Quick Dips
Curated topical articles on the Blue Economy

SDG 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans

United Nations Fisheries & Aquaculture Plastics & Pollution

14.1 By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, particularly from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution 14.2 By 2020, sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems to avoid significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration, to achieve healthy and productive oceans 14.3 Minimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels 14.4 By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting, and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, to restore fish stocks...

Read more → (2 minute read)


Seagrasses, Nature’s Water Filter

Kathryn Behesht, The Ocean Foundation Fisheries & Aquaculture

Seagrasses are aquatic flowering plants that are found along a broad latitudinal range. As one of the planets most effective and efficient coastal systems for carbon sequestration, proper conservation and management of seagrass meadows is critical to combat the global loss of seagrasses. 

Read more → (6 minute read)


Blue economy: Not just for the fish

Irene Banos Ruiz, DW

Moving to a "blue" economy is crucial for the sustainability in our world's oceans, say experts at the 5th World Ocean Summit happening in Mexico this week. But what is "blue economy" actually about?

Read more → (5 minute read)


Declaration of the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles

World Wildlife Fund

The ocean is a biologically diverse and highly productive system. It is an immense source of materials, food, energy and ecosystem services.

Read more → (5 minute read)


Queen conch dying out in the Bahamas despite marine parks

Jim Tan, Mongabay Fisheries & Aquaculture

New research finds that the queen conch (Strombus gigas), economically important as food and for its decorative shell, is facing unprecedented fishing pressure throughout its Caribbean range.

Read more → (6 minute read)


Solar, wind and nuclear have ‘amazingly low’ carbon footprints, study finds

Simon Evans, Carbon Brief Energy Solutions

Building solar, wind or nuclear plants creates an insignificant carbon footprint compared with savings from avoiding fossil fuels, a new study suggests.

Read more → (8 minute read)


With Every Breath You Take, Thank the Ocean

Kalila Morsink, Smithsonian Energy Solutions Fisheries & Aquaculture Plastics & Pollution

That’s right—more than half of the oxygen you breathe comes from marine photosynthesizers, like phytoplankton and seaweed. 

Read more → (3 minute read)


How we’ll eat fish in the future

Bloomberg Fisheries & Aquaculture

Aquaculture is drawing entrepreneurs and investors, in an overfished world with a growing appetite for the healthy protein. Farmed or wild? Local or imported? Organic? Or some certification you’ve never heard of?

Read more → (3 minute read)


Industry endorses plan to recycle 70% of plastic packaging globally

Ellen MacArthur Foundation Plastics & Pollution

More than 40 industry leaders have endorsed a new action plan to tackle global plastics issues, and have begun working together to create a more effective global system for plastics.

Read more → (4 minute read)


Aviva Investors and Sustainable Fisheries call on seafood companies to protect global supply

Aviva Investors Fisheries & Aquaculture

Investors must do more to push seafood companies to adopt progressive policies that enhance the sustainability of fishing and fish farming and reduce the potential for environmental and human rights abuses, according to a report issued today by Aviva Investors and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership.

Read more → (4 minute read)


The trillion dollar ocean

Claire Jolly & Barrie Stevens, OECD

Insight: For some, the ocean is the new economic frontier. It holds the promise of immense resource wealth and great potential for boosting economic growth, employment and innovation.

Read more → (5 minute read)


Why dealmakers are getting hooked on aquaculture

The Street.com Fisheries & Aquaculture

A small fish swallowed a bigger fish when the U.K.’s Benchmark Holdings bought Belgium’s Inve Aquaculture from Coöperatieve Rabobank and Royal Bank of Scotland in December for about £227 million ($321.8 million).

Read more → (12 minute read)


New Plastics Economy report offers blueprint to design a circular future for plastics

Ellen MacArthur Foundation Plastics & Pollution

Applying circular economy principles to global plastic packaging flows could transform the plastics economy and drastically reduce negative externalities such as leakage into oceans, according to the latest report by the World Economic Forum and Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with analytical support from McKinsey & Company.

Read more → (4 minute read)