South Africa’s coastline stretches along 3924 km on two oceans (the Atlantic and the Indian) and is home to a wide variety of marine ecosystems that support commercially important fish stocks, international shipping routes and coastal tourism industries (Struwig et al., 2024). The country’s maritime Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 1.5 million km², making it larger than the nation’s landmass (ibid). This immense ocean space has abundant biodiversity, as a result of being flanked by the Benguela and Agulhas current systems, substantial offshore oil and gas resources, and strategic shipping routes to Europe, Asia and America. These factors mean that South Africa is well positioned to benefit from the ocean economy and specifically the blue economy.

The ocean economy and blue economy both refer to activities linked to ocean resources, such as fishing or shipping. However, the blue economy, which was introduced at the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainability, incorporates sustainability, including human wellbeing and social equity. “There is no single definition of the blue economy or ocean economy”, as various terminologies are used by global, national and subnational institutions (OECD, 2024: 15). The World Bank’s definition is the “sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving ocean ecosystem health” (World Bank &UNDESA, 2017),1 while the African Union’s (AU’s) definition includes inland waterways, such as lakes and rivers (AU-IBAR, 2019).

In 2020, the ocean economy contributed an estimated US$2.6 trillion to global economic output, having grown by an average of 2.8% per year since 1995 (OECD, 2025), and about US$300 billion (in 2018) to the African economy, according to the AU (World Bank Group, 2022). In 2025, the G20, under the Presidency of South Africa, recognised the importance of the ocean economy for “climate stability, economic prosperity, biodiversity, and human wellbeing” (G20, 2025: 1).

With eight maritime gateways, South Africa is at the heart of the geopolitically and commercially valuable 17-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), which has a combined market of 390 million people. Most (98%) of the country’s international trade is conducted through its eight main commercial ports:Durban and Richards Bay (KwaZulu-Natal), East London, Ngqura and Gqeberha (Eastern Cape), and Mossel Bay, Cape Town and Saldanha Bay (Western Cape).2 Durban has the largest container terminal in Africa, while Richards Bay is one of the world’s biggest coal export centres. However, despite this strategic positioning, the ocean economy in South Africa is still very underutilised compared to countries such as Norway or New Zealand (OECD, 2025).

This paper examines the blue economy within the context of four coastal metropolitan municipalities (Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City, Cape Town and eThekwini),