1. Introduction

This opening chapter introduces the threats that the ocean and its coastal seas face from strong anthropogenic pressures. The challenge of addressing these threats require a great change in human behaviour, as communicated by scientists and in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To meet this challenge, the science community needs to work across many academic disciplines using transdisciplinary approaches and develop new skills of communication. Such communication occurs via drama, scientific and literary writing, and global and regional assessments conveying increasingly urgent information, though new and more facts alone may not be enough to change the behaviour. The chapter opens with a discussion of the need to couple science and the arts, with the latter providing knowledge of societal and human values necessary to foster change.