Life Below Water and Maritime Security

The paper analyses the UN Sustainable Development Goal “Life Below Water” as it relates to maritime security, particularly in the context of fisheries as the primary sector and marine and coastal tourism as the secondary sector. The structure of the analysis comprises a discussion of Life Below Water as Goal 14 of the UN’s in 17 Sustainable Development Goals, IUU fishing as one out of seven maritime security threats and linkages between both. The research includes the impacts of IUU fishing as a maritime security threat toward the goal Life Below Water instead of the other way around through the case study method. The discussion primarily includes the situation in the Indonesian context with a particular focus on Ambon using social constructivism theory and ‘grassroots’ or community organizing theory. The result of the analysis is used to investigate the capacity of national enforcement in carrying out the international agenda. It can be concluded that SDG 14 succeeds in tackling the problem of IUU fishing.