Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Ocean Governance

Abstract

Oceans are probably one of the most challenging ecosystems to govern.1 Oceans are diverse, complex, and dynamic ecosystems that provide numerous functions and services to life below and above the water. Humanity, in particular, has relied on the oceans for food, livelihoods, transportation, recreation, and most recently, on other extractive resources, including oil, gas and minerals, among other things. Demands on the oceans have been rising with the continued growth in population, industrial development on land and sea, and many other pressures, which together make ocean sustainability an increasingly impossible goal to attain. As suggested in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on Oceans (sdg 142), about 40 percent of the world’s oceans are heavily affected by human activities and concerted actions from all nations are required in order to deal with multitude of problems in the oceans, such as pollution, resource overexploitation, and habitat loss. Many characteristics of the oceans make governance a wicked problem.3 For instance, oceans are full of ‘unknown’ and the ‘unknowable’. As the saying goes, we know more about space than we know about the oceans. But like space, knowledge about the oceans is centralized around scientific exploration and research, which, while important, contributes little to addressing the complex problems of human–ocean interactions. Ocean governance, in this case, is not about doing more science in order to convert the unknown to known, but about recognizing the unknown as well as the unknowable as part of the wicked ‘social’ problems and dealing with them accordingly. This also means that while it may not be possible to precisely determine whether human use