The "Blue Economy" is used to describe all of the economic activities
related to the sea, with a special emphasis on sustainability.
Traditional activities such as fisheries, but also undersea mining,
tourism, and scientific research are included, as well as the phenomenal
growth of aquaculture during the past decade. All of these activities,
and the irresistible prospect of another new frontier, has led to
enthusiastic and, most likely, overenthusiastic assessments of the
possibilities to exploit the sea to feed the world, provide low-cost
energy, become a new source of minerals, and other future miracles. This
book makes sense of these trends and of the future of the blue economy
by following our remote ancestors who gradually discovered the sea and
its resources, describing the so-called fisherman's curse - or why
fishermen have always been poor, explaining why humans tend to destroy
the resources on which we depend, and assessing the realistic
expectations for extracting resources from the sea. Although the sea is
not so badly overexploited as the land, our demands on ecosystem
services are already above the oceans' sustainability limits. Some new
ideas, including "fishing down" for untapped resources such as plankton,
could lead to the collapse of the entire marine ecosystem.
How Neanderthals crossed the sea in canoes, how it was possible for five
men on a small boat to kill a giant whale, what kind of oil the virgins
of the Gospel put into their lamps, how a professor of mathematics, Vito
Volterra, discovered the "equations of fishing," why it has become so
easy to be stung by a jellyfish while swimming in the sea, and how to
play "Moby Dick," a simple board game that simulates the
overexploitation of natural resources are just some of the questions
that you will be able to answer after reading this engaging and
insightful book about the rapidly expanding relationship between
humanity and the sea.
