Handbook on the Economics and Management of Sustainable Oceans, edited by P.Nunes, L.Svensson, and A.Markandya. Published by United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya, 2017, pp. 577, ISBN: 978 1 78643 071 7.

Abstract

Ocean health is at risk due to heavy utilisation of marine resources, pollution, and changing climate. Many marine ecosystems services important for human well-being are in decline. Regulating the extractive and polluting uses of an ocean, a global common, requires collective international action. The global urge to promote ocean health and to make the best possible use of science and ocean administration for that end are the motivations for the Handbook on the Economics and Management of Sustainable Oceans, edited by Paulo Nunes, Lisa Svensson, and Anil Markandya. The book focuses on concepts, approaches, institutions, and environmental problems relevant to the sustained utilisation and enjoyment of marine resources and space. The scope is wide and includes all sectors operating and benefitting from oceans. The list of issues touched is long and includes global drivers of change, supply and demand of ecosystem services; various pressures; the impacts of changing ocean on human welfare, food safety, health hazards, mitigation, and adaptation measures; policy instruments, governance, and ocean literacy. Book chapters serve as building blocks demonstrating various ways to utilise interdisciplinary science for well-informed decision-making. The book does not aim to offer an exhaustive review of current knowledge of all important facets of sustainable ocean management and governance. Rather, the book offers glimpses of success stories of applying modern valuation techniques or collaborative management frameworks as tools in marine management around the world. The depth and disciplinary angle of analysis vary across chapters, each written by different teams of authors. The authors include economists, biologists, marine scientists, policy scientists and civil engineers. I enjoyed the chapters that provided structure to the multitude of global and regional organisations with varying jurisdictions and mandates. There are currently 567 international agreements relevant for the governance of oceans and a large number of international, regional, and national organisations providing the support and monitoring of implementation. I liked those chapters that addressed clearly formulated research problems and critically and realistically considered the capacity of institutions to tackle global problems or evaluated the potential of new frameworks to inform decision-making. In particular, I enjoyed Ch 14 by Watkins et al. and Ch 19 by Osborn et al., shedding light on the management of marine litter and ocean acidification; two emerging and potentially vast problems of our time. I learned much from chapters that explored opportunities for private–public partnerships and combining bottom-up and top-down approaches in the ocean governance. The book consists of three parts. The first part explores the methods and case studies valuing and assessing coastal and marine ecosystem services. The second part introduces recent applications of such assessments in ocean management. The third part addresses science to policy interface in informing ocean governance. The division is not fully satisfactory. Most of the chapters address all these aspects. This leads to unnecessary overlaps and annoying repetition across chapters. Greater use of cross-references would have allowed better guidance for a reader to explore and navigate through the chapters. After reading the book, I was left uncomfortable with the future prospects for sustainable ocean management. The capacity of international and regional institutions in solving emerging conflicts of interests remains conditional on the contemporary political climate. The fundamental question is how much power sovereign states will voluntarily transfer to the international organisations coordinating the joint efforts to manage the ocean and another global common - the atmosphere.