Speaker: Dr. Andres Cisneros Montemayor, Assistant Professor, SFU
The “Blue Economy” is the most widely used term throughout ocean policy and development, but what does it actually mean? (Spoiler: whatever you need it to.) In this talk, I’ll go through some of the history and current narratives about the Blue Economy, especially as it relates to other types of ocean development and management. I’ll argue that social equity has to be at the core of the Blue Economy in order for it to be a meaningful approach to follow, and that social equity itself has to be at least somewhat re-thought in terms of anti-inequity. The oceans are obviously essential for maintaining cultures, livelihoods (and, yes, macroeconomics), but making sure that ecosystems are sustainable will not be enough to protecting those relationships.
Speaker bio:
Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor is a resource economist from the fishing port of Guaymas, Sonora, México, and his work aims to support equitable development and combat inequitable systems by melding qualitative and quantitative evidence. This includes the first global estimates of the economic value of marine ecotourism, seafood consumption by coastal Indigenous Peoples, and countries’ capacity to establish an equitable Blue Economy.
He is Deputy Director of the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center, one of the largest interdisciplinary collaborative research networks focused on social equity, well-being, and public health throughout the world. Andrés is very actively engaged in negotiations and advisory committees equity and sustainable development and he’s published over 90 peer-reviewed articles, 20 book chapters, a textbook, and many reports and science communication articles. His lab at SFU aims to elevate students from everywhere in the world that are passionate about learning how to best support coastal communities.