My office at the University of California, Santa Barbara faces the coast. The United States’ first line of offshore oil platforms dot the skyline, the source of the 1969 oil spill that started the modern environmental movement. Huge cargo ships traverse an ocean megahighway, bringing goods from around the world and occasionally battering and killing whales. Surfers ride the waves, sailboats dock at the islands, and on a clear day the beaches teem with sunbathers. Recreational fishermen cast their lines from the pier, commercial fishermen set lobster traps along the shoreline, and a small clam farm is tucked under the water just offshore.
All of these activities are part of an intensifying “blue economy” that is extracting value from the oceans that cover 71% of our planet. In many ways this is a good thing. Shipping goods by sea is one of the most environmentally friendly ways of global trade; farmed seafood is highly nutritious and often sustainable; Offshore wind has the potential to generate huge amounts of green energy. But soon the already-warming, already-crowded ocean will reach the same points of no return that people have reached across much of the country.
In fact, aquaculture, or seafood farming, has grown at about 5% each year for the past 30 years, and experts predict that growth will continue for decades to come. Offshore wind spreads quickly; The UK is building a 1,000-square-kilometer metropolis of wind turbines off its coast, and China quadrupled offshore wind power just last year, adding the equivalent of about 17 nuclear power plants. An even more massive area for wind farms has been proposed off the US Atlantic coast, at 7,000 square kilometers, almost the size of Puerto Rico. And by 2050, the amount of goods transported by sea is expected to triple due to increasing world population, prosperity and trade.
This dilemma is at the center of my research. For 20 years I have been studying how ocean use cumulatively damages marine ecosystems but also supports vibrant human communities. From this work I have concluded that a collective agreement is needed to ensure that the economic benefits of the blue economy outweigh the environmental costs. I propose that any new marine activity should be sustainable and also help to relieve pressure on land.
There are precedents for such give-and-take deals. In the United States and elsewhere, developers encroaching on wetlands and streams must create or restore equivalent habitats elsewhere, often at a ratio of two to one or significantly larger (eg, 10 acres of new wetland for every acre destroyed). Carbon credits work in a similar way; Fees paid for emissions can be used to plant forests or build renewable energy infrastructure.
A global deal of this kind should respect three caveats in order to be fair and effective.
First, insist on real wins – not random ones. If coal-fired power plants are already being shut down, this should not count as a balancing factor for new offshore wind power. If protection easements protect farmland that is already fallow, this cannot counteract new aquaculture operations.
Second, action must be primarily driven by politics and regulations, not free markets. Left to their own devices, markets rarely incentivize sustainability or truly compensate for damage done to the environment. For example, it shows that increasing the amount of farmed fish in a free market does not decrease meat production.
Eventually, big corporations should bear the brunt of the cost of the planetary deal. Encouraging small operators often improves environmental equity while increasing local livelihoods and economic security by keeping owners and workers on site. Equalization requirements should be proportionally lower for these small operators and progressively higher for larger ones, analogous to how income tax works in much of the world.
What could this planetary deal look like? For example, to secure a lease for a new 100 square kilometer offshore wind farm, a company must restore twice as much coastal habitat. This restored habitat needs to be added to any existing habitat conservation efforts such as: B. the current global targets to protect 30% of land and sea.
Or for a new commercial offshore fish farm, enough land should be permanently set aside for livestock to remove an amount of livestock equal to the intended fish production. Such “habitat credits” could be traded in the same way as carbon credits. The cattleman would receive a negotiable credit per head and hectare reduced; An aquaculture company would need to purchase this loan to cover the increase in fish production.
Neither of these options is politically easy – many will argue that such policies and market regulation slow progress and can be circumvented by determined bad actors – but I believe we must embrace them. They require local, national and international coordination and enforcement, as well as public support. Science can help inform and monitor effectiveness; Government agencies must implement change with determination. Further developing the blue economy without simultaneously reducing human pressures on land and sea will simply sacrifice our oceans for no planetary gain. This is not a deal at all.
Competing Interests
The author declares no competing interests.
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