Which public events and organizations hosted or partnered with TerraMar, and who represented those partners?
Executive summary
The TerraMar Project staged a visible, short-lived public profile by appearing at major ocean-conservation conferences and partnering with high-profile institutions including the United Nations forums, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Council on Foreign Relations, partnerships-forum">Global Partnerships Forum and a roster of science and media organizations; those appearances typically featured Ghislaine Maxwell as the organization’s public face and a small set of named institutional representatives such as Palau’s UN ambassador Stuart Beck and ocean-policy figure Scott Borgerson [1] [2] [3]. Public materials and third‑party profiles also list partnerships with National Geographic and Oxford University and cite founding “citizens” and endorsers — names like Sylvia Earle, Nathan Wolfe and Jonathan Soros — though many event programs list TerraMar’s founder rather than extensive delegations from partner organizations [4] [5].
1. Launch and flagship festival appearances: Blue Ocean Film Festival and early roll‑out
TerraMar says it was founded at the Blue Ocean Film Festival and Conservation Conference in Monterey in September 2012, which functions as the organization’s public launch moment and situates the group in mainstream conservation festival circuits [1]. Public profiles and archived TerraMar materials emphasize the festival origin and the organization’s “Ocean Citizen” advocacy campaigns, but event records in the supplied reporting do not enumerate external institutional delegates beyond TerraMar’s founder and listed “founding citizens” [5].
2. United Nations events and the Palau connection
TerraMar appeared at United Nations events promoting oceans in 2013–2014; the project’s founder accompanied Stuart Beck — then Palau’s ambassador to the UN — to press conferences and UN meetings, and TerraMar explicitly tied its outreach to influencing the Sustainable Development Goals process [1] [2]. One UN session often cited in reporting, “Healthy Oceans and Seas: a way forward,” was co‑hosted by the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, the Governments of Italy and Palau and the Global Partnerships Forum, and Maxwell’s participation at those UN venues is documented in multiple sources [5] [2].
3. Clinton Global Initiative and the Sustainable Oceans Alliance partnership
The Clinton Global Initiative recorded a TerraMar commitment in 2013 to launch the Sustainable Oceans Alliance (SOA) and named partners including Michael Dorsey and the Global Partnerships Forum in the CGI press release; the Clinton Foundation archive lists the SOA commitment under TerraMar Project materials [3]. InfluenceWatch and other profiles report that TerraMar’s efforts were “praised and backed” in CGI contexts, though follow‑up reporting finds limited evidence of disbursed grants or large grantmaking outcomes tied to the CGI commitment [6].
4. Policy forums: Arctic Circle Assembly and Council on Foreign Relations
TerraMar’s founder presented at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik in 2013, where Scott Borgerson — listed on the organization’s board — appeared with Maxwell, and the pair later spoke at a Washington, D.C. Council on Foreign Relations event in June 2014 titled “Governing the Ocean Commons” [1]. Reporting repeatedly names Borgerson as the primary co‑speaker and Maxwell as TerraMar’s spokesperson at these policy forums, indicating TerraMar relied on a small leadership slate to represent its platform at elite venues [1].
5. Science, media and academic partners: National Geographic, Oxford and “founding citizens”
Organizational profiles such as GuideStar and TerraMar’s own archived materials list partnerships or affiliations with National Geographic and Oxford University to support “ocean literacy” programs, and public lists of founding “citizens” include scientists and public figures such as Sylvia Earle, Nathan Wolfe, Jonathan Soros and others [4] [5]. The sources do not, however, provide exhaustive rosters of which of those entities dispatched official representatives to TerraMar events; many cited appearances center on Maxwell rather than institutional delegates [4] [5].
6. Other public events: Westchester Digital Summit, university seminars and regional outreach
TerraMar appeared on the speaker roster for events such as the Westchester Digital Summit in 2014 and hosted seminars at institutions like the University of Texas at Dallas, where local university units ran sessions introducing TerraMar and Maxwell as speakers [5] [7]. These engagements were typically represented by TerraMar personnel on promotional materials, and university or summit programs listed TerraMar as a presenting organization but do not always name outside institutional partners beyond TerraMar’s own team [7].
7. Reporting limits and contested agendas
Public records and event programs make clear TerraMar cultivated high‑level partnerships and appearances — often with TerraMar’s founder as the visible representative — but the supplied reporting also highlights gaps: some partnerships (CGI, National Geographic, Oxford) are attested in organizational listings and press archives while detailed evidence about which institutions sent named delegates beyond Stuart Beck, Scott Borgerson and occasional “founding citizens” is limited in the documents provided [3] [1] [4] [5]. Several sources note critics who characterized TerraMar as serving reputation‑management purposes for Maxwell, a contention supported by interviews and independent coverage but not exhaustively documented in event participant lists [8].