• Energy Research

L'économie bleue a ses racines dans l'arène internationale du développement durable et vise à libérer des opportunités pour l'économie et la société tout en protégeant et en améliorant les environnements marins. À ce jour, il n'y a pas eu d'analyse de la manière dont cette intention globale de durabilité a influencé le développement rapide des politiques de l'économie bleue à l'échelle nationale et régionale. Dans cet article, nous analysons les synergies et les conflits entre les politiques de l'économie bleue issues d'une diversité de politiques nationales et régionales et les objectifs de développement durable des Nations Unies. Nous montrons que pour maintenir un alignement critique avec les objectifs de durabilité, un développement contextuel basé sur le lieu des économies bleues qui répondent aux besoins de tous les acteurs est nécessaire. Ces besoins concernent la résilience face aux futurs chocs environnementaux et politiques, le maintien de la base écologique pour des économies bleues prospères et le développement des capacités à tous les niveaux pour soutenir une gouvernance efficace et équitable. Les résultats indiquent que la coproduction sera importante pour parvenir à des économies bleues durables. La economía azul tiene sus raíces en el ámbito internacional del desarrollo sostenible y se propone desbloquear oportunidades para la economía y la sociedad al tiempo que protege y mejora los entornos marinos. Hasta la fecha, no se ha analizado cómo esta intención general de sostenibilidad ha influido en el rápido desarrollo de las políticas de economía azul a escala nacional y regional. En este artículo, analizamos las sinergias y conflictos entre las políticas de economía azul de una diversidad de políticas nacionales y regionales y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la ONU. Mostramos que para mantener una alineación crítica con los objetivos de sostenibilidad, es necesario un desarrollo contextual basado en el lugar de las economías azules que satisfaga las necesidades de todos los actores. Estas necesidades se relacionan con garantizar la resiliencia frente a futuras crisis ambientales y políticas, el mantenimiento de la base ecológica para las economías azules prósperas y el desarrollo de capacidades a todos los niveles para apoyar una gobernanza eficaz y equitativa. Los resultados indican que la coproducción será importante para lograr economías azules sostenibles. The blue economy has roots in the international arena of sustainable development and sets out to unlock opportunities for economy and society whilst protecting and enhancing marine environments. To date there has been no analysis of how this overarching intention for sustainability has influenced the rapid development of blue economy policies at national and regional scales. In this article, we analyse the synergies and conflicts between blue economy policies from a diversity of national and regional policies and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We show that to maintain critical alignment with targets for sustainability, place-based contextual development of blue economies that meet the needs of all actors is necessary. These needs relate to ensuring resilience against future environmental and political shocks, the maintenance of the ecological basis for thriving blue economies, and capacity development at all levels to support effective and equitable governance. Results indicate that co-production will be important to achieve sustainable blue economies. الاقتصاد الأزرق له جذور في الساحة الدولية للتنمية المستدامة ويبدأ في إطلاق العنان لفرص الاقتصاد والمجتمع مع حماية وتعزيز البيئات البحرية. حتى الآن لم يكن هناك تحليل لكيفية تأثير هذه النية الشاملة للاستدامة على التطور السريع لسياسات الاقتصاد الأزرق على المستويين الوطني والإقليمي. في هذه المقالة، نحلل أوجه التآزر والتعارض بين سياسات الاقتصاد الأزرق من مجموعة متنوعة من السياسات الوطنية والإقليمية وأهداف الأمم المتحدة للتنمية المستدامة. نوضح أنه للحفاظ على المواءمة الحاسمة مع أهداف الاستدامة، من الضروري التنمية السياقية القائمة على المكان للاقتصادات الزرقاء التي تلبي احتياجات جميع الجهات الفاعلة. تتعلق هذه الاحتياجات بضمان المرونة ضد الصدمات البيئية والسياسية المستقبلية، والحفاظ على الأساس البيئي للاقتصادات الزرقاء المزدهرة، وتنمية القدرات على جميع المستويات لدعم الحوكمة الفعالة والمنصفة. تشير النتائج إلى أن الإنتاج المشترك سيكون مهمًا لتحقيق اقتصادات زرقاء مستدامة.

AbstractProjections of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems have revealed long-term declines in global marine animal biomass and unevenly distributed impacts on fisheries. Here we apply an enhanced suite of global marine ecosystem models from the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP), forced by new-generation Earth system model outputs from Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), to provide insights into how projected climate change will affect future ocean ecosystems. Compared with the previous generation CMIP5-forced Fish-MIP ensemble, the new ensemble ecosystem simulations show a greater decline in mean global ocean animal biomass under both strong-mitigation and high-emissions scenarios due to elevated warming, despite greater uncertainty in net primary production in the high-emissions scenario. Regional shifts in the direction of biomass changes highlight the continued and urgent need to reduce uncertainty in the projected responses of marine ecosystems to climate change to help support adaptation planning.

SI

In 2017, South Africa became the first African country to draft Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) legislation. The underlying legal framework supports the achievement of ecological, social and economic objectives, but a national policy to fast track the oceans economy provides a challenge for ecosystem-based approaches to MSP. During the 2018 International Marine Conservation Congress, we convened a session to present particular challenges that will likely apply to any developing country seeking to increase profits from existing, or proposed, marine activities. Here we present six multi-disciplinary research projects that support ecosystem-based approaches to MSP in South Africa, by addressing the following knowledge gaps and specific key challenges: (1) the lack of data-derived measurements of ecosystem condition (and the need to validate commonly-used proxy measures); (2) the need to develop models to better understand the potential impacts of climate change on food webs and fisheries; (3) the slow implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, and the need to implement existing legal instruments that can support such an approach; (4) the paucity of evidence supporting dynamic ocean management strategies; (5) the requirement to manage conflicting objectives in growing marine tourism industries; and (6) the need to adopt systems thinking approaches to support integrated ocean management. We provide examples of specific research projects designed to address these challenges. The ultimate goal of this research is to advance a more integrated approach to ocean management in South Africa, using tools that can be applied in countries with similar socio-political and environmental contexts.

The marine fisheries sector is one of the most important income sectors in South Africa and plays an important role in food security for small-scale and subsistence fishers. Climate-driven impacts have resulted in distribution shifts and declines in abundance of important fisheries targets, with negative consequences to the users dependent on these resources. The sustainability of the sector depends on its readiness to adapt to climate change. The inclusion of climate change impacts and adaptation in fisheries management documents in South Africa is essential to ensure adequate climate adaptation responses are implemented at the short- and long-term. This study aims to 1) determine if the relevant fisheries national management documents address climate change and adaptation, 2) determine if the relevant national climate change documents address climate change and adaptation in the fisheries sector and 3) evaluate the extent to which fisheries management documents address climate change and adaptation. A content analysis of fisheries management and climate change documents was carried out to determine if they incorporated information on climate change impacts and adaptation and marine fisheries respectively. Fisheries management documents were then screened against nine pre-determined criteria (or themes) based on climate change adaptation to determine the level of inclusion of best practice for climate change adaptation. Results indicate that climate change impacts and adaptation are rarely incorporated in the main fisheries management documents, except for the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Plan for the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors. However, this document is still waiting to be adopted. The only direct reference identified in all the fisheries documents that supports climate change adaptation was ‘conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity’. With regards to indirect references to climate change adaptation, ‘equity,’ ‘participatory management,’ and ‘capacity building’ were most frequently incorporated in fisheries management documents. There is a need to explicitly incorporate information on climate change impacts and adaptation in South African fisheries management documents and increase the human and financial capacity at national institutions to ensure that the fisheries sector can adequately adapt to climate change.

Many coastal communities rely on living marine resources for livelihoods and food security. These resources are commonly under stress from overfishing, pollution, coastal development and habitat degradation. Climate change is an additional stressor beginning to impact coastal systems and communities, but may also lead to opportunities for some species and the people they sustain. We describe the research approach for a multi-country project, focused on the southern hemisphere, designed to contribute to improving fishing community adaptation efforts by characterizing, assessing and predicting the future of coastal-marine food resources, and co-developing adaptation options through the provision and sharing of knowledge across fast-warming marine regions (i.e. marine ‘hotspots’). These hotspots represent natural laboratories for observing change and concomitant human adaptive responses, and for developing adaptation options and management strategies. Focusing on adaptation options and strategies for enhancing coastal resilience at the local level will contribute to capacity building and local empowerment in order to minimise negative outcomes and take advantage of opportunities arising from climate change. However, developing comparative approaches across regions that differ in political institutions, socio-economic community demographics, resource dependency and research capacity is challenging. Here, we describe physical, biological, social and governance tools to allow hotspot comparisons, and several methods to evaluate and enhance interactions within a multi-nation research team. Strong partnerships within and between the focal regions are critical to scientific and political support for development of effective approaches to reduce future vulnerability. Comparing these hotspot regions will enhance local adaptation responses and generate outcomes applicable to other regions.