The Journal of Peasant Studies

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Blue growth: savior or ocean grabbing?

Mads Barbesgaard

To cite this article: Mads Barbesgaard (2018) Blue growth: savior or ocean grabbing?, The
Journal of Peasant Studies, 45:1, 130-149, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2017.1377186

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1377186

Published online: 30 Oct 2017.

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The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2018
Vol. 45, No. 1, 130–149, https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1377186

FORUM ON CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE

Blue growth: savior or ocean grabbing?
Mads Barbesgaard

While the global rush to control land resources is well established, ‘power-grabs’ in
relation to marine and coastal resources are less well researched. Under the banner of
‘blue growth’, such power-grabs are taking shape through global policy processes
that purportedly align the needs of the poor with profit interests and climate change
concerns. This contribution critically interrogates these policy proposals and situates
them within broader neoliberalization of nature debates. It is argued that the policy
proposals fail on their own terms and are a form of ‘antipolitics’ that precludes more
radical visions of addressing environmental and climate change issues. In an attempt
to challenge this, small-scale fishers’ movements are increasingly framing their
opposition in terms of the broader struggle for ‘food sovereignty’.
Keywords: blue growth; ocean grabbing; natural capital; food sovereignty; anti-politics

Introduction
Talk of the ocean as a new economic frontier, of a new phase of industrialization of the seas,
will become widespread in 2016.
The Economist, 2015

The Economist’s prediction from 2015 has come true. More and more actors have become
interested in fundamental questions of how to manage ocean resources: who should control
the resources, who should have access, on which terms and to what end? What role should
maritime and coastal resources have in our society? Increasingly, these questions are dis-
cussed under the banner of ‘blue growth’ and the debate is driven by international environ-
mental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), like World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF) and Conservation International, the financial sector including Credit Suisse and
Goldman Sachs, and even military companies like Lockheed Martin. The year 2015 saw
a stream of international conferences on how to ‘Invest in the Blue Economy’ and how
best to attain ‘blue growth’, in which these actors figured prominently. Rather than
seeing opposing interests and contradictory dynamics between the search for growth and
economic profit on the one hand and conservation and restoration of ocean resources in
order to tackle and mitigate climate change on the other hand, blue growth envisions
‘triple-benefit’ solutions, where everybody supposedly wins: coastal communities, the
environment and investors. Commenting on the outcome of a conference organized by
Credit Suisse and WWF on ‘Conservation Finance’ with a focus on maritime and coastal
resources, managing director at Encourage Capital Jason Scott remarked optimistically
how the policy solutions discussed would lead to ‘More fish, more income for fishers
and more return for investors’ (quoted in Washington Post 2016).

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

 The Journal of Peasant Studies 131

As the broad range of actors suggests, ‘blue growth’ goes beyond the question of fish-
eries and extends to dynamics about the management of all maritime and coastal resources.
A report put out by The Economist Intelligence Unit (2015), in the run-up to the World
Ocean Summit in June 2015, identified a wide array of ‘emerging industries’ – from phar-
maceuticals to eco-tourism to deep-sea mining – with potential interests in the ‘ocean
economy’.
Similar to the ongoing ‘global land rush’, driven by a convergence of crises (finance,
food, climate, energy) and consequent increased interest in control of land and land-
based resources (McMichael 2012), movements of small-scale fisher peoples claim that a
‘global ocean grab’ is also underway (WFFP 2014a). In this view, states, multinational cor-
porations, ENGOs, speculative investors and many others are pushing through a ‘power
grab’ to gain control of aquatic – ‘blue’ – resources. Seen in this light, the rise of blue
growth represents the latest stage in a broader process of ‘capturing of control by powerful
economic actors of crucial decision-making … including the power to decide how and for
what purposes marine resources are used, conserved and managed’ (WFFP 2014a, 3).
Just as the ‘global land rush’ is discursively legitimized with reference to everything
from feeding the world to solving climate change and ensuring development – all the
while casting the current users of the land, small-scale peasants, as ineffective and/or detri-
mental to these purported goals (Borras et al. 2016) – so too the global ocean grab is codi-
fied in terms of saving the remaining aquatic species (reform of national fisheries policy and
top-down conservation measures), mitigating climate change (so-called blue-carbon initiat-
ives) and feeding the world (through aquaculture and/or ‘sustainable’ large-scale fisheries)
(WFFP 2014a; see also Bennett, Govan, and Satterfield 2015).
While the literature on drivers behind such dynamics as well as their consequences and
the struggles and conflicts that they have unleashed surrounding land-based resources is
extensive (e.g. Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones 2012; Borras and Franco 2012), relatively
little attention from this perspective has been given to similar processes around blue
resources. Although there is a ‘robust, but small’ (Campling, Havice, and McCall
Howard 2012, 173) body of critical literature surrounding the political economy of fish-
eries, this focuses on the more historical intra-sectoral dynamics and management of the
fisheries resource (Bresnihan 2016; Campling and Havice 2014; Mansfield 2004;
Macinko 2014). Additionally, a body of research looking into one of the ‘emerging indus-
tries’ in the blue economy, marine aquaculture, has also been developing over the past
decade (see Vandergeest, Flaherty, and Miller 1999; Hall 2003 for early work by political
ecologists, and Clausen and Clark 2005; Longo, Clausen, and Clark 2015 for interventions
drawing on Marxist political economy). And, finally, work on climate change mitigation
and conservation initiatives aimed at blue resources, and their consequences for coastal
communities, is also increasing (Beymer-Farris and Bassett 2012; Benjaminsen and Bryce-
son 2012; Wolff 2015).
This paper seeks to contribute to the literature by examining and giving an overview of
blue growth solutions to conservation and climate change issues. The contribution feeds
into ongoing theoretical debates around the neoliberalization of nature with a case that chal-
lenges straightforward accounts of such processes. While blue growth solutions to conser-
vation and climate change issues aim at ‘selling nature to save it’ (McAfee 1999), I argue
that they fail on their own terms through lacking appeal to the ‘right’ (so-called sustainable)
capital and by consolidating or simply ignoring the large-scale extractivist activities that are
driving the crises in ocean health. In tune with recent research on for-profit conservation
generally (Dempsey 2016; Dempsey and Suarez 2016), blue growth solutions furthermore
have profound impact through their ‘antipolitical’ framing of climate and environmental
132 Mads Barbesgaard

change that precludes radical agendas forwarded by fisher peoples’ movements. As blue
growth rhetoric gains momentum in global political arenas and associated policies are
implemented across the globe, critical analyses of their impacts on the people that currently
rely on blue resources are crucial.
First, I track the rise of blue growth, discussing the contested meanings of the term and
how a specific interpretation of it is gaining traction in key international policy circles. Next
I look into the historical enclosure of blue resources, drawing on the neoliberal conservation
and political economy of fisheries literature. This sets the stage for the following sections
that examine two policy proposals flowing from the blue growth vision of restoring ocean
health: the first on ‘sustainable fisheries’ and the next on ‘blue carbon’. I then show how
despite the ‘inordinate returns’ promised for investors engaged in financing the restoration
of ocean health, accumulation is currently not taking place directly through these means.
The final section discusses the ‘antipolitical’ framing of climate change and conservation
that the blue growth discourse leads to and how small-scale fisher peoples’ movements
are increasingly opposing blue growth policies, putting forward their own solutions. The
analytical sections are based on a study of relevant policy documents and a selected litera-
ture review. The discussion on the small-scale fishers peoples’ movement’s convergence
with food sovereignty efforts is based on my participation in events leading up to and at
the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Blue growth – restoring ‘ocean health’?

Without a dramatic shift in the business-as-usual course for marine management, our analysis
suggests that the oceans will endure a mass extinction of sufficient intensity and ecological
selectivity to rank among the major extinctions of the Phanerozoic (541 Ma to present).
(Payne et al. 2016, 3)

So reads the conclusion in the latest of a long stream of articles in journals like Science and
Nature on the increasingly abysmal state of blue resources. Media and non-governmental
organization (NGO) reports have similarly covered the declining biodiversity and destruc-
tion of marine and coastal ecosystems to the detriment of ‘life on earth as we know it’
(Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2015, 5), as WWF put it. Global policy processes drawing on
this crisis narrative are accordingly, in their own words, approaching ‘ocean health’ from
a more holistic perspective in the pursuit of win–win–win solutions. As a recent World
Bank initiative explains: ‘fragmented solutions [are] insufficient to meet the web of chal-
lenges confronting ocean health. Properly designed, integrated efforts can result in sustain-
able and shared economic development, poverty reduction, and healthy marine ecosystems’
(Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2013, 12). Such integrated efforts are increasingly happening under
the banner of ‘blue growth’ (interchangeably, blue economy/wealth and ocean economy).
The first international event where blue growth received mass attention was the Rio +
20 summit, where proponents competed with the fanfare surrounding ‘green growth’.
Employing discourse analysis, Silver et al. (2015) examine the competing and contrasting
invocation of the term ‘blue economy’ at the meeting in Rio. They identified four different
narratives: oceans as natural capital, oceans as good business, oceans as integral to small-
island developing states (SIDS), and oceans as small-scale fishers’ livelihoods. Each of
these narratives has its own specific set of problems, solutions and governance actors.
For the ‘natural capital’ narrative, the problem is that decision-making does not adequately
account for nature and the value of ecosystem services. Consequently, the solution lies in
identifying and valuing ecosystem services and developing mechanisms to account and
 The Journal of Peasant Studies 133

protect/restore them. The main actors here are international organizations, governments,
ENGOs, impact investors, scientists and other ‘experts’. For the ‘good business’ narrative,
the problem is that actions by firms have in the past been unsustainable and that states are
incapable of governing alone. Consequently, the solution is public–private partnerships and
better incentivizing of firms that will lead to private-sector leadership. The main actors here
are, predictably, individual firms, industry coalitions and international partnerships. For the
last two, SIDS and small-scale fishers’ livelihoods, there is a common focus on inequities in
the international political-economic system and the marginalization of small-scale fisher
peoples and development opportunities as the main problems. Solutions include a human
rights approach to fisheries and the implementation of international agreements with gov-
ernments, supportive donors and NGOs as well as, crucially, fishers and fisher collectives
themselves as the main actors.1
The different actors at Rio + 20, from small-scale fisherfolk to transnational ENGOs and
financial actors, had widely different ideas about which types of policy proposals would be
conducive to the blue economy, which problems they were addressing and who should be in
the driver’s seat of such policy proposals. As Silver and colleagues conclude (2015, 152)
this competition in analyses and diagnosis of the crises in ocean health has material conse-
quences, as ‘ideas presented and relationships made can serve to codify ways to think about
– and in turn govern – nature and society’. Following Rio + 20, a range of initiatives
oriented toward facilitating blue growth at global and national levels have been introduced,
including the World Bank’s USD 6.4 billion Blue Growth Portfolio (World Bank 2016), the
EU’s Blue Growth Strategy (EC 2014), and a wide range of countries in the Global South
that, according to the United Nations (UN)’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO),
are already implementing Blue Growth programs (FAO 2015a). Furthermore, it has set
the frame for a range of international conferences and meetings, including the stream of
World Ocean Summits organized by The Economist, the #OurOcean conferences organized
by the USA State Department, and UN processes including the UNFCCC and the FAO’s
Committee on Fisheries. At COP22 of the UNFCCC held in Morocco, several of the
keynote speakers at the Oceans Day (a regular feature since COP15 in Copenhagen)
stressed blue growth’s transformative potential by addressing climate change while simul-
taneously delivering sustainable growth (IISD 2016a).
A year after the Rio + 20, the FAO launched its Blue Growth Initiative (BGI) in 2013,
defining blue growth as: ‘the sustainable growth and development emanating from econ-
omic activities in the oceans, wetlands and coastal zones, that minimize environmental
degradation, biodiversity loss and unsustainable use of living aquatic resources, and maxi-
mize economic and social benefits’ (FAO 2015a, 8). A range of challenges and crises are
identified as the reasoning behind the BGI, including the degradation and destruction of
habitats, loss of biodiversity, overexploited fish stocks and general climate change-
related impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems (e.g. ocean acidification and warming).
In order to respond to these crises, it is deemed necessary to increase international coordi-
nation aimed at ‘strengthen[ing] responsible management regimes and practices that recon-
cile economic growth and food security with the restoration of the eco-systems they sustain’
(FAO 2015a, 8). The FAO’s approach to blue economy is interesting in that it selectively
borrows from the different narratives above. In its definition, it aims at addressing all of the

1
As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, though, it is important to acknowledge that the SIDS rhetoric
here around livelihoods etc. is often far from reality, where it is often more aligned with the interests of
transnational corporations.
134 Mads Barbesgaard

problems identified across the four narratives. In terms of actors, the BGI is based on a
partnership-approach, bringing together a range of actors, including: UN agencies (UN
Environment Program (UNEP), UN Development Program (UNDP) and FAO), multilateral
and national donors (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, The World Bank
and the Global Environmental Facility), industry coalitions (e.g. the International Coalition
of Fishing Associations, the Marine Stewardship Council) and transnational ENGOs (e.g.
WWF) Communications around the BGI stress that the ‘initiative focuses on creating strong
and meaningful partnerships, so that no one group will take “the lead”’ (Mathiesen 2015)
and suggests that civil society actors are also ‘key partners’ to the BGI (Bodiguel n.d.).
However, the two global fisher movements, the World Forum of Fisher Peoples and the
World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers, have in other instances voiced
strong critique against the terms of their inclusion in such partnership-processes (WFFP
& WFF 2017). Additionally, a few years down the line from the launch of the BGI, the
FAO and a subset of the BGI partners are currently pushing policy agendas related to con-
servation and climate change mitigation that are much closer to the ‘oceans as good
business’ and ‘oceans as natural capital’ narratives than to the other two narratives con-
cerned with livelihoods and development of SIDS.

The ‘tragedy of the commons’ and the blue enclosure

In recent years, a growing body of literature has sought to uncover the social and ecological
outcomes of conservation and climate change mitigation policy under neoliberalism.
Initially seen through the prism of neoliberalization of nature (Heynen et al. 2007;
Castree 2008), more recently the concepts of ‘green-grabbing’ (Fairhead, Leach, and
Scoones 2012) and its inversion, ‘grabbing green’ (Corson, MacDonald, and Neimark
2013), have gained traction. These draw on rich historical debates centering on shifts in
control of natural resources dating back to Marx’s elucidation of the necessary prerequisite
to capitalism: primitive accumulation. Advancing Harvey’s (2003) argument that primitive
accumulation is an ongoing process as new rounds of enclosures privatize global commons
and public assets, the green-grabbing literature argues that climate change and conservation
initiatives have become a key tool to facilitate what Harvey calls accumulation by dispos-
session.2 As background to the contemporary interventions that will be addressed later, the
following section provides a brief overview of the historical enclosures of blue resources.
With the dawn of early capitalism from the seventeenth century onward, ‘pressure to
define ocean-use rights, territory and ownership were deeply entangled with the develop-
ment of emerging production practices, trade patterns, shipping lanes and geopolitics in
the world market’ (Campling and Havice 2014, 714). For centuries, a wide range of inter-
ested parties, not least states, have been deeply engaged in defining and delimiting property
rights over maritime and coastal resources under the competitive dynamics of capitalism.
In the past couple of decades, policy debates around the fisheries resource specifically
have shaped the evolution of approaches to ocean governance more broadly (Mansfield
2004). Academic and policy discussions on fisheries have for decades been dominated
by a view that reduces environmental and economic crises in fish stocks to first and fore-
most a result of ‘too many boats chasing too few fish’ – a common quip in fisheries

2
The debates on the appropriateness of primitive accumulation vs. accumulation by dispossession are
ongoing. A range of authors working on neoliberal conservation retain Marx’s concept of primitive
accumulation (e.g. Buscher 2009; Kelly 2011).
 The Journal of Peasant Studies 135

policy debates. In fact, ‘the analysis of fisheries systems and their decline are foundational
to neo-Malthusian arguments that human population pressures yield the “tragedy of the
commons”’ (Campling, Havice, and McCall Howard 2012, 181). Predating Hardin
(1968) by 14 years, the economist Gordon put out a seminal paper in 1954. Gordon
placed ‘the commons’ and rent at the heart of the discussion on ecological and economic
crisis in fisheries. He argued that, ‘most of the problems associated with the words “conser-
vation” or “depletion” or “overexploitation” in the fishery are, in reality, manifestations of
the fact that the natural resources of the sea yield no economic rent’ (Gordon 1954, 124) as a
result of non-existent property rights over these resources. In line with neoclassical econ-
omics, he reasoned that a lack of property rights and the consequent ‘open access’ to the
ocean’s resources would inevitably lead to overcapitalization, as the individual fisher con-
tinues to invest in order to maximize profits from the ‘open access’ commons. This would,
in turn, inevitably lead to overfishing, as the rational fisher would catch as many fish today
as possible, leading to the notion of ‘the race for fish’. These ideas were picked up and
advanced further by fisheries economists in subsequent publications (e.g. Neher,
Arnason, and Mollet 1989, 3) that overtly called for the ‘enclosure and privatization of
the common resources of the ocean’, stressing the crucial role played by property rights
in society. As influential fisheries economist Ragnar Àrnasson3 (2000, 17) put it,

without property rights, human society seems doomed to abject poverty. In fact, with little or no
property rights, human society would be primitive indeed, not much different from the more
advanced versions of animal societies … It follows immediately that the fisheries problem
would disappear if only the appropriate property rights could be defined, imposed and enforced.

This ‘hardcore’ neoclassical reasoning on lack of property rights in fisheries systems con-
tinues to this day (Bromley 2016). Indeed, Macinko (2014, 40) argues that fisheries econ-
omists are approaching a state of ‘evangelism’ leading to what he calls a ‘privatize-or-perish
dichotomy’.
In this context, scholars drawing on the agrarian political economy tradition4 have inter-
vened, putting ‘analyses of capture fisheries in the broader context of the capitalist relations
of production through which most now operate’ (Campling, Havice, and McCall Howard
2012, 178). Through these historical and contextual analyses, alternative explanations of
the causes of contemporary socio-ecological crises in fisheries systems have been
advanced, centering on capitalist production methods and the underlying accumulation
imperative as drivers (e.g. Longo, Clausen, and Clark 2015). Crucially, this body of litera-
ture has helped uncover the broader political economic dynamics surrounding access to and
control of fisheries resources. Through an historical analysis of property rights in fisheries
Campling and Havice (2014, 714) show how ‘marine fisheries have been moving towards
the enclosure of open access regimes for hundreds of years’. Most notably through the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), all seabed and marine
resources within 200 nautical miles of coasts, so-called exclusive economic zones
(EEZs), became state property.5 As they go on to show, rather than the current ‘tragedy’

3
Àrnasson has published extensively and has worked as an advisor to the FAO and the World Bank on
fisheries for decades.
4
Supplementing earlier common property theorists (e.g. Ostrom 1990; Bromley 1992).
5
And, most recently, negotiations of adding a legally binding instrument under UNCLOS concerning
‘Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine and Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jur-
isdiction’ have been initiated (IISD 2016b).
136 Mads Barbesgaard

being reducible to bad behavior on the part of individual fishermen in the context of non-
existent property rights, ‘states and firms mutually created “the tragedy” driven by the com-
petitive dynamics of capital accumulation’ (Campling and Havice 2014, 713).
Beyond the fisheries resources specifically, the enclosure set off through the UNCLOS
regime also legitimized state autonomy over near-shore marine space. Aside from formaliz-
ing the EEZ, UNCLOS provided formal guidelines for the measurement and governance of
near-shore ocean space too, expanding the ‘coastal zone’, which had until then usually been
defined loosely as a three-nautical-mile strip (Nichols 1999). This meant that 12 nautical
miles from a fixed point on the coast became sovereign territorial space, i.e. now, if it
was not already so, formally under the planning purview of the state.
This dovetailed burgeoning debates in the 1980s and 1990s around the need for ‘inte-
grated coastal management’ (ICM) in order to counter ‘pollution, loss of wildlife habitat,
sea level rise, and increasing pressure on coastal resources’ (Nichols 1999, 389). All of
these were framed as problems of mal-development to be solved through management
that integrated conservation and economic growth. Building on the idea of ‘sustainable
development’, this was affirmed most clearly in the Agenda 21 as put forth at the UN’s
1993 Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). With a specific chapter
on ‘Oceans, All Kinds of Seas, and Coastal Areas and the Protection, Rational Use and
Development of their Living Resources’, this set the frame for consequent ICM interven-
tions (Vallega 1999). Following the same line of reasoning as the neoclassical economists’
analysis of the fisheries system, the inappropriate development in coastal areas was a result
of ‘insufficiencies in state regulation’, namely ‘policies that encourage haphazard develop-
ment, stifle investment, and thwart private ownership of coastal resources necessary to
deflect a tragedy of the commons scenario’ (Nichols 1999, 392).
As later work on green-grabbing has shown, despite the neoclassical economists’
assumptions of privatization facilitating smooth market exchanges that by necessity
benefit both buyers and sellers with no costs to society (McAfee 2012), such processes
involve massive shifts in and struggles over social relations, socio-economic (in)equality
and power more broadly (Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones 2012). Nonetheless, with the
rise and consolidation of market-based mechanisms in conservation and climate change
mitigation, nature is being further parceled into tradable commodities and ‘new’ nature is
actively produced, e.g. through emissions trading schemes (Igoe and Brockington 2007;
Brockington and Duffy 2010; Buscher and Fletcher 2015). A prerequisite to this is that
our whole understanding of nature is changed: ‘ontologies of ecology are being replaced
by those of “natural capital” and “ecosystem services”’ (Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones
2012, 244). Additionally, the casting of states as incapable of solving global issues has
in turn justified the increased participation of non-state actors. This has resulted in actors
that are much more ‘embedded in capitalist networks’ (Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones
2012, 239) having a firm place in global policy processes concerning global climate and
environmental change.
Although acknowledging differences in terms of ecological characteristics and social
dynamics, Benjaminsen and Bryceson (2012, 350) analyze ‘blue grabbing’ invoking paral-
lels to ‘green grabbing’:

political economic forces and processes, characterized by power constellations, and in terms of
contradictions between the rights and interests of people to land, sea and natural resources vis-
à-vis foreign investors and state agencies vying to capture control over land and natural
resources, are all strikingly similar.
 The Journal of Peasant Studies 137

Today, with many different actors doubling up their interests in the geographical spaces and
resources that underpin ‘blue growth’, purportedly in the pursuit of win–win–win solutions,
all of these processes have become highly relevant. New policy proposals that follow up on
the historical enclosure are emerging as part of this, and the following sections examine two
of these relating to ‘sustainable fisheries’ and ‘blue carbon’.

Incentivizing ‘sustainable fisheries’?

We need to create economic incentives for people not to overfish … There is great potential for
conservation finance activities that generate both a financial and an ecological return and help
us avoid the so-called tragedy of the commons.
John Tobin, Global Head of Sustainability, Credit Suisse, speaking on ‘The Future of the “Blue
Economy”’6
We cannot secure our ocean’s future without the active involvement of the private sector.
Investment in coastal fisheries is both environmental necessity and a largely untapped econ-
omic opportunity.
Naoko Ishii, GEF CEO and Chairperson,
Speaking at #OurOceans conference (GEF 2016)

As these two quotes suggest, the solutions promoted by fisheries economists continue to
dominate in policy circles aimed at ensuring ‘sustainable fisheries’ (Macinko 2014).
Policy proposals following this brand of fisheries economists’ reasoning started to be
implemented already in the late 1970s, where so-called individual transferable quotas
(ITQs) were introduced first in Iceland and New Zealand. ITQ-systems involve privatizing
the right to catch a certain amount of a national fish stock (a quota) and creating a market to
govern the distribution of these quotas (making them ‘transferable’). ITQ-programs were
later introduced in a range of other countries particularly in the Global North.7 With the
rise of climate change and conservation strategies that adopt the logic of neoliberalism, par-
alleling the rise of the blue economy, there has, however, been a new push for ITQs or
associated policies’ widespread implementation across the Global South. Explicitly situated
within the context of the FAO’s Blue Growth Initiative, the Coastal Fisheries Initiative
(CFI) is one such example.8
The CFI aims at reforming fisheries in six countries across three continents: Cape
Verde, Cote D’Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Perú and Senegal. Over a period of four
years, USD 235 million will be invested through a number of projects in these countries.
The program is run by a coalition of actors: the FAO, UNEP, UNDP, Conservation Inter-
national, WWF and the World Bank. It is funded jointly by the Global Environmental Facil-
ity (GEF), the governments of the countries involved, ENGOs, and a number of foundations
and private-sector actors. Implementation is divided amongst the lead actors, with WWF
implementing in Indonesia; UNDP, WWF and Conservation International implementing
in Ecuador and Peru; and FAO and UNEP implementing in Cape Verde, Cote D’Ivoire
and Senegal. Country programs are at the time of writing at various stages of development

6
Interview on the Credit Suisse company website following the World Ocean Summit in June 2015
(Staufer 2015).
7
Though also a few in the Global South; see Longo, Clausen, and Clark (2015) for an overview.
8
The CFI follows a stream of other, now defunct, international coalitions and partnerships of similar
actors that had to close down due to lack of funding, including the World Bank’s Global Partnership
for Oceans (GPO) and the 50-in-10 initiative. Both of these had largely the same content and approach
as the CFI. See WFFP and WFF (2013) for reactions from fisher peoples’ movements to the GPO.
138 Mads Barbesgaard

and implementation, but the framework document (FAO 2015b) clearly sets the overall
frame and indicates how the restoration of ocean health is conceived.
The ‘root causes’ of current environmental and economic crises in fisheries, as ident-
ified in the framework document, reflect Gordonian logic. In tune with Gordon’s reasoning
in 1954, the document explains: ‘coastal fisheries9 are often characterized by perverse
incentives that encourage overfishing and overinvestment’ (FAO 2015b) and, to be clear,
these perverse incentives are a result of absent, unclear or insecure tenure rights especially
in the EEZs of developing countries. In the case of Indonesia, this is supplemented by neo-
Malthusian argumentation that the fundamental root cause of what is called unsustainable
fisheries is ‘rapid population growth’ (FAO 2015b). Consequently, having placed the root
causes within the ‘tragedy of the commons’ frame, the solution forwarded by the CFI is to
put in place new or amended fisheries management, institutions and legal frameworks that
create the appropriate incentives by introducing secure tenure and access rights. In this way
– and only this way – ‘a more responsible behavior is expected and the incentives behind
the “race for fish” are dismantled’ (FAO 2015b).
Furthermore, secure tenure rights are a vital step in terms of ‘catalyzing private sector
involvement’ (FAO 2015b). And, in order to ensure this involvement, a key component of
the CFI is a ‘Challenge Fund’ led by the World Bank and Conservation International. The
fund will act as grant mechanism that supports ‘market-based solutions that help leverage
improved fisheries management’ (FAO 2015b) and involves the CFI countries and regions,
creating an ‘enabling governance context for investment’ (FAO 2015b). An annex to the
framework document further explains how attracting investments is key, if sustainability
is to be reached: ‘If fisheries can be sustainably managed, the potential returns are substan-
tial … Key to achieving this sustainability is creating market incentives to invest in the tran-
sition to sustainability and to attract private-sector investment in fisheries’ (FAO 2015c, 3).
Finally, throughout the program document it is stressed that it will deliver on environ-
mental, social and economic goals. It continually mentions the need to be sensitive to differ-
ent objectives – from an ‘equitable distribution of the benefits from fisheries’ to ‘ensuring
wealth creation and investment’ (FAO 2015b, 13). The underlying assumption is that the
program can safeguard the interests of everyone involved in fisheries – from small-scale
fisherfolk to the private-sector actors and impact investors granted a central role by the CFI.
What is to be expected of such policy proposals in terms of the stated aims of the FAO’s
Blue Growth Initiative? The CFI document does not explicitly propose ITQs as the pre-
ferred management tool, but mentions a range of different possible property systems –
from private to community. However, the Gordonian reasoning that stresses the catalytic
role of property rights in leveraging self-interests and creating incentives to ensure sustain-
able fisheries, inevitably leads to the conclusion that the ideal form of property is private
property – and, in fisheries, ITQ systems.
Árnason (2000) praises the ITQ systems developed in Iceland and New Zealand as
being the closest to the ‘perfect property right’. His appraisal is based on four key charac-
teristics, namely transferability (ensuring economic efficiency), durability (facilitating long-
term planning), exclusivity (ensuring only a limited number of users) and security (property
rights are protected by the state). These four elements are the ones considered necessary to
counteract the ‘perverse incentives’ also mentioned in the CFI document. This approach is
in tune with neoclassical assumptions of how the creation of private property rights and a
market to distribute them through conflict-free transactions will ensure optimal economic

9
As pointed out in the document, ’coastal’ in this instance refers to all fisheries within the EEZ.
 The Journal of Peasant Studies 139

and environmental outcomes. However, actual experiences on the ground as documented

by geographers (e.g. Mansfield 2004; Benediktsson and Karlsdóttir 2011), ethnologists
(e.g. Høst 2013) and sociologists (e.g. Longo, Clausen, and Clark 2015) with these types
of commodification and marketization schemes suggest a much more conflict-ridden
process, with adverse social outcomes and at best doubtful environmental outcomes.
In terms of environmental outcomes, drawing on reviews of experiences in 18 countries
(mainly in the Global North) Longo and colleagues argue that the outcomes have been
mixed, with continuing decline in some cases, but not in others. Nonetheless, they go on
to conclude, ‘[w]hile in the short run ITQs may avert ecological collapse … The long-
term ecological conditions are yet to be evaluated’ (Longo, Clausen, and Clark 2015,
61). This point is especially prescient because what their review consistently shows is
how ITQ systems unleash ‘social tragedies’ through rampant consolidation in the sector
that prioritizes large-scale, capital-intensive systems aimed at global commodity production
(coinciding with earlier reviews, e.g. Olson 2011). They have had huge social implications
across coastal communities from Denmark (Høst 2013) to South Africa (Isaacs 2011) as
small-scale actors, local knowledge and traditional fishing systems have lost out. Addition-
ally, in both Iceland and Denmark the privatization and commodification process also trig-
gered massive financial speculation in the sector, with some analysts arguing that
speculation in the fisheries sector played a key role in Iceland’s later financial crisis (Ben-
ediktsson and Karlsdóttir 2011).
As Longo et al. conclude (2015, 61), ‘[t]hese types of production systems that focus
narrowly and intensely on economic gain and capital accumulation seek growth of
capital first and foremost, and tend to subordinate ecological and social costs’. Furthermore,
where the social implications of such consolidation processes have had profound impacts
on coastal communities in the North, the consequences of spreading such reforms in
countries in the Global South, with much larger portions of their populations relying on
small-scale fisheries for their lives and livelihoods, are severely concerning.
In this light, the claim in a recent report by two US universities and a US-based NGO
that these types of fisheries reform will ensure that sustainable fisheries become a ‘driving
force of the blue economy’ as they will ‘revers[e] overfishing, revive[e] coastal commu-
nities, and bring oceans back to life’ is puzzling (EDF, UCSB, and University of Washing-
ton 2015, 5). Such statements lend credence to economic and legal anthropologist Melanie
Wiber’s scolding of fisheries economists (quoted in Longo, Clausen, and Clark 2015, 60),

There is nothing intrinsic in private property rights that will automatically create the outcomes
that many economists claim for the property regime. Only by ignoring history, anthropological
evidence and even juridical dogma can economists claim, for the property system, the global
panaceas that they do.

Where these policies aim at incentivizing more efficient and sustainable use of blue
resources in production, other blue growth solutions aim at taking marine and coastal
resources out of production. The next sections turn to these.

Blue carbon
Investing in nature can give us win–win–win situations. We must invest in nature to protect and
restore our mangroves, our coral reefs, our wetlands, our seagrasses – our natural capital.
Maria Damanaki, Global Managing Director for Oceans,
The Nature Conservancy, speaking at Oceans Day at COP21
140 Mads Barbesgaard

Conservation initiatives aimed at blue resources have historically involved the creation of
marine protected areas (MPAs) evolving out of the abovementioned integrated coastal-
management framework. Through MPAs vast areas of the seascape are deemed completely
or partly off-limits for fishing activities, in the name of conservation (Benjaminsen and Bry-
ceson 2012). Wolff (2015, 16) recently characterized the creation of protected areas, which
are hugely controversial with the small-scale fishers who are often the ones dispossessed, as
a ‘protectionist, authoritarian and violently repressive practice of conservation’. Through
blue carbon, different versions of protected areas in coastal ecosystems are now being
tied to attaining climate change mitigation.
Blue carbon refers to CO2 stored in coastal ecosystems, notably, mangroves, tidal
marshes and seagrass meadows. The concept was first introduced by the FAO, UNEP
and others in a 2009 report titled Blue Carbon: the role of healthy oceans in binding
carbon (Nelleman et al. 2009). Since then, it has been drawn into the blue economy dis-
course (Silver et al. 2015) and as the above quote suggests was actively pushed at
COP21 of the UNFCCC process, and most recently at COP22 in Morocco (IISD 2016a).
In line with the ecosystem services framework approach to nature–society relations, the
report (and a number of follow-up reports, e.g. Herr et al. 2012) stresses how coastal eco-
systems through their ability to capture and store carbon provide a major ‘service’ in the
fight against climate change – as they sequester carbon more quickly than terrestrial ecosys-
tems do (Campbell et al. 2016). This service, the report argues, makes coastal ecosystems a
key tool to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions. While similar mitigating abilities of
rainforests and other land-based resources have been recognized for some time, this is still
not the case for coastal ecosystems. Consequently, proponents argue for protecting and
revitalizing these coastal ecosystems by documenting their ability to absorb and store
carbon, and the need to value this service appropriately and to create mechanisms to
allow for payments and trade in these services – drawing theoretical inspiration from terres-
trial variants of payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes and reducing emissions
from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) mechanisms (Gordon et al. 2011).
However, blue carbon projects do not necessarily involve offset markets – they can also
take the form of payment through tourist-fees etc. In any case, proponents stress that
blue carbon projects should involve ‘win–win–win’ mitigation strategies where the invest-
ment to protect the area also ‘promotes business, jobs and coastal development opportu-
nities’ (Nelleman et al. 2009, 69). At its core, then, blue carbon follows the logic of
market-based environmentalism and aims at expanding existing mechanisms of PES and
carbon trading to include marine and coastal ecosystems.
As blue carbon proponents lament, however, this ‘sink’ ‘has not yet been recognized in
the global protocols and carbon trading schemes’ (Nelleman et al. 2009, 7). This remains
the case, and consequently a myriad of studies that document it as a ‘sink’ and attempt
to put a price on that service are being produced. This push for valuation follows the reason-
ing behind market-based environmentalism of environmental degradation and climate crisis
resulting from a market failure (McAfee 2012). The only way forward, then, is a deepening
of market relations, facilitated through new and ever more numerous modes of valuation
and mechanisms that ensure that the identified values of the ecosystem services are com-
mensurable. All this, in order to bring about smooth market exchanges and hence ‘economi-
cally efficient means of mitigating climate change and conserving biological diversity
without curtailing economic growth’ (McAfee 2016, 334). Furthermore, in an attempt to
draw in new funding opportunities for these types of conservation and restoration projects,
new mechanisms established explicitly to accommodate the logic of finance capital are
being created. As WWF remarks on ongoing work to establish such mechanisms, they
 The Journal of Peasant Studies 141

have ‘the potential to generate profits exceeding the original investment’ (Hoegh-Guldberg
2015, 44). And as emphasized already in the 2009 report on blue carbon (Nelleman et al.
2009): ‘Targeted investments in the sustainable management of coastal and marine ecosys-
tems – the natural infrastructure – alongside the rehabilitation and restoration of damaged
and degraded ones, could prove a very wise transaction with inordinate returns’.
Platforms and alliances pushing this valuation, and blue carbon as a policy solution
more generally, include the ‘International Partnership for Blue Carbon’, launched at the
recent COP21; the Blue Carbon Initiative; the Ocean and Climate Platform; and the Eye
on Oceans and Blue Carbon Special Initiative. All of these consist of varying constellations
of states, ENGOs, international institutions and consultancy firms.
So, what does this solution to coastal and marine ecosystem destruction look like, when
implemented on the ground? Thomas (2014) identifies 29 ongoing projects, involving
information-gathering activities (9), PES projects (5) and projects on mitigation or restor-
ation through carbon offset credits (15). Only four of these are ‘expected’ to generate finan-
cial return, but none of them is currently doing so. In a more recent ‘global study’, Wylie,
Sutton-Grier, and Moore (2016) give an overview of four blue carbon projects based largely
on the implementing organizations’ own descriptions. Only two of these projects, in Kenya
and India, have been implemented. All of the projects identified by Thomas (2014, 2016)
and Wylie, Sutton-Grier, and Moore (2016) are situated in the Global South and all of them
are small-scale afforestation/reforestation projects targeting mangroves.
As Thomas remarks in his review of 46 articles on blue carbon, there is an almost com-
plete lack of research looking into existing or possible social aspects of blue carbon pro-
jects. Notwithstanding the relatively few projects on the ground, in light of how blue
carbon projects overtly draw on PES and REDD+ experiences and thereby potentially
involve some form of the appropriation dynamics referenced above, this lack of critical
research is problematic. As noted by Campbell et al. (2016, 533), ‘[m]any Blue Carbon
strategies … [involve] subsuming coastal ecosystems into the sphere of capital, a difficult
and potentially detrimental process for local environments and peoples’. Thomas (2016)
explains how, in a case study in Malaysia, project implementation impacted on, and was
impacted by, issues such as existing land tenure systems, religion, race and gender
dynamics. Beymer-Farris and Bassett’s (2012) have done work on a REDD+ project in
Tanzania on mangrove forests. In addition to identifying rampant appropriation dynamics,
they show how the entire environmental narrative that legitimated the intervention – refer-
encing environmental destruction and change arising from current users ‘invading’ and
‘destroying’ otherwise pristine mangrove areas – had no basis in the environmental
history of the area. Instead, the PES implementers, in this case WWF, had an ahistorical
approach with little understanding of complex socio-natural relations. While this will
vary across contexts, the narratives in at least some of the existing blue carbon projects
(as described by Wylie, Sutton-Grier, and Moore 2016) similarly frame current users as
being unaware of how nature should ideally be treated.
Questioning the ecological credentials of PES projects, McAfee (2012) points out how
they are based on paying resource-users to forgo profit from activities that are deemed eco-
logically destructive. Investment decisions in such PES projects will be based on economic
efficiency and opportunity-cost logic, where the idea is to get as much conservation for as
little money as possible. As a result, they will by necessity fail to target the large-scale
drivers of environmental destruction, as the ‘buying out’ of these actors (e.g. transnational
logging companies) would be too expensive (McAfee 2012). This logic is confirmed in a
recent report by a range of ENGOs on how to support blue carbon projects through financial
mechanisms (Herr et al. 2015), where they stress that considerations around opportunity
142 Mads Barbesgaard

costs will dominate and be decisive in terms of which types of projects can be initiated,
automatically directing investments toward projects that can be achieved at the lowest
costs. As the drivers of coastal ecosystem destruction identified by the BCI include ‘aqua-
culture, agriculture, mangrove forest exploitation, terrestrial and marine sources of pol-
lution and industrial and urban coastal development’10 (i.e. several of the other sectors in
the blue economy), the question is how ‘efficient’ can these projects be in countering
destruction of coastal ecosystems, if they fail to target the large-scale high-intensity
variant of these activities? As Thomas (2014) explains, with reference to addressing the
environmental destruction of the aquaculture industry in Thailand, when faced with the
financial consideration of either paying a low-profit farmer USD 3.14 per metric ton of
carbon dioxide equivalent (t/CO2e) or USD 156 for high-profit farmers to cease production
– the reasoning intrinsic to the approach would buy out the low-profit farmer, even if per-
suading the high-profit farmer would be more important from broader socio-ecological con-
cerns. Consequently, the critique put forward by McAfee regarding PES projects generally,
of how ‘market efficiency reasoning would restrict smallholder and communal land and
forest use while allowing more profitable, more destructive activities to continue’
(McAfee 2012, 124), is also fitting for blue carbon.

Which type of frontier?

In light of these two sets of blue growth policy solutions, which of the four narratives ident-
ified by Silver et al. (2015) have so far come out on top and what does this mean in terms of
restoring ocean health? With its emphasis on creating the right incentives, building partner-
ships with the private sector and with the international organizations in the driving seat of
global coalitions, the CFI fits squarely within the ‘good business’ narrative. Blue carbon, on
the other hand, with the frustration over the lack of accounting for coastal ecosystem ser-
vices, the all-out emphasis on creating mechanisms to do so as well as the coalitions (inter-
national organizations, governments, ENGOs, scientists etc.) driving it, fits in the ‘natural
capital’ box. As emphasized by the authors themselves, though (Silver et al. 2015), these
two narratives and hence the policy proposals flowing from them clearly overlap. The
natural capital framing’s ‘problem and solution’ extends to fisheries and blue resources gen-
erally – not just the coastal ecosystem. For example, WWF’s report Reviving the Ocean
Economy aims at valuing the ocean’s entire ‘asset base’ of ecosystem services in order
to give policymakers and corporate executives the ability to ‘account for the real costs of
exploiting ocean resources’ (Hoegh-Guldberg 2015, 5). Additionally, both the policy pro-
posals highlight the need for market-based approaches through close engagement with the
private sector and ‘impact investors’ to finance the transitions toward sustainability.
Taken at face value, this would lend credence to the dominant critical reading of climate
change and biodiversity proposals (Buscher and Fletcher 2015) related to blue resources:
the continuous valuation attempts and creating the ‘nature capital can see’ (Robertson
2006) ‘is providing a speculative frontier for finance capitalists’ (Corson, MacDonald,
and Neimark 2013, 269). However, both of these cases suggest that despite persistent
attempts at creating a ‘speculative frontier’, accumulation directly through these policies
themselves is so far not happening. The dearth of blue carbon projects generally and the
specific lack of for-profit projects counter the claims of ‘inordinate returns’ envisioned
by proponents in their appeal to finance capital. Similarly, as explained disapprovingly

10
From the Blue Carbon Initiative’s website (BCI n.d.).
 The Journal of Peasant Studies 143

in a recent report enticingly titled Towards investment in sustainable fisheries, current

sources of investment are philanthropic and public (Holmes et al. 2014). Despite claims
that the ‘investment case for financing the transition to sustainability is clear’ (Holmes
et al. 2014, 4), the actual generation of profit in fisheries is anything but curing ocean
health or leading to sustainability (2014, 9):

investors have traditionally invested in activities that do not necessarily advance social or
environmental resilience, i.e. they have not invested in conserving the resource base on
which seafood investments depend. In addition, the capital currently deployed to fisheries tran-
sition is neither sufficient nor is it effectively organized or leveraged to maximize its impact.11

This is emblematic of recent research on the failure of ‘Enterprising Nature’ (Dempsey

2016) and the ‘arrested development’ of the ‘selling nature to save it’ strategy (Dempsey
and Suarez 2016). Based on a review of existing literature on for-profit conservation
(pro and critical) as well as analysis of the sector itself, Dempsey and Suarez (2016,
655) argue that ‘profit-seeking capital remains mostly indifferent to biodiversity conserva-
tion’. With reference to how for-profit conservation is negligible and largely outside of
global capital flows, and that the markets created in many cases are dominated by public
actors and often more figurative than literal, they conclude that ‘capital has had biodiversity
conservation dangled before it … but so far is not biting’ (Dempsey and Suarez 2016, 664).
Similarly, the policy proposals reviewed above, which in the name of restoring ocean health
and the pursuit of blue growth are pushing ‘natural-capital’ into a new frontier, have so far
not attracted the investments envisioned. Instead, it is the large-scale extractivist ocean-
based industries that are expanding and providing sources of accumulation from large-
scale fisheries (Osterblom et al. 2015) to marine aquaculture (Longo, Clausen, and Clark
2015) to, increasingly, deep-sea mining (OECD 2016). In this manner, the conservation
and climate change mitigation elements of the overall blue growth vision are being out-
maneuvered by the other elements in blue growth that are predicated on continued extrac-
tion and exploitation of blue resources.

Beyond blue growth: food sovereignty?

Despite the failure so far to turn blue resources into ‘enterprising nature’, this does not mean
that the discourse of ecosystem services and natural capital is not having an impact. The
increasing hegemony of the blue growth and ‘natural capital’ approach is problematic
due to the fact that it does not challenge existing or potential large-scale extractivist activi-
ties. As noted about the consequences of the ‘enterprising nature’ approach generally, it
results in a ‘profoundly narrowed[,] even antipolitical recasting of problems and solutions
related to global environmental change, concealing other ways of interpreting biodiversity
loss rooted in history, power relations, and uneven development’ (Dempsey and Suarez
2016, 665). In this manner, the only solutions that are deemed ‘realistic’ to address
climate and environmental destruction are the ones that work in logics appropriate to
business and as such mean that the important thing for ‘pragmatic’ actors is to work
together with existing power-bases, not with movements or groups with any form of oppo-
sitional politics (Dempsey 2016). Seen in this light, it is indicative that none of the recent
global attempts at pushing ‘sustainable fisheries’ or blue carbon has included

11
See also the report Our shared seas: a 2017 overview of ocean threats and conservation funding by
the California Environmental Associates (2017, 18–21) that makes the same point.
144 Mads Barbesgaard

representatives of small-scale fisher peoples in policy development in the different global

forums, where they have been developed12 – and, more generally, how the human
rights-based approach and developmental concerns raised in the blue economy discourse
by fisher peoples’ movements (as identified in Silver et al. 2015) are not represented in
the concurrent policy proposals.
In the closing of their paper that considers the different invocations of the ‘blue
economy’, Silver and her colleagues (2015, 153) argue that the ‘opportunity remains to
further adopt or subvert the term in ways that advance diverse objectives, progressive poli-
tics, and governance practices in the largest remaining contiguous common spaces’.
However, judging from recent interventions by the two global fisher movements and
their allies, they are increasingly positing themselves in direct opposition to the policies
associated with blue growth, and reaching out to other social movement allies in the
process. As expressed on blue carbon in a statement released under COP21 of the
UNFCCC in Paris: ‘Instead of these corporate-friendly false solutions, we, the small-
scale fishers, together with other small-scale food producers, have the socially and ecolo-
gically just visions and solutions to climate change … For us, this starts with the demand
for food sovereignty’.
The explicit framing of solutions in terms of food sovereignty is part of a burgeoning
political agenda for the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, who decided to include campaign-
ing around food sovereignty as a tool to resist what they call ocean grabbing at their last
General Assembly in 2014 (WFFP 2014b). This has dovetailed a broader process of
what has been dubbed the convergence of land and water struggles in the past years
(Tramel 2016). The convergence has facilitated increased cooperation among a range of
movements and allies that are resisting diverse resource grabs and placing food sovereignty
at the core of their counter-proposals. Many of the actors, including the fishers’ movements,
are already associated with the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty
(IPC) (Borras and Edelman 2016). Nonetheless, aside from making statements and partici-
pating in global level meetings, the work on food sovereignty by small-scale fishers move-
ments has so far been minimal, and a whole range of important questions remain if this is to
be the central political framing of their struggles.
In light of the continued and exacerbating blue enclosures discussed in this contribution,
the ‘challenging question’ around property in relation to food sovereignty demands
(Edelman et al. 2014) is key. Food sovereignty has from the outset been about what
Patel (2009, 666) calls ‘big tent politics’, ensuring that ‘disparate groups can recognize
themselves in the enunciation of a particular programme’. Yet, perhaps not surprisingly
in light of the agrarian roots, the conceptual and practical debates remain land-centric.
To what extent can small-scale fishers’ movements mobilize the term in the struggles
around property and access to the web of resources that they depend on? And, crucially,
which forms of property over these resources should be advocated?
Furthermore, as Bernstein (2014) has argued, even when the movement for food sover-
eignty is understood narrowly as consisting of peasants, exactly who the peasants are and
more generally what ‘the peasant way’ is that they are advocating for are unclear and have
considerable internal contradictions. What would it mean for the constituency of ‘small-
scale fishers’ (itself including similar contradictions to the ones Bernstein addresses for

12
For critique from the two fisher peoples’ movements (that is, World Forum of Fisher Peoples
(WFFP) and World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers (WFF)) of the CFI, see WFFP
and WFF (2015a), and for blue carbon see WFFP and WFF (2015b).
 The Journal of Peasant Studies 145

‘peasants’) to take part in the movement for food sovereignty? What does ‘agroecology’,
often identified as a ‘vehicle’ in the food sovereignty movement, mean in a fisheries
context?
For a serious convergence to take place, these and many other questions need to be
addressed. Following Schiavoni’s (2017, 3) recent intervention, though, ‘what food sover-
eignty means and what it might look like, conceptually and in practice, are subject to
ongoing processes of contestation and negotiation’. Such processes would only be enriched
through the participation of fisher movements contributing to further discussion and analy-
sis of how blue growth visions preclude these broader struggles for food sovereignty.

Conclusion
This contribution has examined and given an overview of blue growth solutions to conserva-
tion and climate change issues. These solutions stress win–win–win outcomes purportedly
aligning the concerns of coastal communities, the environment and investors all at once.
As such, the blue growth-associated policy proposals follow ‘win–win–win’ rhetoric and
‘selling nature to save it’ reasoning, relying on and promoting market-based mechanisms,
under the assumption that the leveraging of self-interest and dangling the ‘nature capital
can see’ in front of financial actors will pave the way toward sustainability. I argue that
the policy proposals do not restore ‘ocean health’, but rather recast control of and access
to blue resources, with major impacts on small-scale users, while large-scale, capital-inten-
sive uses continue. Additionally, finance capital has so far not engaged in ‘financing the tran-
sition’ toward what is deemed sustainable use as envisioned by proponents. In this manner,
the blue growth solutions fail even on their own terms. Finally, I argue that the increasingly
hegemonic nature of the blue growth discourse in global policy processes and its ‘antipoli-
tical’ framing of climate and environmental change is undermining and precluding progress-
ive and transformative solutions. In an attempt to challenge this, small-scale fishers’
movements are increasingly framing their opposition in terms of the broader struggle for
‘food sovereignty’. The paper contributes to ongoing theoretical debates on the neoliberali-
zation of nature with a case that challenges straightforward accounts of such processes. The
rise of blue growth and the many new and old conflicting claims to and interests in blue
resources suggest there is an urgent need for more critical research that examines the conse-
quences of blue growth from a political economy perspective.

Acknowledgements
Special thanks for several years of discussions, as well as comments on earlier drafts of this paper, to
Carsten Pedersen, Anders Lund Hansen and Eric Clark. Wim Carton, Seth Macinko and three anon-
ymous reviewers also gave very helpful comments.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Mads Barbesgaard is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Human Geography and LUCID
research school at Lund University. E-mail: mads.barbesgaard@keg.lu.se