Digital Commons@Center for the Blue Economy
Not a member yet
256 research outputs found
Sort by
Actual Versus Hypothetical WTA Stated Values for Recreational Fishing Licenses: Experimental Evidence of Fish Tales
Get PDFWe compared hypothetical willingness to accept (WTA) values for Massachusetts saltwater recreational fishing licenses with WTA values obtained in an actual (simulated) marketplace. Using a dichotomous choice contingent valuation approach, our results align with past evidence that found WTA values elicited from hypothetical transactions overstate those derived from an actual marketplace. We also provide the first evidence about the effectiveness of an ex-post certainty adjustment technique in a WTA environment. While the adjustment technique has been found to eliminate hypothetical bias in willingness to pay (WTP) settings, we find that when applied in a WTA setting, the approach mitigates but does not eliminate the overstated hypothetical WTA bias. We provide some theoretical conjecture as to the likely reasons why the certainty adjustment approach failed to remove the hypothetical WTA bias in our study and conclude with some practical policy implications
Putting the Blue in the Green New Deal
No full textThe Green New Deal (GND) is a U.S. resolution that aims to address economic inequality and global warming through a set of proposed economic stimulus projects.
As nearly half of the U.S. populace lives in or near coastal areas, the GND needs to prioritize the sustainable use and preservation of the marine environment – called the “blue economy.”
David Helvarg of Blue Frontier and Jason Scorse of the International Environmental Policy Program and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies suggest a series of policy and investment priorities for incorporation of the blue economy into the GND
The Costs of Obtaining Environmental Outcomes through Coastal Habitat Restoration
Get PDFStudies examining the costs of coastal habitat restoration have focused on the cost per acre of restoration or on cost efficiency of various restoration methods. On the other hand, studies examining the benefits of restoration have focused on various ecosystem services that more directly affect welfare including amenity value, storm protection, nutrient retention and biodiversity. We examine a set of 133 Gulf of Mexico coastal habitat restoration projects to estimate the cost of obtaining average annual habitat units (AAHUs), a measure which captures the quantity and, importantly, quality of habitat restored, which is one of the more direct ecosystem service benefits from coastal restoration. AAHUs are the environmental outcome considered during the assessment of proposed projects by decision-makers and therefore are a potential measurement unit that can more closely link costs and benefits of restoration
Augmenting Marine Food Production Through Fisheries Management and Mariculture
Get PDFThere is new aspiration of sustainable exploitation of marine resources and to achieve sustainable development goals (SDG 14) in recent years. In this context, this document delineates new scope of venturing into the blue economy relative to marine fisheries and mariculture. Potential interventions in marine fisheries include – (i) expansion of the commercial fishing area (beyond the 80 m depth) for harvesting high value fish species (such as tuna, lakkha), (ii) exploration for new fishing grounds and fisheries, (iii) value addition and reducing post-harvest losses, and (iv) assessment of fisheries stocks for estimation of potential yields and optimum sizes of harvest. Food production through mariculture mostly relies on – (i) domestication of new species (such as finfish: seabass, mullet, hilsa, grouper; crustaceans: mud crab; plants: seaweeds) for product diversification and risk reduction towards economic stability, (ii) production intensification (such as semi-intensive farming) and adoption of innovative fish/shellfish farming (such as marine cage culture, aquasilviculture, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture) to create new business opportunities, and (iii) live feeds (such as rotifers, artemia biomass) production for hatchery for sustaining the mariculture industry. Nevertheless, investments, knowledge, innovations, new technologies, new breeds and newly domesticated mariculture species can promise a blue revolution in Bangladesh
Introduction to the Special Issue on the Blue Economy of Bangladesh
Get PDFIntroduction to the Special Edition on the Blue Economy of Bangladesh by the Editors of the Special Edition
Future Importance of Maritime Activities in Bangladesh
Get PDFBlue Economy is a concept of economic growth through the sustainable utilization of ocean resources with technological inputs to improve livelihoods and meet the growing demands for jobs without hampering the health of the ocean ecosystem. This paper offers an overview of current maritime key activities, major trends and scenarios, future blue economy development activities with economic and social importance, ecological importance and blue economy policy framework. This paper also focuses on the major constraints and challenges. The current maritime key activities include extraction of living and non-living resources, land based activities, trades and transportation, shipbuilding and ship breaking, tourism and recreation, man-made structures, energy production and, research and survey. The trend data show that the total fish landing and total export income from fisheries has increased over time. However, data on mangrove revenue suggest that in recent years, current revenues from this forest are comparatively less than they were in the 1980s and the 1990s. To expand its Blue Economy, Bangladesh must focus on marine fisheries, non-traditional species, marine biotechnology, oil gas and mineral mining, renewable energy, marine trade and transport, marine tourism and marine spatial planning. However, this paper finds that lack of implementation and enforcement, of management measures, limited planning and coordination are hinder the development of Blue Economic in Bangladesh. Thus a strategic management process integrating multiple stakeholders urgently needed for a sustainable Blue Economy maritime territory of Bangladesh
Blue Economy and Climate Change: Bangladesh Perspective
Get PDFBlue Economy is related to economic growth through the sustainable utilization of ocean resources with technological inputs to improve livelihoods. Economically important coastal and marine resources are the main components of the Blue Economy for Bangladesh. These resources are categorized into living, non-living, renewable resources and trade and commerce. As Bangladesh is vulnerable to climate change, related extreme events are making the coastal and marine resources vulnerable which may hamper the smooth Blue Economy development in Bangladesh. Climate change extreme events include warming trend, cyclone, sea level rise, droughts, erosion, tidal surge, saline water intrusion, flood, change in precipitation trend and ocean acidification. These extreme events may cause coral belching, species migration, biodiversity loss, altered species life style, disruption in marine food chain and ultimately will affect the national economy. Thus, it is a prime need to build marine ecosystem’s resilience to climate change to get the maximum benefits from ocean. This background paper offers a strategic framework for climate change resilient Blue Economy practice in Bangladesh. This framework is a four steps process (i.e. identification of issues, focus on important areas for climate change resilient Blue Economy development, performing activities for achieving the goal and achievement of goal). Special focus is required on energy efficiency, marine and coastal biodiversity, ecosystem based adaptation, environmental resilience building in the coastal areas, ecosystem restoration, building economic resilience and policy formulation for climate change resilient Blue Economy development. Mangrove plantation, oyster reef building, mussel bed, sea grass bed, salt marsh bed and coral reef conservation, use of renewable energy, special interventions in fisheries and development of islands, crop insurance, salt tolerant and floating agriculture, eco-tourism development, MPA and ecologically critical area declaration, marine spatial planning, policy formulation, institutional integration and continuous ocean monitoring are example of some possible interventions required for climate resilient Blue Economy development in Bangladesh
Any Port in a Storm: Vessel Activity and the Risk of IUU-Caught Fish Passing through the World’s Most Important Fishing Ports
Get PDFThis study assesses the risk of fish from illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) sources passing through the world’s most important fishing ports and explores the drivers of this risk.
Like previous studies it has attempted to rank ports and States based on landings and vessel visits reported by governments by using Automatic Identification System (AIS) positional data transmitted by fishing and fish carrier vessels to identify the locations of ports and rank them based on the frequency of visits by foreign-flagged and domestic-flagged vessels. It advances our thinking in that (i) the analysis includes an estimation of the hold capacity of fishing vessels and is therefore able to rank ports based on the total hold capacity of vessels visiting them and (ii) the profile and the frequency of vessel visits inform an assessment of the relative risks between different ports, and the implications for the implementation of the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA). The study also assesses the accuracy and utility of AIS-derived data for determining IUU risk globally for all ports, notably by cross-referencing its findings with those of other studies.
The study develops a broad suite of indicators that quantify and aggregate the AIS-derived port visit information in conjunction with published and publicly available policy and regulatory information drawn from other sources, such as the compliance record with binding port State measures of regional fisheries management organizations, to raise a global port State IUU Risk Index. The comparison of achieved risk scores with national income, levels of corruption, and geography provides insights into factors driving (aggravating) or modulating (mitigating) risks of IUU-caught seafood passing through a Nation’s fishing ports, and supports a view that States with weaker governance also face higher odds of visits by vessels likely to have engaged in IUU fishing (i.e. higher external risks).
Based on an in-depth assessment of 14 individual ports globally, appended as a supplement to this paper, the study finds that overall, and with the possible exception of mandatory advance request procedures for entering ports, the implementation of key provisions of the 2009 PSMA remains severely lacking. The two main areas for improvement are the posting of publicly available PSM-related information on national and/or FAO portals, and the formal designation of ports
Policy Interventions for the Development of the Blue Economy in Bangladesh
Get PDFBetween 2012 and 2014, disputes over maritime boundary with Myanmar and India were favorably settled for Bangladesh, resulting in the expansion of its territorial waters of more than 30% and the country received entitlement to 118,813 km2 in the Bay of Bengal. This achievement offers a wide range of new economic opportunities for jobs & growth around marine and coastal sectors such as marine fisheries, marine aquaculture, tourism, exploitation of natural resources, trade and energy. This created new opportunities to exploited the untapped potential of these waters. The challenge will be to develop smart and sustainable solutions to meet the economics needs of Bangladesh in this area. This paper presents the policy interventions that will contribute to impulse the development of the Blue Economy in Bangladesh. This was accomplished through an analysis of the institutional, commercial and environmental context of a set of selected sectors and the identification of the major areas of policy intervention in a near future. The analysis reflects therefore the point of view of all key stakeholders including practitioners, entrepreneurs, researchers, academics and representatives of the civil society
The Blue Economy Handbook of the Indian Ocean Region: Chapter Two ( The Blue Economy Theory and Strategy ) and Chapter Fifteen ( Climate Change and the Blue Economy of the Indian Ocean )
No full textAbstract for Chapter 2: The Blue Economy Theory and Strategy : The term Blue Economy has spread rapidly around the world. It is used to describe an integrated approach to economic development and environmental sustainability that is based on the resources of oceans and coasts. Nations have rather suddenly taken note of the large geographic areas in the form of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) over which they have jurisdiction and begun developing strategies for using these areas. Many attribute this sudden attention on ocean resources and environmental issues to the discussions that took place in 2012 at the United Nations , which both defined an overall vision for sustainable futures and identified specific goals, including those specific to the oceans.1,2,3 This global attention to the Blue Economy has been matched at the national level. Blue Economy policy papers are in various stages of evolution in countries around the world, including many in the Indian Ocean region. Blue Economy strategies have been developed or are under discussion in India,4 Bangladesh,5 Australia,6 Indonesia,7 Mauritius,8 Seychelles,9 East Africa10 and South Africa.11 All these documents draw attention to the unique resources and features of each country or region, but there is a common set of themes in all of these discussions focusing on the economic opportunities to be seized while acknowledging the environmental limitations within which development must take place. These documents may best be described as efforts at awareness building. They are all likely to be effective at encouraging leaders in the public, private, and nongovernmental sectors to pay attention to the opportunities and challenges of the Blue Economy, but there are relatively few papers on the Blue Economy that speak to the practicalities of what specific strategies will be needed to direct actions. Persuading people to act is not the same thing as deciding what action to take. 39 The Blue Economy: Theory and Strategy The fundamental challenge of the Blue Economy is to simultaneously do more and less. The Blue Economy should increase the wealth that a nation derives from its ocean and coastal resources. But to do this, the nation may need to do less of many of the things it is already doing. Increased wealth in fisheries may require reducing fishing to biologically sustainable levels. Exploiting hydrocarbon and mineral resources may increase wealth today, but the effects may be only temporary if portions of the mineral wealth are not saved for the future. The Blue Economy is both a bold vision and an excruciatingly delicate balancing act. This paper proposes a strategic framework and set of specific strategies to transform the Blue Economy idea from goal to action in ways that make it more likely that the appropriate balance will be struck among goals that are both complementary and competing. The framework is independent of economic sector, resource, or region. Its implementation will rest in the hands of multi-national, national and sub-national institutions, which will be responsible for adapting the general strategies to actions to be taken at specific times and places. There are five elements to the framework: (1) Investment, (2) Customers, (3) Management, (4) Innovation and (5) Measurement. The essential feature of the Blue Economy is that all the elements must be addressed simultaneously, although the level of effort devoted to each will vary, as local circumstances require. The following sections describe each of the elements. Investment Investment is the link between the present and the future. It is the deferral of current income (savings) that is then converted into productive use to create new economic values. These values provide returns to the investor and gains to the overall economy. Deciding to forego current consumption for future gain is the fundamental economic process by which restraint and gains are balanced. Capital is the term used, rather ambiguously, for both the pool of savings used to make the investment and the results of that investment. Standard economic models focus on using financial capital (the pool of savings) to create physical capital (the result of investment). Shaping the Blue Economy begins with these types of investment, but recognises that they are insufficient to meet the twin goals of increased wealth and sustainability. In order for those goals to be met, investment in natural capital and human capital is needed.
Abstract for Chapter Fifteen: “Climate Change and the Blue Economy of the Indian Ocean”: The ‘Blue Economy’ is a term that is rapidly spreading around the Indian Ocean region, and the world. It is used to describe opportunities to use ocean and coastal resources to spur economic development and growth in a sustainable manner. Opportunities in fisheries, aquaculture, maritime transport, tourism and minerals have been identified by countries throughout the region as having significant economic potential, and policies directed at building on this potential (while increasin g efforts at sustainable management of resources) are being expanded or developed. But this attention paid to the oceans comes at a perilous time for the very resources upon which so much hope is being placed. Climate change is already affecting the oceans in many ways, and the effects are expected to intensify and expand in the decades ahead. Great plans and investments are being contemplated for oceans and coasts that will, in all likelihood, not exist in their current form within the expected life-span of those investments and plans. These coincident trends of the Blue Economy and the consequences of climate change have both received significant attention on their own, but the attention has largely transpired in parallel discussions. The intersection between the Blue Economy and climate change has received little attention and will require reconsideration of major parts of Blue Economy development strategies, and redefinition of the elements of the Blue Economy itself. It will also require a commitment to developing ways to systematically monitor and understand the interactions as they evolve, because the view today is still too constrained by risk and uncertainty. This paper undertakes a preliminary examination of these intersections as they apply to the Indian Ocean region. Attention to ocean-based economic development 350 CHAPTER 15 is widespread in the region, but it is still in the early formative stage in most countries .1 There is still time to incorporate the implications of climate change into evolving Blue Economy policies, but an understanding of the threats, limitations and opportunities created in the Blue Economy is critical. To examine the implications of climate change for the Blue Economy in the Indian Ocean region, it is first necessary to outline the major elements of the effects of climate change in the ocean and coastal regions in general. The question then becomes how such changes will be reflected in the Blue Economy. This is both a question of how generalised effects that can be foreseen at this stage are to be measured, and how the impact of climate change on the Blue Economy could be identified and tracked. A preliminary identification of some of the policy choices created by climate change is then presented. It should be noted that climate change’s impacts on the region will extend well beyond those described here. Changes in weather and hydrology will alter agriculture and urban areas. Sea level rise will disrupt far more than the Blue Economy, with whole urban regions and even nations at risk. The focus on the relationship between climate change and the Blue Economy is directed at the implications for the development efforts for the Blue Economy; the larger issues of climate change and the Indian Ocean region need to be addressed elsewhere. Climate change and its consequences Understanding climate change and its effects is an exercise in resolving a fundamental paradox. The consequences of adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere in quantities well beyond naturally occurring levels are relatively simple. The physics and chemistry are straightforward. But at the planetary scale, there is great complexity in the interaction of atmospheric and ocean circulation systems. Global average changes can mask significant regional and local variations. Even worse, most of the pace and degree of change is driven by decisions about human action to reduce the emissions of the greenhouse gases and to take other steps to reduce the damage caused by changes in the climate. Put another way, we know that the oceans will become warmer and expand. How much they will warm and expand is a matter of deep uncertainty.
Abstract for Book: The Blue Economy Handbook of the Indian Ocean Region: As humanity enters the Anthropocene epoch the oceans are more at risk than ever before as a result of the increased exploitation of its resources. The Indian Ocean is the third largest ocean in the world comprising 20% of the water on the Earth\u27s surface. The sea lanes in the Indian Ocean are among the busiest in the world with more than 80 percent of global seaborne trade in oil transiting through the Indian Ocean and its vital chokepoints and an estimated 40% of the world\u27s offshore oil production comes from the Indian Ocean. The importance of this region cannot be underestimated and there is no doubt that there are many opportunities for economic growth and job creation presented by the waters washing the shores of the Indian Ocean Rim. In order to ensure a desirable future for humanity it is necessary to make use of the ocean\u27s resources in a sustainable and responsible manner. Climate change is affecting the Indian Ocean negatively, placing a strain on the ability to ensure food security and damaging the economies of small island states that depend on fisheries and aquaculture for their livelihoods. Increasing ocean temperatures and ocean acidification are taking a toll on ecosystems. This book is the first of its kind, providing fresh insights into the various aspects and impacts of the Blue Economy in the Indian Ocean Region: from shifting paradigms, to an accounting framework, gender dynamics, the law of the sea and renewable energy, this handbook aims at increasing awareness of the Blue Economy in the Indian Ocean Region and to provide evidence to policy-makers in the region to make informed decisions. The contributions are from a mixture of disciplines by scholars and experts from seven countries