, really, really packs a punch in saying what we can do about it. So that's my top tip of the day. Everyone go see Oceans and...

And that'll stimulate a lot of us to be even more on the right track.

Lars Rinnan (47:37)
Yeah, that's a great tip. He's actually one of my big heroes and you know those BBC shows, The Blue Planet, it's amazing. We could talk another hour about that. We're not going to do that. Thank you so much again, Kimbley, for sharing your expertise and for your powerful leadership on everything that you're doing. Thank you so much.

Kimberly Mathisen (47:42)
isn't he great? Yeah.

No,

thank you so much. What a pleasure, Lars. Take care.

Lars Rinnan (48:02)
And

to all our listeners, thank you for listening to The World in 2029. So today's journey reminds us that while our marine fears are real, data-driven innovation offers a path to a vibrant and sustainable ocean. So if you enjoyed this deep dive, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and remember, the future is better than you think. Thank you.