Cultural licence to operate in the Blue Economy

With the emerging concept of the cultural licence to operate (CLO) it is imperative to consider the rights, equity, and livelihood opportunities for First Nations Peoples.

Poor inclusion into economic agendas leads to a greater chance of First Nations People “losing-out”– rather than gaining– from Blue growth and with this, the potential legal and cultural license challenges if their voices are not properly considered.

Here, we conceptualise the core factors driving cultural integrity and fairness principles for building the CLO rubrics in the marine industry sector. Our work will address the key challenge of shifting the industry sector from transactional participation through to transformational participation from authentic and relational foundations of consensus building alongside First Nation Peoples.