Barely Afloat - The Blue Economy
The Blue Economy focuses on the preservation of bodies of water such as oceans and lakes while still ensuring economic prosperity. It is a new way of thinking in which both society and the environment profit together and the abundance of the oceans can be utilized while degradation is minimized.
Photo by nepal india on Shutterstock
Oceans make up 71% of the earth's surface so why is this even a model that needs to be explored if there’s so much to go around? Oceans are home to around 94% of the earth's animals, and absorb around 26% of the global CO2 emissions, both providing massive global impact!
Like many other natural resources, bodies of water can be considered as both finite and infinite. If the regeneration rate of the resource is higher than the harvest rate, you effectively have an infinite resource. However, once you cross this threshold and begin to over-harvest, the same resource very rapidly becomes finite.
“There aren’t that many fish in the sea, and done without longevity and sustainability in mind, over fishing and stock depletion can become a reality in an amazingly short period of time.”
Fish make up 15% of the animal protein intake for more than half the world’s population. Done properly, fish will always reproduce making them a potentially infinite resource. There aren’t that many fish in the sea, and done without longevity and sustainability in mind, over fishing and stock depletion can become a reality in an amazingly short period of time. You can look at Northern Canadian cod fisheries as a stark example of this “infinite” resource running out.
But what else is on the line? The blue economy isn’t focused solely on resource production, it also includes things such as tourism, maritime trade, renewable energy, and more. Global ocean economic activity is estimated at $3-5 trillion with 90% of global trade still carried out at sea.
Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash
Yet despite what we take from the oceans and lakes, we don’t tend to give back in kind. 80% of the waste found in oceans is generated from land-based sources; an estimated 14 billion pounds of garbage per year. And it’s this contradiction of reliance and ignorance that spawned the concept of the Blue Economy at the 2016 United Nations Conference for Sustainable Development.
We rely on our oceans for so many sectors including renewable energy, tourism, climate change, fisheries, waste management, and transportation. With all the resources at stake, the Blue Economy hopes to strike balance between people, planet, and profit.