Blue Economy

ISSN 2413-1512 | July 2020 EDITION BLUE ECONOMY 2 Introduction + 18 Reading Blue Economy what should be taken into narratives in the Pacific: account by decision- 4 Surfacing the Blue commitments, ambitions, makers in Pacific Island Economy + challenges + States as they consider how to develop their 8 Blue Economy 22 Preconditions Blue Economies? + accelerating the for a Blue Economy + industrialising of 38 Navigating the BBNJ + 26 Blue Economy: poem + our ocean? + 40 From the frontline of 27 Intersecting interests climate change to the 11 Reconciling Moana, in Deep-sea mining: forefront of climate action + Vanua, science and the Pacific SIDS, venture Blue Economy + capital companies and 45 Fishing for an equitable institutional actors + development outcome: 14 Reflecting on the Blue WTO, right to development Economy Framework for 35 The legal risks of and the controversial issue Pacific Island Countries + seabed mining: of fisheries subsidies + July 2020 1 About this DAWN Informs on Blue Economy Introduction by Mereoni Chung Over the past two years, in partnership with in the Pacific region, in February 2019 the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), DAWN and PANG held a panel discussion at DAWN has been tracking and analysing the University of the South Pacific on ‘Blue Blue Economy discourses and related Economy: evolving development framework developments – including global and regional or smoke and mirrors?’ The panel discussion conferences, intergovernmental negotiations was videoed and can be watched here. and corporate-state initiatives – on oceans and the exploitation of ocean resources in Several of the contributors to this issue of the Pacific region. To share initial concerns DAWN Informs on Blue Economy were with other leading scholars and advocates panelists at that event. Other contributors are July 2020 2 either from DAWN or PANG, or have engaged as corporate interests may be able to take with DAWN in either research or panel events advantage of the unusual conditions to on the issues covered. advance their agendas. This edition of DAWN Informs draws on BE discourses, While this edition features at a time of an regional priorities and research on new all-consuming global pandemic, spotlighting ‘development’ agendas in the Pacific region the Blue Economy (BE), Ocean issues and the and probes a range of BE issues, including Climate crisis remains important for DAWN’s industrialisation of the ocean, Ocean ongoing advocacy for gender, economic industries fisheries and Deep-sea mining, and ecological justice. Multilateral spaces the adequacy of regulatory frameworks where negotiations on ocean priorities for Deep-sea mining, the ocean/climate and protections take place are being nexus, WTO fisheries negotiations under closed for face to face negotiations due to COVID-19 restrictions, the evolving Binding COVID-19 conditions, although the agendas Treaty on Biodiversity Beyond National of dominant interests often remain at play. Jurisdiction (BBNJ), and the need for This is especially so in spaces where good alternative thinking informed by indigenous governance practices are institutionalised Pacific knowledge and values. July 2020 3 Surfacing the Blue Economy by Mereoni Chung, DAWN This piece was originally delivered at the DAWN/PANG panel event held at the University of the South Pacific in February 2019 on ‘The Blue Economy: evolving development framework or smoke and mirrors?’ The panel event can be watched here. The tension between environmental subsequent framing of the Pacific as an area sustainability and pursuit of economic of Large Ocean States. development is evident within ocean discourses, with many contradictions, yet the Following on from the Green Economy, the Blue Economy momentum parades unabated. Blue Economy introduced oceans to the As we in Pacific Island Countries are being purview of Sustainable Development action enticed back into our ocean, we need to (Silver et al., 2015). The Blue Economy agenda become more aware of the undercurrents has lent a lot of attention to the importance of development agendas and economic wish of oceans to realising our economic, political, lists that float to our shores. With resources social and more importantly environmental on land running scarce, oceans are the last aspirations. For Small Island Developing frontiers of natural resources, now seemingly States (SIDS), it has called further attention up for the taking. Could the Blue Economy to both the vulnerabilities of our island development paradigm possibly drown us? environments to climate change impacts and This paper briefly looks at the development the importance of ocean health. This has been concept of the Blue Economy, and highlights touted simultaneously with the economic some initial implications for the discourse. potential of oceans as sites for new and more intensive and expansive economic activities. The idea of a Blue Economy gained major traction during the UN Conference on As a result, since Rio+20 there has been a Sustainable Development. In the build- successful push for a stand-alone goal on up to Rio+20 in 2012, Pacific Small Island Oceans in the SDGs. The span of the Blue Developing States (PSIDS) led the momentum Economy framework in fact extends beyond to acceptance of the idea of the Blue Economy oceans to other bodies of water including (Silver, Gray, Campbell, Fairbanks & Gruby, lakes, rivers and seas. However, now that we 2015). They emphasised the economic have the world’s attention on oceans, can we sites of island states as ocean dependent manage the ups and downs of divergent, if not communities. The concept coincides with the conflicting, interests? July 2020 4 Do we all mean the same thing when we say Blue Economy? Various definitions put forward by very different actors suggest some convergence in aspirations to ensure a balance between economic benefits and ocean health. Interestingly, the World Bank, the FAO, Pacific regional bodies, governments, finance investors like Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, military tech giants Lockheed Martin, and environmental NGOs such as WWF and Conservation International, have all used very similar language to define Blue Economy – Mereoni Chung speaking at the DAWN/PANG broadly combining ideas of economic benefits event at USP, February 2019 with sustainable long-term ocean health (Barbesgaard, 2018). Parts of the private, for- Forum of Fisher Peoples, 2014). WFFP charges profit sector – tourism, fisheries, aquaculture, multinational corporations, environmental bio-prospectors – echo this also. NGOs, speculative investors and many others as pushing a ‘power grab’ to gain control of How is it that the World Bank, WWF, The aquatic – ‘blue’ – resources. Economist (2015) and governments are all saying the same things? Do we now WFFP sees Blue Economy as ‘the capturing have a perfect matching of interests, of control by powerful economic actors of concerns and realities? Across the private crucial decision-making … including the sector, governments, conservation groups, power to decide how and for what purposes academia? Is there no conflict of interests marine resources are used, conserved and in Blue Growth? Or are there things that managed’ (TNI et al., 2014, pp 3). As a result hide behind broad aspirational language these powerful actors whose main concern is that allow interested parties to pursue their making profits are steadily gaining control of own self-interests while apparently singing both the aquatic resources and the benefits of from the same song sheet? Rather than their use (TNI et al., 2014; Barbesgaard, 2018, ‘seeing opposing interests and contradictory pp 131). dynamics’, Blue Growth rhetoric ‘envisions triple-benefit solutions, where everybody This critique makes it clear that the supposedly wins: coastal communities, the ambivalence of the Blue Economy framework environment and investors’ (Barbesgaard, reflects basic tensions in sustainable 2018, pp 130). development between exploiting natural resources for profit and prioritising the In contrast to the ‘triple-benefit’ view, the integrity of ecosystems. World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP) and scholar activists charge the Blue Economy Surfacing agendas with being a ‘global ocean grab’ (TNI Agrarian Justice Programme, Masifundise An initial interrogation of the Blue Economy Development Trust, Afrika Kontakt & World surfaced some early concerns about July 2020 5 the direction and implications that this people are most heavily involved are tourism new agenda poses for communities and and fisheries, and women are heavily situated sustainable development efforts. in these sites. Some 97% of fisher-folk are located in developing countries, with women Firstly, the language of ECONOMY attached to playing a significant role in production, BLUE already highlights the economic over distribution and manufacturing (World Fish the social, marginalising the importance of Centre). The issues of both livelihoods and culture, traditional systems and knowledge, food sovereignty is critical. environment and rights of nature. Perhaps, contained in the success of Pacific States Finally, the concept of Blue Growth was taken, in promoting our Ocean-scape, have been largely uncritically, from the idea of Green the seeds of its possible subversion and co- Growth. The Green Economy has been widely option by economic interests and dominant critiqued; particularly with regard to market- economic forces. based environmentalism that price tags nature and suggests that the market will best Secondly,

Load more