Oceans and blue economies

Abstract

Worldwide, nations and regions are increasingly advancing their oceans or blue economies to expand their economic growth and food and energy security through the growth of established marine sectors, the expansion of historically terrestrial sectors into the marine space, or as emergent sector technologies advance marine resource accessibility. Such ocean economy sectoral expansions are in many cases limited to the coastal or shallow shelf regions of a country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) resulting in considerable potential for inter-sectoral and / or sectoral-environmental conflict in these regions. Concurrent indirect pressures (e.g. climate change or ocean acidification) arising from increasing human resource consumption potentially further erode the function of ocean ecosystems which provide the ecosystem service foundations of many ocean economy goods and services. Ocean governance policy formulation requires trade-offs that are valuation dependent across the economic, social and environmental domains for the mitigation of both inter-sectoral and sectoral-environmental conflicts and sustainable and equitable resource use encapsulated within the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Maritime safety and security are critical within such governance frameworks and are both enablers of the blue economy (through asset and revenue protection) and a potential sectoral source of economic development and growth within blue economies.