Globally sustained observations of the marine ecosystem and biodiversity are crucial to understand changes in the ocean environment, manage ocean resources and assess progress towards internationally agreed targets such as the SDGs. Efforts in the observing community are growing to close the current gap in the collection of ecosystem and biological data through harmonizing and coordinating monitoring activities around the Biological and Ecosystem Essential Ocean Variables (BioEco EOVs). This thesis looks into the challenges the implementation of a sustainable and coordinated BioEco ocean observation system could meet through conducting a systematic literature review and key informant interviews. It identified a number of key areas of challenges for BioEco ocean observation and corresponding challenges within these areas. The discussion and analysis of the results led to the identification of 11 priority recommendations to implement successful and sustained observations of life in the sea globally: (1) Clear communication of the BioEco EOV concept to the global observing community and international agreement on standards and best practices for data collection; (2) Create an overview of the various scattered databases for BioEco ocean data to realize a “world wide web of oceanographic data”; (3) Promotion and widespread adoption of the FAIR data principles coupled with the development of strong and adaptive data infrastructures and architectures to enable data and database interoperability; (4) Increased capacity in marine science to increase the understanding of large-scale ecological processes and interactions and thereby the quality of data analysis, which can enable better data products catering to the needs of society and decision-makers; (5) Implement mechanisms for better coordination, communication and collaboration across disciplines, institutes, monitoring programs and geographical scales to promote knowledge exchange, resource and capacity sharing; (6) Unification of the fragmented ocean governance framework, implementation of clear governance structures for glocal BioEco ocean observation and harmonization of ocean data integration into policies and decision-making; (7) Unification of the scattered ocean observation efforts under one transparent system that is adaptive to its user needs and has strong links between its components; (8) Implementation of standards and best practices within the system while still encouraging innovation; (9) Implementation of sustainable long-term funding mechanisms at all scales while making the observing system more cost-effective and -efficient; (10) Implementation of continuous capacity development activities for all system components; (11) Improved participation of developing nations through targeted capacity development and strong collaboration processes including capacity and resource sharing as well as knowledge and technology transfer.