Every year, the ocean generates more economic value than the world's seventh largest national economy, sustaining the livelihoods of over three billion people and underpinning industries from shipping to pharmaceuticals. Yet for most countries, including Lebanon, this economy remains largely invisible in policy discussions, underinvested, and increasingly at risk. On World Oceans Day, it is worth asking what is at stake, and what Lebanon stands to lose if it continues to treat its coastline as a backdrop rather than an asset.
What is the ocean economy
The ocean economy includes economic activities such as offshore oil and gas, marine equipment and construction, container shipping, shipbuilding and repair, cruise tourism, port activities and marine energy. It also includes the ocean’s natural assets and the ecosystem services it provides, from fisheries to carbon sequestration.
The growth of ocean-based economic activities has rapidly increased over the past 50 years and the ocean economy is now estimated to be worth approximately US$1.5 trillion. According to the OECD's "The Ocean Economy 2030" report, this could increase to US$3 trillion by 2030, with significant further growth expected particularly in renewable energy generated by wind, the farming of aquatic plants and animals in saltwater, and fish processing.
The primary focus of the ocean economy is on maximizing economic benefits. This often leads to ecological degradation and resource depletion at the expense of marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
From Ocean Economy to Blue Economy
The blue economy is an economic philosophy that focuses on the sustainable use of marine and coastal resources for economic growth, aiming to balance economic benefits with ocean conservation.
The term "Blue Economy" was coined and introduced by the Belgian economist Gunter Pauli. He originally developed the concept in 1994 and popularized it in his 2010 book, "The Blue Economy: 10 Years, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs." While Pauli's original work focused on a waste-free business model, today, it primarily refers to the sustainable use and conservation of ocean and marine resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and ecosystem health. This modern ocean-centric definition was largely championed by Small Island Developing States (SIDS) during the 2012 Rio+20 Summit, also referred to as the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.
In practice, it covers a wide and growing set of industries: maritime shipping, which moves roughly 80% of global trade by volume; fisheries and aquaculture, which contribute over $100 billion per year and support around 260 million jobs globally; and coastal tourism, which alone generates an estimated $4.6 trillion annually and accounts for over 5% of global GDP.
Less visible but equally significant is what the ocean offers to science and medicine. The ocean covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface and hosts an estimated 80% of the planet's biodiversity, offering a vast and largely unexplored source of biomolecules. Marine organisms produce unique compounds — found in sea sponges, cone snails, and sea squirts — that have yielded approved cancer treatments, painkillers, and antiviral drugs. As of 2025, the global marine pharmaceutical pipeline contained more than 31 compounds in clinical development, a 22% increase from 2022. The cosmetics industry also draws heavily on ocean-derived ingredients, and marine biotech now spans everything from sustainable aquaculture to biofuels.
The global blue economy is valued at $2.5 trillion annually, contributing 5% to global GDP. In Lebanon, the blue economy—which includes coastal tourism, maritime transport, and artisanal fisheries—contributes roughly 18% to 19% to Lebanon's GDP, according to the Hariri Foundation for Sustainable Human Development. This valuation relies overwhelmingly on coastal tourism, while direct industries like traditional fisheries generate only 3,000–3,500 tonnes of catch.
Lebanon's Blue Economy: A National Assessment
In 2024, the Hariri Foundation for Sustainable Human Development, in partnership with UNEP and with support from the European Union under the SwitchMed II programme, produced the first national dialogue and assessment of Lebanon's blue economy, a comprehensive, multi-stakeholder analysis that maps the country's 225-kilometer coastline across three core sectors: port activities and maritime trade, marine living resources and fisheries, and coastal tourism. The assessment, which engaged government bodies, private sector players, fishermen's unions, environmental NGOs, universities, and international organizations, represents the most structured stocktaking of Lebanon's maritime economy to date.
Its findings paint a dual picture. On one hand, Lebanon's blue economy already contributes an estimated 18% to 19% of GDP, driven overwhelmingly by coastal tourism and port activity. The Port of Beirut, despite the devastating 2020 explosion, remains a critical regional trade hub, handling 82% of Lebanon's imports and exports before the blast, and recovering to 5.41 million tons of goods in 2023, up 5% year on year. The Port of Tripoli, Lebanon's second major port, has seen activity rise by over 80% since 2019 and holds significant untapped capacity. Meanwhile, emerging sectors such as marine biotechnology, offshore renewable energy, and eco-tourism, remain almost entirely undeveloped, representing what the assessment describes as a frontier for Lebanon's economic diversification.
On the other hand, fisheries, one of the most visible dimensions of Lebanon's coastal economy, generate only 3,000 to 3,500 tonnes of annual catch, a figure constrained by overfishing, illegal nets, untreated wastewater discharging directly into the Mediterranean, and solid waste landfills bordering the coast. The assessment identifies governance fragmentation as the central structural problem: overlapping laws, absent enforcement, no national fisheries authority, and no integrated coastal zone management framework.
Untapped Potential
Lebanon is not alone in recognizing what its coastline could offer. Across the Arab Mediterranean, countries with comparable coastal geographies have built significant blue economy foundations: Morocco's ocean and coastal-related activities account for 59% of its GDP, Tunisia's fisheries and tourism sectors alone support approximately 450,000 jobs, and Egypt has leveraged its Mediterranean and Red Sea coastlines into one of the region's largest maritime trade and tourism corridors. Lebanon, with its 225-kilometer Mediterranean coastline, a historically significant port network, and one of the region's most recognized tourism identities, has the geographic and cultural endowments to compete in this space, but is missing the institutional framework to do so.
The most immediate frontier is energy infrastructure. Lebanon's offshore Mediterranean blocks hold significant untapped gas potential, with international energy majors already engaged in exploration. Beyond hydrocarbons, Lebanon's coastal geography also presents viable conditions for offshore wind development, a sector that has grown exponentially across the Mediterranean in recent years and remains entirely untapped locally. If developed responsibly and governed transparently, and with explicit safeguards for marine ecosystems and coastal biodiversity, these energy assets could become among Lebanon's most consequential recovery infrastructure, generating revenues, reducing energy dependency, and anchoring broader maritime sector development.
Ports represent a second major area of under-leveraged potential. The Port of Beirut and Port of Tripoli both operate below historical capacity and lack the modernized infrastructure, digital systems, and green port standards needed to compete regionally. Targeted investment in port rehabilitation and modernization, paired with streamlined governance, could reposition Lebanon as a logistics hub for the Eastern Mediterranean, a role it held for decades before successive crises eroded its competitive standing.
A third area is industrial-scale fisheries. Lebanon's current catch relies almost entirely on shallow coastal waters, leaving deeper offshore fishing grounds largely unexploited. Developing regulated deep-water fishing capacity could significantly expand the sector's economic contribution while reducing pressure on already stressed nearshore ecosystems. Here too, any expansion must be conditioned on binding environmental standards: deep-water fisheries, offshore energy installations, and port expansion all carry ecological risks that, left unmanaged, would undermine the very resource base they depend on. The blue economy's economic advantage is only possible if ecosystem preservation is treated as a precondition for growth.
An Economy Worth Protecting
The ocean does not distinguish between developed and developing economies. Its decline, measured in warming waters, bleached reefs, shrinking fish stocks, and rising sea levels, will affect Lebanon's fishermen as surely as it will affect global shipping routes or pharmaceutical pipelines. For Lebanon, the question is no longer whether the blue economy matters. It is whether reconstruction and recovery frameworks will treat it as the strategic asset it is, before the window to do so closes.
