From regulation to relationship: Values-lead ocean governance through beauty, love, and abundance

Ocean governance has traditionally relied on frameworks rooted in law, science, and economics — tools designed to quantify risk, enforce compliance, and regulate resource use. While these approaches have provided important institutional structures for managing marine environments, they often overlook the deeper cultural, ethical, and relational values that shape human–ocean relationships. This paper proposes a shift in the ethical framework of ocean governance by exploring the values of beauty, love, and abundance as guiding orientations for marine guardianship. Drawing on philosophical analysis and cultural interpretations of the sea, the paper develops these values as relational principles that illuminate alternative ways of understanding and governing ocean systems. Beauty reveals the intrinsic value of marine environments through aesthetic and phenomenological encounters with the ocean. Love expresses relational responsibility, emphasising care, reciprocity, and guardianship between human communities and marine ecosystems. Abundance reframes sustainability beyond scarcity-based management toward ecological flourishing and regenerative ocean futures. In a time of accelerating climate disruption, expanding blue economy industries, and increasing competition for marine space, these values offer an ethical orientation capable of enriching governance frameworks with deeper commitments to care, responsibility, and intergenerational flourishing. By foregrounding the cultural, aesthetic, and relational dimensions of ocean connection, this framework moves beyond minimalist compliance toward more transformative approaches to ocean governance grounded in relational ethics.