The Skimmer on Marine Ecosystems and Management
From the Archives: Can we insure our way to healthier oceans and ocean communities? (MEAM Feb 2018, Issue 11:4)
Editor’s Note: From the Archives calls attention to past Skimmer/MEAM articles whose perspectives and insight remain relevant. Imagine a world where: Municipalities proactively restore wetlands and offshore reefs wherever possible to protect their citizens and infrastructure and lower their insurance premiums. Small-scale fishers receive insurance payouts immediately after devastating hurricanes so fisheries-dependent communities can start to…
What works to reduce marine plastic pollution? What we know and what we need to do
“[Ocean plastic] isn’t a problem where we don’t know what the solution is. We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to dispose of it. We know how to recycle.” — Ted Siegler, DSM Environmental Services, on building the institutions and systems needed to…
Ecological connectivity between the high seas and coastal waters: Why coastal communities need to care about what happens on the high seas
Editor’s Note: For this article, we interviewed Ekaterina Popova, a global ocean modeller with the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, United Kingdom, about her new article “Ecological connectivity between the areas beyond national jurisdiction and coastal waters: Safeguarding interests of coastal communities in developing countries” published in Marine Policy in June 2019….
Latest News and Resources for Ocean Planners and Managers
New long-term data set shows clear changes in El Niño patterns Global assessment finds humans driving a million species to extinction Warming waters changing compositions of global plankton communities Productivity of North Atlantic phytoplankton declining as ocean warms New report documents climate change impacts on deep ocean habitat, fish, and…
From the Archives: “Start where your audience is, not where you want them to be”: What EBM and MSP practitioners can (and should) learn from marketing (MEAM Feb 2016, Issue 9:4)
Editor’s Note: From the Archives calls attention to past Skimmer/MEAM articles whose perspectives and insight remain relevant. To some in conservation and resource management, marketing can seem like a bad word. But marketing is inherently about getting people to change their behavior, whether it is buying a product, recycling, or supporting a…
What is marine plastic pollution costing us? The impacts of marine plastic on the Blue Economy
Editor’s note: The deluge of popular articles and reports on marine plastic continues, but here at The Skimmer, we became curious about one important area where we weren’t seeing as much information – how marine plastic pollution is affecting ocean users and the Blue Economy. We know that marine plastic…
Latest News and Resources for Ocean Planners and Managers
New hubs provide information on human uses of oceans and marine cultural ecosystem services Ocean heat hit record high in 2018 Ocean warming already reducing sustainable fisheries catches Implementing Paris Agreement could save billions of dollars in fishing losses Scientists discover nearly 200,000 new types of ocean viruses Ocean heatwaves…
US offshore wind under the Trump administration and new developments with offshore wind
Editor’s note: In this interview, Val Stori, the project director for the Clean Energy Group and Clean Energy States Alliance, discusses US offshore wind energy under the Trump administration and new developments in the offshore wind industry. She can be contacted at val@cleanegroup.org. The Skimmer: How have offshore wind energy…
Perspective: The growing importance of regional oceans cooperation
By Alf Håkon Hoel Editor’s note: Alf Håkon Hoel is a professor at UiT – the Arctic University of Norway. He can be contacted at alf.hakon.hoel@uit.no. A valuable development in international oceans governance is the growing importance of regional cooperation. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there…
All things to all people: What different groups mean when they talk about the Blue Economy
Editor’s note: The term on everyone’s lips (and documents) these days is Blue Economy. In this issue, The Skimmer takes a look at what various groups mean when they use this term, how it came about, what it looks like in practice or could look like in practice, and why it has some people worried. We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences about the Blue Economy in the Comments section below.
So what in the world is the ‘Blue Economy’?
- It really depends on whom you ask. The term Blue Economy means a lot of different things to a lot of different groups. For example, the World Bank defines the Blue Economy as the “sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem.” In contrast, a recent European Commission document defines it as “all economic activities related to oceans, seas and coasts.”
- A 2015 article by Silver et al. analyzed preparatory documents for and discussions of the Blue Economy at the 2012 UN conference on Sustainable Development (aka Rio+20) and described four general ways that groups were conceptualizing what the Blue Economy is. Voyer et al. 2018 reviewed newer documents and updated those initial conceptualizations of the Blue Economy to the following:
- Oceans as natural capital: This use of Blue Economy is used to express the importance and value of marine ecosystem services. It is used primarily by environmental organizations and is used to promote the societal and economic benefits (e.g., ecotourism opportunities, carbon markets, payments for ecosystem services) of environmental protection and restoration activities. Such activities include the creation of marine protected areas, decarbonization, and climate change mitigation. This conceptualization promotes protection of species and ecosystems as a driver of economic development rather than a competing priority and is the least common conceptualization of Blue Economy of the four.