The ocean in humanity’s future

Fourteen world leaders ask an international group of researchers where next for the ocean economy. This collection delivers some of the answers.

Silhouettes of fishermen cleaning their nets at sunset

Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP/Getty

Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP/Getty

The world is gearing up to grow ever more reliant on the ocean for food, energy provision and material resources.  This collection — the result of a collaboration between the Ocean Panel and the Nature journals — examines the potential for sustainable, equitable and profitable growth in the ocean economy and what it would take to achieve this.

Ocean Panel

A large wave with the sun setting behind

Credit: Laszlo Mates/Getty

Credit: Laszlo Mates/Getty

In 2018, fourteen heads of state and government, co-chaired by the prime minister of Norway and the president of Palau, formed the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. Their aim: to develop an agenda for transitioning to an ocean economy that embodies effective protection, sustainable production and equitable prosperity.

The panel commissioned an international team of researchers to synthesize knowledge on the state of the ocean and to identify opportunities for action, documented in a series of Blue Papers and Special Reports. In this collection, Nature and the Nature journals present adaptations of some of these Blue Papers, along with comment and opinion pieces on the overarching project.

    The Ocean Panel comprises heads of state and government from Australia, Canada, Chile, Fiji, Ghana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Palau and Portugal and is supported by the UN secretary-general’s Special Envoy for the Ocean. These world leaders manage nearly 40% of the world’s coastlines, 30% of the world’s exclusive economic zones, 20% of the world’s fisheries and 20% of the world’s shipping fleets.

    Over 250 authors and policy and legal experts contributed to the knowledge base developed to inform policy.

    They represent 48 countries and regions.

    Food, minerals, metabolites

    A Kenyan fish farmer drops small fish from her hands

    Credit: Donwilson Odhiambo/SOPA/LightRocket/Getty

    Credit: Donwilson Odhiambo/SOPA/LightRocket/Getty

    The sustainable production of seafood could increase by 36–74% compared with current levels, according to an analysis of seafood supply and demand. This represents 12–25% of the estimated increase in all meat needed to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050. Mariculture offers the greatest potential for growth. Production increases are contingent on rational management of wild fisheries, technological innovations to feed for finfish mariculture, policy reform and growth in demand.

    Caution is warranted when it comes to mining the sea bed for minerals. A review of the costs and benefits of deep-sea mining points to large gaps in our understanding of the environmental impacts, and calls for a slowdown in the transition from exploration to exploitation.

    The high levels of genetic diversity in the ocean offer ecological benefits and opportunities for commercial applications.  Well-managed and effective marine protected areas, inclusive innovation and increased access to affordable technologies are needed to ensure the sustainable and equitable use of this ocean resource, suggests a review of the topic.

      Empowerment and stewardship

      Two men stand on a data buoy in the middle of the ocean

      Credit: Vital Archive/Alamy

      Credit: Vital Archive/Alamy

      Free and equitable access to ocean data, proper national accounting and a collaborative and inclusive approach to decision-making are key to tackling the challenges and illegalities that threaten the equitable and sustainable use of the ocean.

      Action

      Workers use a crane to lift a large net of fish from a pen in a fish farm

      Credit: Lauryn Ishak/Bloomberg/Getty

      Credit: Lauryn Ishak/Bloomberg/Getty

      Based on the evidence accrued, the fourteen world leaders that comprise the Ocean Panel have committed to the sustainable management of 100% of their national waters by 2025.  In so doing they have set the stage for greater political engagement with the ocean that could bring benefits to all.


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