Ecosystem-Based Integrated Ocean Management: A Framework for Sustainable Ocean Economy Development

6. Conclusion There is a need for a clear vision of what a sustain- able ocean economy should look like. This report proposes to visualize this as the blue doughnut of safe and just space that marine economic activities should occupy. This overarching vision is proposed as an alternative to the currently predominating dis- course around sustainable ocean economy devel- opment, which is centred on the pursuit of ‘sus- tainable blue growth’, which balances economic demands against nature conservation. Focusing on sustainable blue growth in this way creates an automatic tension between increased demands on ocean space and resources by economic activities on the one hand, and the need to better protect the ocean ecosystem on the other. The blue doughnut circumvents this tension by shifting focus away from growth as a central objective, and instead directly placing the goals that matter most centre stage: to deliver a diversity of human wellbeing needs within safe ecological limits, with economic growth being a potential by-product. An immediate priority task for ocean managers should be to flesh out this vision with ocean-centred boundaries and thresholds for the ecological ceiling and social foundations for ocean economies in different parts of the world. This task will require working in multidisciplinary teams of natural scientists, economists, social scientists, indigenous communities, and other stakeholders. Fortunately, this report demonstrates that in EB-IOM, ocean managers have a wealth of well-es- tablished, thoroughly researched, and increasingly well-tested concepts, approaches, frameworks and tools that can help them in this task, as well as in the bigger challenge of achieving the sustain- ability transformations needed to make the vision of the blue doughnut a reality. This report provides a deconstruction and detailed orientation around the diverse toolbox of EB-IOM, to illustrate that for any of the wide range of challenges a practitioner will encounter, others will probably have already developed methods to help address and overcome it. This will help ocean managers identify relevant approaches developed within the confines of aca- demia and improve their uptake into applied prac- tice. Not only is there a vast literature covering relevant tools and approaches, but there are also communi- ties of professionals from a wide variety of subject backgrounds whose expertise can be drawn from, and an increasing amount of empirical case stud- ies that lessons can be learned from. A research priority for ocean management should be to invest in the systematic deconstruction of such empirical

case studies (for example, using the governance analysis frameworks referred to in this report), to build a better empirical information base on which approaches tend to work best in which social, eco- nomic, cultural, political, and environmental con- texts. The key message from this report, however, is that we have a wealth of understanding to draw from. We have the scientific understanding, the tools, the knowledge, the tested approaches, and the adap- tive management frameworks to roll out EB-IOM around the global ocean, as a vehicle for making the blue doughnut a reality. The main obstacles to overcome are related to institutional inertia and political will. Sustainability transformations are inherently ‘wicked problems’ but building econo- mies in which people and the planet can thrive is the most important task we face as humans enter- ing the Anthropocene. The concepts, frameworks and practical tools of EB-IOM that have been cov- ered in this report leave ocean managers amply prepared to play their part.

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