In this article, we track a relatively new term in global environmental governance: "blue economy." Analyzing preparatory documentation and data collected at the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (i.e., Rio þ 20), we show how the term entered into use and how it was articulated within four competing discourses regarding human-ocean relations: (a) oceans as natural capital, (b) oceans as good business, (c) oceans as integral to Pacific Small Island Developing States, and (d) oceans as small-scale fisheries livelihoods. Blue economy was consistently invoked to connect oceans with Rio þ 20's "green economy" theme; however, different actors worked to further define the term in ways that prioritized particular oceans problems, solutions, and participants. It is not clear whether blue economy will eventually be understood singularly or as the domain of a particular actor or discourse. We explore possibilities as well as discuss discourse in global environmental governance as powerful and precarious.

We question whether the increasingly popular, radical idea of turning half the earth into a network of protected areas is either feasible or just. We argue that this 'half earth' plan would have widespread negative consequences for human populations and would not meet its conservation objectives. It offers no agenda for managing biodiversity within a 'human half' of Earth. We call instead for alternative radical action that is both more effective and more equitable, focused directly on the main drivers of biodiversity loss by shifting the global economy from its current foundation in growth while simultaneously redressing inequality. Main TextThere is a new call to extend conservation frontiers as an ultimate attempt to save global biodiversity. Under the slogan 'nature needs half' (http://natureneedshalf.org/) and spearheaded by leading conservation scientists such as Edward O. Wilson (2016), Reed Noss (Noss et al, 2012), George Wuerthner and John Terborgh (Wuerthner et al, 2015), a vision has been formulated to turn half of the earth into a series of interconnected protected areas. This radical plan for conservation seeks to expand and strengthen the world's current network of protected areas to create a patchwork grid of reserves encompassing at least half the world's surface and hence "about 85 percent" of remaining biodiversity (Wilson, 2016). We wish to open up debate about this idea. While it might be interpreted as simply a rhetorical challenge to provoke greater conservation effort, it is proposed by senior scientific figures and is being widely discussed and supported. Critical reflection about this proposal is thus important.The plan proposed is staggering in scale: protected areas, according to the IUCN, currently incorporate around 15.4% of the earth's terrestrial areas and 3.4% of its oceans. They would thus need to more than triple in extent on land and by more than ten-fold in the oceans. Not only would this include the earth's currently still relatively intact ecosystems and natural habitats, it would also necessarily entail an active programme of restoration and 'rewilding' to 2 return larger areas to a more pristine 'pre-human' baseline (Wilson, 2016;Noss et al, 2012;Donlan et al, 2005). E. O. Wilson is arguably most explicit in his recent book Half-Earth, stating that "only by setting aside half the planet in reserve, or more, can we save the living part of the environment and achieve the stabilization required for our own survival" (Wilson, 2016: 3).Other conservationists agree that such a goal is the 'only defensible target' from a 'strictly scientific point of view' to allow for a sustainable future (Wuerthner et al, 2015: 18).These proposals seem to be driven by the credo 'desperate times call for desperate measures'. We agree with Wilson and other conservationists that because biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate as a result of human activity therefore urgent need for action to address this. Desperate times, however, demand careful decisions. We argue that the 'hal...

Increased interest in oceans is leading to new and renewed global governance efforts directed toward ocean issues in areas of food production, biodiversity conservation, industrialization, global environmental change, and pollution. Global oceans governance efforts face challenges and opportunities related to the nature of oceans and to actors involved in, the scale of, and knowledge informing their governance. We review these topics generally and in relation to nine new and emerging issues: small-scale fisheries (SSFs), aquaculture, biodiversity conservation on the high seas, large marine protected areas (LMPAs), tuna fisheries, deep-sea mining, ocean acidification (OA), blue carbon (BC), and plastics pollution.

Volunteer ecotourism has been described as an 'ideal' form of decommodified ecotourism that overcomes problems associated with tourism in general, and ecotourism specifically. Using a case study of volunteer ecotourism and sea turtle conservation in Costa Rica, this paper interrogates this ideal. Perceptions of volunteer ecotourism were explored through in-depth interviews with 36 stakeholders, including hosts, NGO staff, government employees, local 'cabineros' (families who provide accommodation) and guests (volunteers). Results show that while all stakeholder groups share similarly positive views of volunteer ecotourism, subtle but important differences exist. We analyse these differences in terms of aesthetic, economic, and ethical values, and situate the results in existing theories about the moralisation and decommodification of ecotourism.

In 1995, Daniel Pauly identified a "shifting baselines syndrome" (SBS). Pauly was concerned that scientists measure ecosystem change against their personal recollections of the past and, based on this decidedly short-term view, mismanage fish stocks because they tolerate gradual and incremental elimination of species and set inappropriate recovery goals. As a concept, SBS is simple to grasp and its logic is compelling. Much current work in marine historical ecology is rationalized in part as a means of combating SBS, and the term has also resonated outside of the academy with environmental advocacy groups. Although we recognize both conceptual and operational merit in SBS, we believe that the ultimate impact of SBS on ocean management will be limited by some underlying and interrelated problematic assumptions about ecology and human-environment relations, and the prescriptions that these assumptions support. In this paper, we trace both assumptions and prescriptions through key works in the SBS literature and interrogate them via ecological and social science theory and research. We argue that an expanded discussion of SBS is needed, one that engages a broader range of social scientists, ecologists, and resource users, and that explicitly recognizes the value judgments inherent in deciding both what past ecosystems looked like and whether or not and how we might reconstruct them.