Africa, the Caribbean and coastal nations across the world have set machinery in motion to activate 2.5 billion “eco-citizens” in what is being framed as the most ambitious ocean-restoration mobilisation attempt ever.
The push — involving 80 countries and a projected $100 billion blue-impact finance value — forms the spine of the Global BlueRiverian Festival scheduled for June 7, 2026, which seeks to transform World Sustainable Ocean and Blue Tourism Day into a coordinated, multi-continental mass-participation drive for water regeneration.
Ambassador Justin Duru, President General in Council of the Afro-Caribbean Network Foundation, said the campaign represents a shift in the way humanity thinks about the ocean — away from abstraction and towards a shared value system that underpins livelihoods, culture, identity and planetary survival.
“The ocean is our planet’s heartbeat, and protecting it must become humanity’s shared rhythm,” he said, insisting the Festival’s model merges creativity, conservation and blue-economy innovation into one unified global wave of civic action.
Senator Seriake Dickson, Chair of the Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, positioned the initiative as evidence of blue-economy leadership now emerging from the Global South rather than being defined by institutions in the North.
According to him, Africa’s coastlines — from the Niger Delta to the Indian Ocean arc — are not bystanders, but catalysts shaping new frameworks of resilience investments. “From the Niger Delta to the Indian Ocean, this initiative captures Africa’s leadership in the blue economy. The Global BlueRiverian Festival is more than celebration; it’s an investment in our coastal resilience and marine livelihoods,” he stressed.
For Victor Wilkinson Agih, CEO of Africa Blue Heritage, the mobilisation is not merely symbolic spectacle — but the beginning of a new financing rhythm for planetary recovery that translates culture and citizen participation into measurable ocean capital.
“We are building a new financial rhythm for the planet — one that converts art, tourism and technology into measurable blue-economy capital. Every ripple counts, every rhythm restores,” he said, arguing that the festival signals the birth of a citizen-powered liquidity channel for ocean-restoration infrastructure.
Organisers say the Earth3rybe festival is therefore not a one-day event — but a distributed mobilisation playbook that deploys culture as currency, identity as capital and participation as the new leverage point for blue-economy transformation.
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