This chapter situates the maritime and shipping sector within the dynamic and integrated physical-social-ecological ocean system and the broad and evolving framework of ocean governance, management, and sustainability. While shipping operations occupy a prominent and historic role in the maritime world, ships no longer rule the waves alone. The ocean and coastal margins of the world are indeed vast and extensive, but they are increasingly crowded, competitive, and conflicted. And now we are expanding and intensifying traditional ocean industries and adding new exploitive activities to the mix, all in the pursuit of a “blue economy,” whether reasonable or not, sustainable or otherwise. Our uses and abuses of the ocean to date have seriously compromised the very foundations of the ocean and coastal system and led to growing marine environmental degradation and the consequent costs of an underperforming ocean economy, loss of essential ecosystem goods and services (which largely sustain the former), increased use conflicts, and challenging legal questions. |
