Ethical Ocean
Reimagining Ocean Futures Through Ethics, Culture and Regeneration.
The ocean is the foundation of life on Earth, yet it is facing unprecedented pressures from climate change and biodiversity loss to industrial expansion and the rapid growth of the blue economy.
Ocean science is indispensable. But knowledge alone cannot transform the future unless we build the relationship, values, and institutions that allow it to shape decisions.
We are bringing together knowledge, culture, and community to shape regenerative ocean futures.
About Ethical Ocean
An Ethical Ocean is more than a healthy or sustainable ocean.
It is an ocean built upon the foundations of guardianship, regeneration, legitimacy, responsibility, and care — where ecological, cultural, and community wellbeing are valued alongside economic prosperity.
At Ethical Ocean, we believe many of today's marine challenges are bigger than scientific or technological problems. They reflect the ways societies, understand, value, and relate to the living world.
This is why the idea of Blue matters.
For us, blue is not a location or industry sector. It is a way of understanding the ocean as a living, interconnected system, rather than an extractive frontier. It prioritises regeneration over exploitation, guardianship over ownership, and responsibility to future generations over short-term gain.
Ethical Ocean advances values-led approaches to ocean governance that help shape how science, technology, policy, and investment contribute to a more regenerative and responsible blue economy.
An Ethical Ocean is therefore not simply about protecting the sea.
It is about cultivating the ethical foundations, for more just and abundant ocean futures.
Founder
Larelle Bossi
Ocean Ethicist | Researcher | Policy Advisor
Larelle is an Australian philosopher and ocean ethicist whose work focuses on values-led ocean governance, regenerative blue economies, and ethical frameworks for marine decision-making. Her research and advisory work spans government, academia, and community engagement, with particular interests in the integrity system of blue economies, social and cultural licenses, blue finance, and building ocean cultures. Larelle is committed to helping bridge the gap between ethics, policy, and governance. She is passionate about leaving a healthy ocean for her children.
Research & Publications
In Collaboration With:
Values-led Ocean Governance
Ocean governance is entering a period of profound transformation. Expanding demands on marine spaces — from conservation and climate action to energy, food security and the blue economy — require new approaches to how decisions are made and justified.
Values-led Ocean Governance proposes that the future of the ocean cannot be secured through science, technology, finance or regulation alone. It requires a deeper examination of the values, responsibilities and relationships that shape human decisions about the ocean.
Contemporary ocean governance has achieved significant progress through scientific knowledge, regulatory systems and technological innovation. However, the complexity of emerging ocean challenges reveals the limits of approaches focused primarily on management, measurement and control.
The framework reframes ocean governance by placing values, ethics and responsibility at the centre of decision-making. It recognises that governance choices are never purely technical; they reflect assumptions about what is valued, whose knowledge matters and what responsibilities are owed to ocean systems and future generations.
Values-led Ocean Governance addresses this gap by asking a different set of questions: not only what is possible, but what is responsible; not only what is efficient, but what is legitimate; not only what can be extracted or developed, but what relationship humanity chooses to cultivate with the ocean.
Research foundation
Values-led Ocean Governance was developed through interdisciplinary research spanning philosophy, ethics, ocean policy and governance.
Read the full paper:
“From regulation to relationship: Values-led ocean governance through beauty, love, and abundance”
Marine Policy (2026)
Coming Soon
Building new pathways of collaboration, professional learning, and regenerative ocean leadership. Programs, and partnerships launching soon.
Get Involved
The future of our ocean depends on the collective actions we take today.
Join our mission to foster ethical governance and regenerative guardianship.