ESSAY

The Advantage of Blue Economy on Job Opportunity and Prosperity

BY FIRZAN ANNAS AS-SHIDIQ | PUBLISHED FEB 14, 2022, 15:00 UTC

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Marine job opportunity and prosperity | Unsplash/Şahin Sezer Dinçer

Blue economy creates many jobs for people by utilizing every asset in the ocean. The large maritime territory of Indonesia opens up opportunities for people to take advantage of every ocean resource. The larger the marine area, the more things can be used as jobs. With these opportunities, people can increase their economic conditions and develop all innovations which are helpful for the future with full responsibility for the marine environment.

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The development of renewable energy innovations has good sustainable prospects because energy is an essential thing at all times. With rapid technological advances, energy is a must-have requirement to support every technical activity. Therefore, extra energy from renewable energy sources is needed. Renewable energy can be generated with extensive marine utilization. Marine resources that can become renewable energy are ocean waves, currents, and temperature.

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Waves, currents, and ocean temperatures can be renewable energy resources due to their kinetic and potential energy. According to Jouanne and Brekken (2017), kinetic and potential energy comes from the gravitation, movement, temperature, and pressure of the ocean. The movement is converted by Wave Energy Converter (WEC), and the temperature is converted by Ocean Thermal Energy Converter (OTEC). WEC is an operational technology that can generate and store electrical power from the movement of the wave direction (Farrok et al, 2020). In general, the WEC will be connected to a submarine cable and routed onshore after the energy is converted to electric power (Yang et al, 2018). After the conversion process, every home will get electricity from the distribution. Same as WEC, OTEC is an operational technology that can generate and store electrical power, but it comes from the temperature differentials of the ocean layer (Herrera et al, 2021). These two technologies are deployed offshore. From all step processing, every step are processed by human resources as part of their work.

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Many jobs are open from the processing ocean renewable energy. Marine engineering ideas are needed to develop a construction plan. Field observation by an ocean surveyor is also required. In addition, the construction and installation of equipment that later became a power plant also needed to be prepared by contractors. The designer of the required technology is needed so that resource management is more effective and efficient. To maintain the stability of the installation to the environment, a marine environmental supervisor is needed so that cases such as millions of fish and coral die due to leakage of electric cables will never happen. In supervision and maintenance, climatologists are needed to predict extreme weather that may have an impact on resource processing. In the processing, monitoring must be carried out by electrical engineers so that the power required during the process is not less and sufficient to distribute power to the onshore. Several divers are also required to check the installed equipment. The ship that will become the installation facility requires the skipper and sensor engineer to carry and determine the direction of the cable, WEC, or OTEC
installation.

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Apart from being transportation means in power plants installation, ships are also necessary for goods transportation. Ships are one of the most frequently used intermodal transportation, especially in goods distribution from island to island. However, the price of goods sent from outside of island becomes more expensive than the original price. It is due to inadequate infrastructure and management of port spatial planning in Indonesia. Moreover, diesel fuel on ships also makes transportation services prices more expensive and damages the marine ecosystem by creating pollution. Thus, developments in maritime transportation and logistics are needed.

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The development can be started by creating job opportunities for the people. Management of port spatial can be developed if the ideas and innovations from everyone are implemented. The more workers in the port, the better management. In addition, innovation in ship fuel is also needed. It takes fuel that is environmentally friendly, easy to obtain, and the production process takes less time. It opens an opportunity for innovators and entrepreneurs of alternative fuels to take part in this blue economy cycle. On the other hand, innovation on ships in Indonesia is also needed. In terms of systems, materials, models, and services. A valuable ship is a ship that has low maintenance costs and longer time to use it. From there, jobs as ship mechanics and ship charterers are needed. Ships will be the right means and infrastructure for travel or transportation in the ocean. Therefore, by utilizing the services of ship infrastructure, it can improve the economy of the local people. Not only that, their work is more convincing.

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The local people's economy has also increased along with the tourists from outside and inside the country by opening up tourism services such as snorkeling, scuba diving, sea tours, shipping, hotels, and surfing training. However, the price of services must be following tourists offer and also the needs of local service providers. The price of services offered by the local service providers is generally too expensive and rarely in demand. Thus, opening up opportunities for outsiders to take over the tourism sector. A suitable solution for this problem is bundling strategy. All material needs and services offered in the Indonesian tourism sector are combined into bundling and coupled with a decoy strategy. The thing that becomes decoy is the price of services offered per service, not bundling. Meanwhile, the bundling price must be lower than the total unit service price. In that way, all sides benefit from each other in terms of services and facilities.

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The services and facilities offered can be promoted through social media. The massive number of social media users is capital to introduce beauties of the marine tourism sector in all corners of Indonesia. However, there needs to be coordination between each region in acquainting it. In addition, there needs to be an exclusive platform to help local people recognize social media algorithms and also measured marine exploration.

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That application platform is necessary for all of this succedent. It will later be a place for publishing everything related to the tourism sector. For this reason, IT developers are needed to create an exclusive platform to introduce the beauties of the ocean in every corner of Indonesia. Besides being used for promotion, the platform is expected to have online buying and selling features, especially for goods such as souvenirs and services such as hospitality. It also opens up job opportunities for Indonesian people in terms of buying and selling, retailing, services in an easier way. Not only that, by introducing Indonesia's marine environment, the world will look more towards the marine sector in Indonesia. We need people in the creative industry to develop fun and educational content. It can also open up opportunities for donors or foreign investors who are willing to develop Indonesia, especially in the marine sector.

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In addition to the tourism sector, the marine sector that is no less important is the fisheries sector. In the fisheries sector in Indonesia, things that need to be considered are availability, cultivation, stability. The availability of fish in the seas is finite, with good management or protection, fish in the Indonesian ocean will be maintained and sustainable. It is necessary to develop methods and techniques to control fish diversity in Indonesia. Even if it cannot be, serious protection is needed for the variety of fish in Indonesia. The rise of illegal fishing and violations of marine areas is a serious threat to Indonesia. It needs to be considered by the government, TNI, and marine science experts. In addition, aquaculture in the Indonesian ocean also needs to be considered. The diversity of fish and coral reef species in Indonesia is the largest in the world (Arifin, Yulianda, & Imran, 2019). There needs to be a development to keep the diversity of species awake. It opens up job opportunities for biotechnology experts and bioengineers. The community will be directed towards fish cultivation which is maintained stably. With that, prolonged employment opportunities for the community as fish cultivators and fish traders are very wide open.

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Every economic activity has its challenges indeed. This is closely related to the industry, especially the marine industry. Every industry in the world indeed produces waste. Not only industry, every country, city, house, but even people also produce so much waste. It is certainly a threat to the prospects for the stability of the world economy. If waste is not handled wisely, it will have a huge impact on the environment. If the environment is damaged, then job opportunities will narrow. Nowadays, there are 400 million tonnes of plastic waste generated annually worldwide, with 150 million tonnes in the oceans. Just imagine, 1 plastic bag weighs 2.5 grams, which means there are 60 trillion plastic bags in the world's waters. Today, the world has 361.1 trillion m2 of ocean area, which means that for every 6.01 m2 there is 1 plastic bag. It needs to be addressed and prevented so that it is not sustainable, namely with the 3Rs “reduce, reuse and recycle”. Technological innovations to clean polluted oceans are needed, such as The Ocean Cleanup Project. However, the project costs a lot and its effectiveness is not guaranteed. For this reason, innovations designed by environmental and marine experts are needed. The way can be done now is to create job opportunities for educators and waste managers. Waste generated by industry can be classified and reused as production material. It can be realized by selling waste on application platforms made by IT developers. Waste that has been managed will later be used as handicrafts or useful goods that are economical, and this opens up opportunities for craft activists or the local people. Local people other than on the coast also need to carry out this activity because watersheds that are connected to the sea are the biggest cause of waste in the ocean, 80% of which comes from land. Therefore, awareness and waste management on land also need to be considered by creating jobs, educational and support platforms, innovative ideas, and strong regulations for the people.

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When the oceans are polluted, the climate around the world will be affected. It is not a problem for some people, but everyone around the world. World climate change is strongly influenced by CO2 levels in the air. Earth's temperature will be hotter if CO2 production continues to increase. In addition, there will be an extensive intensity of rain. Acid rain will often occur and can cause acid levels in the sea to rise which will be very risky for the life of coral reefs. The ice at the poles will melt, creating strong ocean currents which can lead to coastal erosion. Sea levels will continue to rise, and this can cause flooding.

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The threats that are faced need to be addressed as soon as possible. It creates jobs for mangrove farmers. Mangrove plants can overcome ocean currents, which can cause erosion and abrasion. It also creates jobs for coral reef conservationists. Coral reefs are also an important asset in reducing carbon emissions. Coral reef conservationists will later restore coral reefs in the sea with various methods. In addition, development infrastructure on the coast is also necessary. Buildings that are required are seawalls or breakwaters. That will be very useful in changing ocean currents. The engineers are needed


for the construction and planning of marine environmental infrastructure. Everyone must take advantage of the many job opportunities. Contribution from everyone is substantial for implementing this blue economy concept by developing innovation, caring, and taking action on the ocean. The area and property of the oceans must be used as capital to improve the economic and environmental conditions of the people.

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