Seminar: "Including Human Wellbeing and 'Sense of Place' in Ecosystem Services Assessments", by Jamie Donatuto

The Oceans's Challenge groups are organizing a new seminar by Jamie Donatuto, from the CEAB.

Title: "Including Human Wellbeing and ‘Sense of Place’ in Ecosystem Services Assessments"

Speaker: Jamie Donatuto, Environmental social scientist, based in Blanes at CEAB on a Fulbright Scholar award

• Date: Thursday, 12 February, 2026
• Time: 13:00
• Location: Room Z/032 (ICTA-UAB) and online: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84075007338?pwd=05aTHip5GsJfmrXaexs0HRltGfWQso.1

This presentation introduces a transdisciplinary social science project focused on evaluating human connections to and values of the ocean. The work responds to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), specifically Challenge #10: changing humanity’s relationship with the ocean, which highlights a major gap in data on human–ocean connections. People have relied on the ocean for food, culture, learning, inspiration, and wellbeing for generations. In many Indigenous and local communities, human and ocean health are inseparable. Yet growing evidence suggests people are increasingly disconnected from the ocean, and ocean health continues to decline. ‘Sense of place’ is proposed as a representative indicator of human wellbeing that can be implemented in ecosystem services assessments.

The projects Jamie Donatuto leads span a wide range of community-led priorities, including toxics in local foods, climate impacts and adaptive strategies, cultural and medicinal plant curriculum development, emergency preparedness and planning, and the development of community-based Indigenous health indicators.