scholarly journals A call for a blue degrowth: Unravelling the European Union's fisheries and maritime policies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Hadjimichael

Terms like blue growth (as well as the blue economy) have become the new buzzword inscribing a new era where the seas are recognized as potential drivers for the European economy. It is nevertheless, through this same logic of limitless economic growth, marine resources have been unsustainably exploited despite numerous institutional attempts to tackle overfishing. The aim of this paper is to point at the contradictions inherent in the objectives of the blue economy, and question the belief that ecological, social and economic targets can be achieved under (blue) growth-centred policies. An analysis of the (failing) policies for a ‘sustainable use of marine resources’ will be conducted and exemplified through an analysis of the main tools the EU has promoted as solutions to the fisheries crisis (sustainable consumption, privatisation of fish, fishing in waters of third countries and marine aquaculture). Additionally, the sectors promoted by the EU's Blue Growth strategy (marine aquaculture, coastal tourism, marine biotechnology, ocean energy and seabed mining) will also be evaluated in order to question this new vision for the seas and the coast. Through the introduction of the concept blue degrowth, this article aims to open up a more critical discussion around the blue growth strategy by highlighting the inherent dangers which lie in such economic strategies.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariya Stanimirova ◽  

In modern-day conditions, sustainable territorial development aims to find additional opportunities for regions to maintain their competitiveness while maximizing the use of available local resources and creating conditions for investment in activities that preserve, maintain and improve the local environment. Activities such as fishing, the production of fishery and aquaculture products; coastal tourism; blue biotechnology fall within the scope of the so-called "blue economy". The Blue growth strategy is focused on the sustainable territorial development of fishing areas by supporting, initiating change and integrating the efforts of all stakeholders to achieve the strategic objectives. The main purpose of this report is to present the results of a survey which examines the attitudes of local business representatives, public administration and academics towards the development of activities in the coastal zone of the Local Fisheries Initiative Group (FLAG) Varna - Beloslav - Aksakovo within the blue economy. On the basis of a future development strategy, strategic areas of development are outlined.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2018) ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
Costel Stanca ◽  
Ana Olteanu ◽  
Nicoleta Acomi ◽  
Viorela Stanga ◽  
Simona Ghita

"Blue Economy" represents a sustainable use of marine resources to ensure economic growth, job growth, an improvement in living standards, and the health of marine ecosystems. This research seeks to identify the requirements of the private sector related to human resources in terms of training, technical and behavioral competencies, as well as the presentation of the main challenges faced by the workforce. The present study is channeled to facilitate the access of young people to the labor market in the sectors of interest taking into account the demands of potential employers.


2020 ◽  
pp. 13-13
Author(s):  
Dolores Garza-Gil ◽  
Manuel Varela-Lafuente ◽  
Marcos Pérez-Pérez

European coastline has undergone a transformation in becoming a significant sector of the economy. The economic importance of aquaculture, coastal and maritime tourism, and industry based on oceanic energy is crucial for explaining that transformation. The European ?blue growth? generates employment and economic opportunities but could have major environmental effects on coastal zones. This could become inimical to small-scale fishing and those communities that depend heavily on fishing. This paper studies the Spanish fishers? perceptions to the linkages between the Blue Growth and small-scale fishing. Results show a significantly positive attitude toward potential contribution of blue growth to socioeconomic development and a significantly negative perception on environmental impact of such activities. Interactions are identified as well as possible opportunities that Blue Growth could offer to small-scale fishing. Recommendations for Blue Growth strategy are provided.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stella Sofia Kyvelou ◽  
Dimitrios Ierapetritis

Whilst the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 promotes the conservation and sustainable use of the seas, oceans and marine resources for sustainable development, decisions in ecosystem-based Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) follow annoying and costly trade-offs and this may negatively impact its acceptance. To address conflicts and cumulative impacts and favor, as much as possible, interfering of marine activities, positive coordination and win-win options, it is necessary to develop integrated and cohesive planning approaches and new management tools. In this article, a conceptual framework of “maritime cohesion” is being developed mostly applicable to peopled and crowded seas and a set of relevant indicators to assess it, is proposed. It is based on the triple-model of interdependent components such as “maritime spatial efficiency”, “maritime spatial quality” and “maritime spatial identity”, taking into account the “territorial cohesion” equivalent, promoted by the Cohesion Policy. Then, in order to broadly analyze the “spatial efficiency” component, the “multi-use” concept and management tools, recently given particular emphasis by EU Blue Growth Strategy, are examined thoroughly, using the relevant literature. This article highlights constructive use of “maritime cohesion” with the multi-use MSP paradigm as key part of “maritime cohesion” narrative and posits that its huge and extensive potential can stimulate dynamic, collaborative, cohesive and assemblage thinking in the MSP process and be the “spearhead” to balance economic, social, environmental and cultural aspirations in maritime planning to achieve sustainability in the marine realm.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 6074
Author(s):  
Marco F. L. Lemos ◽  
Sara C. Novais ◽  
Susana F. J. Silva ◽  
Carina Félix

Blue biotechnology plays a major role in converting marine biomass into societal value; therefore, it is a key pillar for many marine economy developmental frameworks and sustainability strategies, such as the Blue Growth Strategy, diverse Sea Basin Strategies (e [...]


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 1399
Author(s):  
Brandon J. Bethel ◽  
Yana Buravleva ◽  
Decai Tang

Following the global shutdown of tourism at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, small island developing states such as The Bahamas had their economies immobilized due to their heavy dependence on the industry. Beyond economic recovery in a post COVID-19 paradigm, the blue economy, blue growth, and associated activities offer pathways for a more resilient economy and is well-suited for The Bahamas. This paper suggests conduits for economic development using a traditional strength, coastal and marine tourism, in conjunction with the emerging fields of ocean renewable energy, offshore aquaculture, marine biotechnology, and bioprospecting. The interlinkages between each activity are discussed. Knowledge gaps in offshore aquaculture, ocean renewable energy, marine biotechnology, and marine environment monitoring are identified. In each sector case, strategic and tactical decision-making can be achieved through the exploitation of ocean numerical modeling and observations, and consequently should be invested in and developed alongside the requisite computational resources. Blue growth is encouraged, but instances of blue injustice are also highlighted. Crucially, pursuing blue economy activities should be given top national priority for economic recovery and prosperity.


Author(s):  
Md. Anowar Hossain Bhuiyan Bhuiyan ◽  
Md. Abud Darda

In line with the global goals for sustainable development (SDG goals), UNWTO has emphasized sustainable tourism development for achieving SDGs targets in the member countries. Bangladesh has already identified tourism as a thrust sector for the development of the country. The present study identifies the opportunities and contributions of tourism activities for achieving SDGs in Bangladesh. This study analyses the existing tourism policies and plans, government regulations, reports, and SDG related practices to attain the objectives. It is observed that SDG goals number 8, 12, and 14 are directly related to tourism. Furthermore, tourism can contribute to achieving some other SDG goals, like 3, 11, and 15. The study reveals that the contributions of tourism to GDP and employment are in an increasing trend. Sustainable Consumption and Production practices are encouraging the tourism businesses to include nature and biodiversity conservation in their management plans. Marine tourism development in the Bay-of-Bengal can play a positive role in reducing the negative impact of climate change and sustainable use of the oceans, seas, and marine resources. The study reveals that sustainable tourism development through cultural, religious, and archeological features can make Dhaka a stable and sustainable city. The study shows that sustainable tourism development in protected areas can ensure the preservation of forest areas, protect biodiversity conservation and provide sustainable use of natural resources. Sustainable tourism development can ensure long-term social, economic, and environmental benefits to all stakeholders to contribute a sustainable development in Bangladesh.


Stresses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 200-222
Author(s):  
Aniruddha Sarker ◽  
Most. Waheda Rahman Ansary ◽  
Mohammad Nabil Hossain ◽  
Tofazzal Islam

Climate change imposes biotic and abiotic stresses on soil and plant health all across the planet. Beneficial rhizobacterial genera, such as Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Paraburkholderia, Rhizobium, Serratia, and others, are gaining popularity due to their ability to provide simultaneous nutrition and protection of plants in adverse climatic conditions. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria are known to boost soil and plant health through a variety of direct and indirect mechanisms. However, various issues limit the wider commercialization of bacterial biostimulants, such as variable performance in different environmental conditions, poor shelf-life, application challenges, and our poor understanding on complex mechanisms of their interactions with plants and environment. This study focused on detecting the most recent findings on the improvement of plant and soil health under a stressful environment by the application of beneficial rhizobacteria. For a critical and systematic review story, we conducted a non-exhaustive but rigorous literature survey to assemble the most relevant literature (sorting of a total of 236 out of 300 articles produced from the search). In addition, a critical discussion deciphering the major challenges for the commercialization of these bioagents as biofertilizer, biostimulants, and biopesticides was undertaken to unlock the prospective research avenues and wider application of these natural resources. The advancement of biotechnological tools may help to enhance the sustainable use of bacterial biostimulants in agriculture. The perspective of biostimulants is also systematically evaluated for a better understanding of the molecular crosstalk between plants and beneficial bacteria in the changing climate towards sustainable soil and plant health.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 1678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongyong Fu ◽  
Ziran Ye ◽  
Jinsong Deng ◽  
Xinyu Zheng ◽  
Yibo Huang ◽  
...  

Marine aquaculture plays an important role in seafood supplement, economic development, and coastal ecosystem service provision. The precise delineation of marine aquaculture areas from high spatial resolution (HSR) imagery is vital for the sustainable development and management of coastal marine resources. However, various sizes and detailed structures of marine objects make it difficult for accurate mapping from HSR images by using conventional methods. Therefore, this study attempts to extract marine aquaculture areas by using an automatic labeling method based on the convolutional neural network (CNN), i.e., an end-to-end hierarchical cascade network (HCNet). Specifically, for marine objects of various sizes, we propose to improve the classification performance by utilizing multi-scale contextual information. Technically, based on the output of a CNN encoder, we employ atrous convolutions to capture multi-scale contextual information and aggregate them in a hierarchical cascade way. Meanwhile, for marine objects with detailed structures, we propose to refine the detailed information gradually by using a series of long-span connections with fine resolution features from the shallow layers. In addition, to decrease the semantic gaps between features in different levels, we propose to refine the feature space (i.e., channel and spatial dimensions) using an attention-based module. Experimental results show that our proposed HCNet can effectively identify and distinguish different kinds of marine aquaculture, with 98% of overall accuracy. It also achieves better classification performance compared with object-based support vector machine and state-of-the-art CNN-based methods, such as FCN-32s, U-Net, and DeeplabV2. Our developed method lays a solid foundation for the intelligent monitoring and management of coastal marine resources.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document