North Carolina's coast is more than a popular getaway. It's home to fishing, aquaculture, and research that could grow into what's known as a blue economy.
RTI (Research Triangle Institute) International, based in Research Triangle Park, recently produced a study with NC EcoTech that looks at ways to create new opportunities for coastal businesses. It recommends adopting new technologies, developing a statewide plan, and removing regulatory hurdles that will allow businesses to test new ideas.
WUNC News' Bradley George spoke with two researchers who worked on the report: Jessica Wilkinson, a economic development researcher at RTI, and Adams Bailey, a research economist.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
What is a blue economy?
Jessica Wilkinson: The blue economy is all types of economic activity that's tied to oceans, coasts, marine ecosystems. So you can think about fish and shellfish farming, anything from boat building, commercial fishing, shipping, coastal resilience at all falls under the blue economy.
There's already a lot of economic activity on North Carolina's coast. Of course, it's a popular tourist destination. Lots of people are moving there. Where does this idea of a blue economy fit into the economic activity that's already happening along the coast?
JW: One thing we talk about in this report in particular is that North Carolina's got a lot of heritage in the blue economy and a lot of diverse assets. But one of the things that we realized when we were working in this area is that a lot of it's disconnected. So we, of course, we have tourism. We didn't talk about that too much, and sometimes that can be kind of at heads with aquaculture, so I think that's something you know that people probably have heard of before. But we have a long history of fishing and aquaculture and fish farming and fin fish farming across the state from the west to the coast.
Adams Bailey: At one point, I would add is North Carolina is really unique in just how many miles of coastline we have, protecting those from erosion is maintaining habitats. If you're building in resilient coastline, you're building in cleaner habitats and are just overall good for sustainability in the environment of our state.
Jessica, you mentioned seafood. Most of what we eat in the U.S. is imported. What are some of the recommendations you came up with to encourage more seafood production in North Carolina?
JW: One thing we talk about is just the big importance of introducing these new technologies that are coming online every day, and helping to make sure that current farmers and future farmers and fishermen are aware and able to access these technologies. So, of course, AI is a huge one. Remote sensing is a huge one. Another one are some of these recirculating aquaculture systems we talk about, making sure that they're accessible.
Adams, are there examples of other states in the U.S. or even other places around the world that have adopted these blue economy strategies and have seen benefits from them?
AB: Absolutely. So, one of the companies we're really excited about is Hima Seafood in Norway. Has been adopting RAS (recirculating aquaculture systems) to farm fish in Norway. They've been considering a North Carolina investment. They still haven't made an announcement on where that investment could be, but if they did come here, it would be a major economic win for our state, both in terms of jobs created and value created, but also in you know adopting advanced systems here that are producing fish in a clean and sustainable way, and create a lot of jobs and allow us to eat seafood that was grown locally.
You've produced this report, so what are the next steps?
JW: This project, the NC EcoTech project, ended about a year ago. And some of this work was catalyzed by these federal investments I mentioned through the National Science Foundation. A lot of the federal funding landscape has changed, and some of these efforts that were time limited have ended. And so, part of this report was like a call to action as well for who could step in with some of this federal support. And then other calls to action were about the regulatory environment. We had spoken to many people who said that the regulatory environment is perceived as acting in kind of a case by case basis, and there were some bottlenecks, and it could kind of slow down the implementation of new technologies that come online.
