Sea and Society

This chapter deals with how humans function within marine ecosystems. Humans harvest a wide range of marine renewable and non-renewable resources, and the ocean is a recipient of the products of human activities on land. Understanding the value of marine ecosystems to mankind both in pure economic terms and in terms of the services provided is important in evaluating how best to manage human activities so that the provision of marine goods and services is maintained or enhanced. Economic approaches have provided a better understanding of fisher behaviour and show how smart incentives can be used to reduce environmental impacts while maintaining food production. Consumer buying-power is used to reward more sustainable behaviour through ecolabelling of seafood products. People are better informed about the importance of the marine environment than ever before, and this has stimulated engagement with citizen science projects run through social media and mobile platform technologies.