Ocean Currency Network and Whale Seeker partner on the missing half of natural capital: proving what is there and whether it remains
Two ocean technology companies have agreed to combine marine mammal detection with vessel and marine protected area monitoring, arguing that the global effort to value nature depends on reliable data both to establish what is present and to verify over time that what has been valued still exists.
Ocean Currency Network, Inc. (OCN.ai) and Whale Seeker Inc. today announced a partnership to develop a combined capability for observing marine mammals and vessel activity in the same waters. The agreement was signed in Vava’u, Tonga.
The companies say the work addresses a gap in how the world is approaching natural capital. Governments and institutions are moving quickly to put a value on nature and,in some jurisdictions, to grant it legal standing. But credible valuation itself depends on credible evidence of what is present, where it is, and how it changes over time. Far less attention has been paid to the question of how anyone would demonstrate, on a given date, that the asset being valued or protected is still there and still functioning.
“A valuation answers what something is worth. It cannot answer whether it is still there,” said Jeremy McKane, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of OCN. “Those are two halves of one instrument, and the world has built one half. Nature is being valued, and in places given rights, faster than anyone can show whether those values hold or those rights are being breached. Seeing something once is not seeing it.”
The partnership combines Whale Seeker’s marine mammal detection with OCN’s vessel and area monitoring and its digital measurement, reporting and verification work to analyze nature-based assets. The companies intend to produce a dated, repeatable record rather than a single observation. Such records can provide evidence for both the initial characterization and valuation of natural assets and their monitoring over time.
“Every accounting system rests on one question: can you prove the asset exists?” said Emily Charry Tissier, Chief Executive Officer of Whale Seeker. “For the ocean, that has been the missing line in the ledger. Whale Seeker and OCN are setting out to build the observation layer blue accounting needs, so that what lives in the water can be counted with the same confidence as anything else on a balance sheet.”
The companies emphasized that the combined capability is at a proposed stage. The integration has not been deployed and the programme is currently unfunded. The companies are seeking funding to develop and validate it. Both companies said the approach is intended to support conservation and community economic resilience together, and that in any future deployment, data concerning a host nation’s waters would remain with, and benefit, that nation.
About Ocean Currency Network, Inc.
OCN builds digital measurement, reporting and verification infrastructure for natural assets, combining satellite, vessel and environmental data. The company’s work focuses on the verification of nature assets and their permanence: establishing what is present, and returning to the same place over time to demonstrate whether it remains. OCN is incorporated in Delaware, United States. ocn.ai
Media contact: media@ocn.ai
About Whale Seeker Inc.
Whale Seeker is a Canadian ocean technology company developing AI-assisted tools to detect and monitor marine mammals from remote-sensing imagery. Its approach combines artificial intelligence with expert human review to produce validated, decision-ready data for industry, governments and researchers. Whale Seeker’s technology has been recognized by UNESCO’s International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) among the world’s leading AI solutions advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 14: Life Below Water. Whale Seeker is also a certified B Corporation. whaleseeker.com
Media contact: marcela@whaleseeker.com
