Publisher : The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
Place of publication :
Publication year : 2015
Thematic : Blue/Green Economy
Language : English
Note
Our economic relationship with the ocean is once again evolving in important ways. As a setting for global trade and commerce, and as a significant source of food and energy, the ocean’s contribution is already important. This century, it is likely to become an economic force.
The drivers are many and varied, but have their origins in our growing familiarity with the ocean environment; new technologies that make it feasible and economically viable to tap ocean resources; longer-term growth and demographic trends fuelling; the search for food security and for alternative sources of minerals and energy; seaborne trade and rapid coastal urbanisation, among others.
The term “industrialisation†is sometimes used to signal this gathering trend of expansion and acceleration of human activity in and around the ocean. It is probably not far from the truth. Alongside established ocean industries, emerging and new activities—offshore
renewable energy, aquaculture, deep seabed mining and marine biotechnology are often cited—will bring new opportunities, growth and greater diversity to the ocean economy (see Table 1). Governments too are playing a key role in driving growth. Through new national ocean development plans, countries are turning to the ocean as a “new†source of jobs, innovation and competitive advantage. There is another, very important dimension to future growth in the ocean, and that is the so-called “blue economy†(or “blue growthâ€).
The concept has its origins in the broader green movement and in a growing awareness of the heavy damage wrought on ocean ecosystems by human activity such as overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and the impact of climate change. A tinge of “blue†can be found in most new national ocean strategies and policies, in some more explicitly than in others, as governments signal an intention to promote a more sustainable balance between economic growth and ocean health. Much of the wider ocean discourse has also gone “blueâ€â€”even if there are plenty of different views of the concept and there is no widely agreed or consistent definition.
More prosaically, the idea that we cannot continue, let alone accelerate, human-induced changes to ocean ecosystems is gaining traction, even at the highest levels of global policymaking. The world is slowly waking up to this—and it may not be too late, either. Some argue, quite reasonably, that the extent of the damage to the ocean is many decades shy of the impact of industrialisation on land, and there is still time, if we act now, to get the principles and the framework for the development of the ocean economy right. Business as usual is clearly not an option.
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Keywords : mining
Encoded by : Pauline Carmel Joy Eje
