Blue economy initiatives have emerged along marine and coastal areas, seeking to bring the green economy into a 'blue world'. Often defined as a global policy agenda, blue economy discourses and practices purportedly aim to generate 'blue growth' by linking poverty reduction, social equality, and marine conservation. While global and national policies have spent decades addressing coastal resource management, broader blue economy discourses and practices seem, on the surface, to promote economic growth strategies for marine conservation. Increasingly, new market-oriented programs and projects aim to tap the financial value of the ocean's 'blue capital', ostensibly fostering income generation and sustainable solutions for conservation finance. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and key-informant interviews across scales, we examine the meanings and practices of the blue economy in Southeast Asia and in the Philippines. As an archipelagic nation, millions of coastal dwellers in the Philippines depend on oceans as a major source of livelihood, food security, and wellbeing. We examine how multilateral institutions, bilateral organisations, state agencies, civil society organisations, and other key actors represent and enact the blue economy discursively and in practice.We find that oceans are being imagined as an open frontier that must be managed and utilised for both conservation and economic purposes. New territorialisation processes are creating new borders and
The goal of food security increasingly serves as an objective and justification for marine conservation in the global south. In the marine conservation literature this potential link is seldom based upon detailed analysis of the socioeconomic pathways between fish and food security, is often based on limited assumptions about increasing the availability of fish stocks, and downplays the role of trade. Yet, the relationship between fish and food security is multifaceted and complex, with various local contextual factors that mediate between fish and food security. We use data from interviews and food security assessment methods to examine the relationship between fish and food security among fishing households in San Vicente, Palawan province, Philippines. We highlight the local role of income and trade, emphasising the sale of fish to purchase food not easily accessible for fishers, particularly staples. In particular, we show that because rice is the primary staple of food security for these households, fish must be traded with the intent of buying rice. Trade is therefore central to household food security. We argue that the relationship between fish and food security must be considered in greater depth if marine conservation is to engage with food security as an objective.
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