The UN program “The Ocean Decade” is starting this year. It is supposed to be ten years of research, assessment, and development of what the world’s oceans can provide to humankind and how that can be managed in a sustainable manner within the concept called “The Blue Economy”. It is a good idea, in general, but from what I saw up to now, many of the participants in the program are still anchored to the view that the Oceans contain large, untapped resources that can be exploited within the model of “sustainable development,” normally understood in terms of economic growth.
That may be a remarkable misunderstanding. As we explain in our recent
book “The Empty Sea,” the world’s oceans do contain enormous resources, but it is also true that — like all biological resources — overexploitation is a misunderstood risk that always takes people by surprise.
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