Sustainable Blue Economy Policy in Turkey: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The interest in the marine environment which plays an especially significant role in solving climate change and plastic pollution problems has shown itself with the formation of various concepts. Significant developments have been started in recent years in life below water, the 14th goal of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. In this context, the sustainable blue economy concept put forward by the European Union for the oceans and seas is the last of these developments. In this section, the concept of sustainable blue economy has been evaluated together with its economic, political, and environmental aspects, and sectoral processes such as shipping, fishing, tourism, etc. have been exam ined in Turkey. The fact that Turkey has a coast to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea has brought it to a critical position in marine environmental policies. For this reason, both its position as a candidate country for the European Union and its role in African and Asian countries have necessitated studies on the maritime policies of Turkey. As a result, it is also essential for those who will work on this subject in the future to evaluate the processes of sustainable blue economy policies in Turkey with topics such as tourism, employment, shipping, fisheries, and pollution and to show the data on these issues in a systematic way.