The world is facing a number of land-based challenges, including a growing human population, and scientists have warned that land degradation could displace at least 50 million people by 2050. What is the role of the blue economy as the pressure for land-based resources increases?
The blue economy is starting to get a lot of attention because land-based challenges are becoming more pressing. People are starting to look towards the large portion of the Earth that’s covered by water, that previously seemed inhospitable and inaccessible, and they’re beginning to build the technology that will help us to understand it better.
But how can we use the resources that are in our oceans with a more sustainable approach that we didn’t have with our land-based resources? It’s a second chance for us to do things properly. The ocean is an abundant resource and therefore has the potential to expand existing sectors as well as nurture entirely new ones if we manage it appropriately.
The threats facing the ocean have been brought into the spotlight recently, in part, because of programmes like the BBC’s Blue Planet. How is plastic pollution and overfishing threatening the ocean and how are governments and businesses developing solutions to these challenges?
Plastic pollution is a massive problem with over five trillion items of plastic currently littering our oceans. If you look at the scale of the problem – the amount of plastic that goes into our ocean every year which is approximately 12 million tonnes – most reports suggest it’s growing. Blue Planet, and successful campaigns, have been instrumental in bringing this issue into the public consciousness and now there is innovative technology emerging too.
With overfishing, the improvement of ocean data collection is helping experts to understand the scale of the problem better which can hopefully benefit government policymaking. Positive steps are currently being taken to address overfishing in Europe, Indonesia and the US but there are still issues where the data available isn’t able to provide all of the answers policymakers need. For example, the effects small vessels have on fish stocks are still unclear because these catches are going largely unreported. While they are not necessarily illegal, they are not accounted for in terms of fishing quotas, therefore understanding all of the elements in order to get a full picture of what is really going on in the ocean space is important.
Businesses are trying to understand the business cases around improving ocean data too but there are few concrete examples that they are able to make to increase investment in this area although that is starting to change.
It’s important that we develop a sustainable approach to our ocean because it will yield better resources for us in the future. We can’t afford to pollute it with materials such as plastics, or by irresponsibly removing resources from the ocean space, whether that’s fish, minerals or aggregates like sand. With better technology and data, we can start to address these problems by understanding their scale and then inventing appropriate solutions.
We, at SafetyNet Technologies (SNTech), focus on addressing the issue of unsustainable fishing practices. Globally, 1 in 10 fish caught is not the species targeted by the fisherman and this ‘by-catch’ is often thrown back into the ocean – usually dead – where it becomes waste. This translates to billions of marine organisms and billions of dollars wasted each year. Pisces, a light-emitting electronic device designed by SNTech, can be used to attract and repel different marine species based on their reaction to light, therefore lowering by-catch by up to 90 per cent and lessening the problem of overfishing.
Tackling by-catch is becoming increasingly important because of stricter fishing regulations and punishments for unsustainable fishing practices. But some of the current technology trying to reduce by-catch in commercial fishing can cost up to a million euros and weigh half a tonne. It can therefore be hard for businesses to justify investing in technology when it’s hard to recover the costs. As a result, businesses are starting to understand that they have to design scalable, affordable and sustainable technology.
India, Somalia, Nigeria and the Seychelles are some of the countries investing in developing a blue economy and, recently, the UK’s Environmental Audit Committee announced an inquiry into developing sustainable seas. Which governments are leading the way and which governments are falling behind?
The EU is taking a strong lead in terms of research and innovation. They have a number of high-profile research funding calls which have enabled people to start looking at these problems and design and build technology as part of their Horizon 2020 programme. There is also a lot around aquaculture, coastal tourism and ocean energy as part of their ‘Blue Growth’ strategy.
Indonesia has also gotten tough with its regulations around fishing, but it’s early days, and technology implementation and management will be key to ensuring that these regulations are as effective as possible. The Indonesian government has become an example for a lot of renaissance work around fisheries, such as the improved monitoring of fish catches in the supply chain and also around vessel monitoring in order to enable the government to uphold its ban on foreign vessels fishing in Indonesian waters, as well as around illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing.
Interestingly, the Thai government is now upgrading their fisheries in response to a ‘yellow card’ issued by the EU as a result of their poor IUU record so now they are selling to European member states.
In 2017, the US also reformed its import laws in order to better understand where the fish they are buying is coming from. The state of Oregon also recently passed the first legislation mandating the use of light-emitting devices for shrimp in order to lower the by-catch of endangered eulachon fish. That’s the first state-level law that specifically says fishermen have to use a technology like our Pisces device in order to be allowed to conduct fishing operations.
In the UK, fisheries played a large part in the Brexit vote, at least emotionally. If the UK is going to take an independent approach to fisheries post-Brexit, it has a chance to do things differently.
The UK environment secretary, Michael Gove, says he is on the side of fishermen, however, as a small company working in this space, we haven’t seen a lot of support from the top level. We’ve seen more support from the UK Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in terms of technology development and also from Marine Scotland.
Post-Brexit, I would like to see the UK government do more to support innovative fishing practices even though the UK market is so small compared to the global market. The UK has the resources to become a leader in sustainable fishing technology and could become like Norway who have been able to make their own fishing laws and have been progressive in terms of discard bans and investing in new technology that enable sustainable stock management.
