‘(…) It’s energetically expensive for animals to build and maintain those giant blocks of reef. Add to that the energy they now have to spend fighting off ocean acidification, pollution, and invasive species, and there is just not much left to invest in sex. It’s like the exhaustion that follows long days at the office—sex tends to take a backseat to sleep. We rely on the rapid reproduction of tiny crustaceans to feed the fish that feed us. We depend on the mass spawning of corals to create the reefs that provide habitat for the millions of species that we use for medicine, food, and simple enjoyment. We rely on the prolific procreation of oysters, clams, and other shellfish to filter and clean our coastal waters. Whether it is finding the next cancer-fighting compound, feeding a growing population, or fueling economies, we depend upon the extraordinary abundance of ocean life to sustain us—and that abundance depends upon lots and lots of sex. Without successful sex in the sea, we’re sunk. That’s why knowing what actually goes on “down there” matters to us up here.’ (Hardt 2016)


The Big Blue. This is perhaps the most common expression used to evoke the mystery of the Ocean. The term mystery could hardly be used more appropriately. As reported on the Ocean Literacy Portal of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission:

‘Today, we know that the ocean makes up about 71% of the Earth’s surface, and it is the biggest ecosystem of the planet, holding 99% of all habitable space in the world. As much as we try to picture its vastness, however, it remains almost incomprehensible. The five main ocean basins, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern Oceans, contain 94% of the world’s wildlife and 97% of all the water on our blue planet. Despite the central role it obviously plays in our planet’s balance and the appeal the ocean has held to men since the beginning of time, we actually do not know much about its mysteries. In fact, most of the waters remain unexplored, uncharted, and unseen by our eyes. It might be shocking to find out, but only 5% of the ocean has been explored and charted by humans. The rest, especially its depths, are still unknown.’ (Fava 2022)


The ocean undoubtedly exercises a determining influence on all Earth’s ecosystems by storing solar radiation, distributing heat and moisture, mediating temperature, and driving weather patterns that determine rainfall, droughts, and floods. The ocean produces at least 50% of the planet’s oxygen and is the world’s largest carbon store, with an estimated 83% of the global carbon cycle circulated through marine waters. It is home to most of the earth’s biodiversity and is the primary source of protein for more than a billion people worldwide (UN 2023).

Despite its size and impact on the lives of every organism on Earth, the ocean remains a mystery. Over 80% of the ocean has never been mapped, explored, or even seen by humans. A far greater percentage of the surfaces of the moon and the planet Mars has been mapped and studied than of our ocean floor. It could be that more than 90% of the ocean’s species are still undiscovered, with some scientists estimating that there are anywhere between a few hundred thousand and a few million more to be discovered.

Being so important yet unknown, strong precautionary principles and attitudes on how to relate and engage with the ocean ecosystem might be expected. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The linear growth paradigm is being aggressively extended instead to the ocean economy with privatization, industrialization, exploitation. As if all that were not enough, militarization is advancing on hyper-drive, menacing the water habitat that knows no borders.

The process started slowly by rewarming biased and narrow neoliberal theorizations on the destructive effects of fishermen’s rational economic behaviour in the absence of property rights, initially formulated in the 1950s, and by proposing to solve the ‘problem of fishing’ by privatizing access to resources, commodifying access rights, and institutionalizing markets for those rights (St Martin 2007). However, the past few years have witnessed a spiralling interplay between the commodification of fishing rights, the privatization of fishing access, heavy geopolitics in fisheries trade negotiations, and the intensification and industrialization of production to maximize integration within global value chains of fishing commodities. Fleets of large fishing vessels ply all the world’s oceans, depleting fish stocks, extending aquaculture, stressing marine ecosystems, disrupting the livelihoods of fishing communities, and exploiting workers, sometimes with labour conditions of modern slavery (Clark and Longo 2022).

But the industrialization of fisheries and the global value chains of fishing commodities, with all their human, ecological, and socio-economic implications, is only one dimension of the new frontiers of ocean exploitation. Climate techno-solutionism is propelling new commercial ventures for deep sea-bed mining for rare minerals and wind and solar energy production, among others. The ocean is also a critical space to assert military supremacy through the continued extension of military bases, ports, and other infrastructures.

This issue of Development unveils many of these dynamics. It exposes the extent and articulation of the neoliberal growth model in re-directing ocean economies and societies away from the communal pattern, with a profound impact on the livelihoods, sustainability, and cultures of coastal communities and dangerous implications on such an ecosystem so complex and vital for all forms of life on our small watery Planet. But the articles also explore another equally concerning reality: the wolf is wearing a new coat. The privatization, industrialization, and exploitation of the ocean are now framed and interpreted through the blue growth discourse. This narrative, once again, claims that not only capital accumulation is compatible with social and ecological objectives but that it can facilitate and promote the pursuit of sustainable development (Brent et al. 2020). Under the paradigm of partnership heralded by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the collusion of conservation lobbies, sophisticated philanthropies, and corporate networks offers the usual array of hollow solutions with resounding and pompous arguments hegemonically spread around to benefit few egos and even fewer pockets at the expense of nature, climate, and communities.

This issue challenges the dominant narrative on the ‘Blue Economy’ and exposes the blue-washing exercise that masks yet another expansionary dimension of the current pattern of corporate-led globalization under the pretence of development. But the mainstream ‘Blue Economy’ narrative also completely overlooks—deliberately and intentionally—how the so-called development project can be violent when it brings with it the displacement and marginalization of (fishery and coastal) communities and social groups, the disrespect and violation of the fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the pervasiveness of gender, race, ethnic, and religious-based violence and discrimination.

Maybe what seems to be tainted blue is not so blue after all.