The economics of the common heritage

It is the thesis of this paper that (a) a very large part of the resources, goods and services in the next century will be ocean-dependent; and (b) that the particular nature of the ocean environment magnifies the issues challenging contemporary economic thinking in general. It is quite possible, therefore, that radical innovation in economic thinking will come from “ocean economics” rather than from land-oriented resource or environmental economics. This becomes quite plausible if one thinks that in other (though obviously related) sectors of new thinking, such as international law and governance, the marine sector has played a leading role, just because the ocean is a medium so different from land that it forces us to think differently. In the future the state of marine environment and health of the ocean will have large economical implications at the regional and global level, as it already has today in a number of places at the local and sub-regional level. Hence this overview within the context of this special issue. The paper will begin with a brief assessment of the oceans resource potential for the next century; it will then describe some of the issues humankind has to face in the use and management of these resources, and, in conclusion, the paper will attempt to distill some guidelines for “ocean economics” in the next century.