The Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (MiCO) system – conceived by scientists at Duke University (USA) and at the University of Queensland (Australia), and developed collaboratively with GOBI’s support under its current grant from Germany’s International Climate Initiative (IKI) – has been shortlisted for The 2020 Ocean Awards, under the Innovation category. The awards are organised by Boat International in partnership with Blue Marine Foundation.

This yearly award for innovation recognises the individual, company or group that has undertaken activities or commitments to significantly develop or implement products, services, processes, or measures that have – or are likely to have – a positive impact on the health of the marine environment.

MiCO has been recognised for its ambition to aggregate staggering sets of animal-tracking data, which individually are of limited use to managers with little time and analytical capacity, to an integrated and interactive format that is useful and intuitive to scientists, managers and policy makers alike.  This novel approach has contributed to the work of Regional Seas Organisations, the FAO and UNEP, negotiations over a new High Seas treaty, and was recently recognised by the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).

MiCO is shortlisted with four other finalists for the Innovation category, and the winner will be announced in June 2020.