12/12/2022 | More than three billion people worldwide depend on the ocean for their livelihoods and as a source of protein whilst the blue economy of ocean-related activities amount to a value of $2 trillion making it the 8th largest economy in the world. The ocean also takes up 25-30% of all greenhouse gases (according to the latest IPCC report) and it provides more than 90 per cent of the habitable space on the planet for some 250,000 known marine species and for an estimated half a million of yet unidentified species.
However, human behaviour and people’s relationships with the sea need to move further towards sustainability. Here, marine social sciences, a steadfastly evolving field within social and the marine research, has to play a vital role – as ZMT director Raimund Bleischwitz and colleagues (including scientists from ZMT) proclaim in their new comment for Springer Nature Sustainability Community.
Advocating “fresh thoughts on solutions with large-scale pro-social and pro-environmental behavioural changes and upscaling them at international levels”, their op-ed piece serves to “push and strengthen the recognition and integration of the marine social sciences and thus transformative research in general”.
Join the discussion here: https://sustainabilitycommunity.springernature.com/posts/marine-social-sciences-for-the-ocean-we-want
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