Our Issues

Ocean economy

Shaping an economy that strengthens Pacific Peoples’ custodianship of the Ocean

The Blue Economy has framed ocean resources as a potential windfall for ocean states yet the push to extract new ocean resources is largely ungoverned. Despite an agreement of the High Seas Treaty that governs biodiversity beyond jurisdictions, the threat remains on our ocean as the International Seabed Authority debates the future of deep-sea mining.  Globally there are significant gaps around the governance of the ocean as a single entity. Different legal instruments governing diverse uses of the ocean are located in various United Nations bodies. 

Through our work, PANG highlights and exposes gaps within international and regional instruments that informs the blue economy, to ensure international protocols for protecting the health of the oceans are necessary, and done according to and in consultation with Pacific peoples.   

  • Expose the interests, agendas and actors that are shaping the blue economy to be a continuation of deepening neoliberal agendas in the Pacific Islands;
  • Disrupt the frameworks and mechanisms that promote a neo-liberal blue economy vision;
  • Create spaces for the elevation of an ocean economy that strengthens Pacific peoples’ custodianship of the ocean for future generations.
 
Visit our websites focused on the ocean economy:
 

The Pacific Blue Line

All That Blue: Re-sourcing, Ports and Geopolitics in the Pacific

The Pacific Blue Line

Deep Sea Mining is Not Needed, Not Wanted, Not Consented!

The Ocean is the living blue heart of our planet. It is our common heritage, but also our common responsibility. We are its guardians. We recognise its significance and its essence as the basis of our Pacific identity and wellbeing. We Are the Ocean. In its preservation, we are preserved.

There is no scenario in which DSM is permissible. If it’s not safe in our EEZs, it’s not safe in the Pacific as a whole, and therefore not safe for the world. A total ban on DSM is the only way to ensure the integrity of the ocean, the heart of our planet. We therefore: • call for recognition that, as our common heritage, the ocean demands our common responsibility for its protection; • call on all Pacific leaders to join the growing ranks of governments, scientific authorities, CSOs, global leaders and indigenous groups the world over opposing the rush to mine the ocean floor and, in doing so, destroy our common heritage; and • welcome the stand taken by some Pacific governments of a moratorium on DSM within their EEZs but strongly urge all of our governments to move beyond their EEZs and support a global ban on DSM.
The Pacific Blue Line website

All That Blue

The Pacific Ocean is set to become the next site for the industrialisation of ocean resources under the wider Blue Economy framework. This ocean continent, stretching a third of the Earth’s surface, is once again being prised open into a frontier for natural resource grabs and extractive industry by powerful governments, institutions, their agents and financiers. Not only are these powerful forces making the same old promises of economic salvation for the region, their gospel requires the resources of the deep as a precursor to the great green energy transition – humanity’s only escape route from a global climate catastrophe.

PANG commissioned a research report in 2021 to examine where natural resources are, infrastructure development projects and the financial institutions funding these developments with a specific focus on international deep-water ports in four Pacific Island Countries. These countries are: Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu. Cook Islands and Tonga are sponsors of deep-sea mining in the area, Papua New Guinea was the first country to issue a commercial license for deep sea mining and Vanuatu holds geographic significance in the regional geopolitics.

International deep-water ports serve as important transportation hubs that facilitate the movement of goods both in and out of countries. These can connect businesses in local communities and worldwide markets. In developing countries, they function to support the exploration, exploitation and movement of raw materials to foreign jurisdiction.

In this case, the project assessed how these ports are not only contributing to the current economic activities in the countries, but also in the preparation for future extractive developments, in particular deep-sea mining.

The map tells the visual story of which aid donors are funding the ports in the region and what economic and geopolitical role they can play in securing access to and exploitation of ocean resources.
All That Blue website