On 5th and 6th December 2022,
Malta participated in the 4th
Ministerial Meeting of the Archipelagic
Island States Forum ( AIS Forum ) which
was held in the island of Bali, Indonesia.
The AIS
Forum is a platform which brings together 47 archipelagic and island states to
foster cooperation in four thematic areas these being the blue economy;
mitigation of climate change and disasters, marine pollution due to plastic
waste and good ocean and maritime governance. Malta was represented by the
Maltese High Commissioner to India, resident in New Delhi, H.E. Reuben Gauci, who travelled from India to Indonesia
specifically for this conference.
The theme of the 4th
Ministerial Meeting was “Elevating AIS Forum Collaboration for Sustainable and
Healthy Oceans”. During the Conference
High Commissioner Gauci read the
statement of the Minister for Foreign, European and Trade Affairs, Hon Ian Borg, which statement underlined the importance of the blue
economy which is equivalent to the size of the world’s seventh-largest economy.
Malta’s intervention at the AIS
Forum underscored that from sustainable aquaculture to offshore energy
production, developing the Sustainable Blue Economy would mitigate climate
change, create vast employment in blue-green industries, and provide the planet
with the medicines and healthy nutrition required for a secure future.
In its statement, Malta also mentioned two projects that the University
of Malta had developed. The first being
the Andromeda microplastic citizen science campaign, a smartphone app which
uses artificial intelligence to analyse photos of microplastics taken by the
app user, teaching users how to identify such plastics over time which app is
currently operational in Europe. The second is the development of energy
storage batteries for offshore energy solutions called the FLASC project (Floating Liquid-piston Accumulator
using Seawater under Compression).
Finally, Malta emphasized that Education is an
important ally in the development of the sustainable blue economy, mentioning
that senior schools in Malta are participating in ‘the Blue Schools’ initiative. It was stated that Malta was well placed to offer capacity building in
several areas of ocean governance through the International Ocean Institute,
headquartered in Malta, with several centres around the world, and the
International Maritime Law Institute, also situated in Malta.