Dr. Judith Kildow will speak Thursday evening, May 8 at the Rotary Club in BoothBay Harbor. She will discuss the evolution of the Blue Economy, explain what it is, depict its current state, explain its trajectory into the future and why it is so very important to all of us.  Massive changes are already underway and states like Maine must keep on top of them and meet the challenges they create.   

The state of Maine is among the most dependent of U.S. states on the oceans and its coasts. Many of Maine’s largest industries:  ship building, fishing, aquaculture, and tourism are ocean-dependent.  Expanding our horizons to regional  and national coastal states, the story of The Blue Economy demands more of our attention.  Solid economic data is available  because scholars and the US government measure the coastal and ocean values annually, in terms of Employment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Earned Income, and Number of enterprises that comprise the ocean-related economy. These are calculated in an Ocean Satellite Account as part of our National Income Accounts, just as we do for forestry and agriculture. 

Adding to the commercial and industrial sectors, the Blue Economy also includes natural resource values, such as fish, non-living resources, kelp beds, algae, etc., as well as environmental values such as estuaries, sand dunes, coral reefs and mangroves. Finally, ecological values from services the ocean provides are integral to the Blue Economy. For example more than 50% of the oxygen we breathe comes from oceanic phytoplankton, and the absorptive capacity of the oceans takes up 2/3 of the CO2 burden that we spew into the air. 

Finally, the “New Blue Economy” or the “knowledge-based economy” is the foundation for the entire Blue Economy described above.  It is the scientific research, discoveries and innovations  that drive the entire engine.  Places like the Bigelow Lab are integral to this function and need to be supported to keep the engines running.  Its counterpart, the “Enterprise” are the companies that produce the technological innovations that gather and analyze the data and the applied products that the rest of the Blue Economy needs to be productive.  A healthy Sustainable Blue Economy and a healthy ocean will go a long way to assure the kind of peace and prosperity we all desire.  But we must protect them both. 

Dr Judith Kildow is founder and director emeritus of the National Ocean Economics Program in the Center for the Blue Economy at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey.  She serves as Lead Expert for the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, is a member of the Board of Trustees at Bigelow Laboratory in East Boothbay and serves on several editorial boards. Her field bridges science and policy, identifying how economic activities and ocean changes affect one another.  She spent 30 years as a professor at MIT, tenured in the Department of Ocean Engineering as well as other Professorships at several other Universities, National Academy of Science Boards and several State, Federal government, and corporate boards. 

The Boothbay Harbor Rotary Club meeting starts at 6 p.m. with a buffet dinner, followed by a brief business meeting. Dr Kildow’s presentation will start around 7. The public is welcome to join us for dinner before the presentation, cost is $15.   

The Rotary Clubhouse is at 66 Montgomery Road, Boothbay Harbor. Please call 207-619-1417 and leave a message  if you would like to join us for dinner.