Fisheries
Type of Session
Full Presentation Panel
Additional abstracts
How to prevent harm: Exploring conflicts within invasive Asian carp management
Adam Kokotovich, PhD
Within the literatures on invasion biology and invasive species management there is increasing recognition of the importance of conflict involving how to define, prioritize, and manage invasive species. One prevalent area of research has explored how conflict over whether a species is considered invasive can result from differing value systems – for example, conflict within or between utilitarian, aesthetic, and moralistic value systems. There remains, however, insufficient work exploring other conflicts that can exist within the assessment and management of invasive species. A better understanding of these conflicts would help identify future research needs, highlight topics in need of societal deliberation, and improve invasive species management. Our research contributes to this work by exploring conflicts surrounding the management of bighead, silver, grass, and black carp (known collectively as Asian carp) in Minnesota.
Asian carp have been progressing up the Mississippi River since escaping into the wild over three decades ago after being introduced to the southern United States for use in aquaculture and wastewater treatment lagoons. While their reproduction front remains in Iowa, an increasing number of individual Asian carp have been found in Minnesota. As the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, Minnesota’s lakes and rivers are essential for its recreation, tourism, and transportation. Although there is general agreement among government agencies and stakeholder groups that Asian carp are invasive and that actions need to be taken to prevent harm, there remain consequential conflicts concerning Asian carp management in Minnesota. We studied these conflicts using focus groups and in-depth interviews with stakeholders, scientists, and officials from state and federal environmental agencies. We characterize the most important conflicts and tensions, including those involving institutional responsibility, the preventability of invasion, and non-target impacts of management. We conclude by exploring the implications for invasive species management.
The Role of Socio-Cultural Institutions in Fisheries Management
The Political Economy of Fishery Collapse
Dr. Jennifer E Telesca
To what extent has the rhetoric to “save” Atlantic bluefin tuna been a context for regulatory action on a global scale? Alternatively, to what extent does popular discourse about the bluefin inhibit significant debates that never go public? This paper charts news coverage about overfishing through the iconic Atlantic bluefin tuna and the cagey International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Formed by treaty in 1969, ICCAT convenes every year some seventy member states that have agreed to husband the bluefin and other creatures on the high seas, albeit behind closed doors.
Taking The New York Times as a point of departure, this paper documents how news reports about the plight of the bluefin forced ICCAT out of the shadows and into the public eye, unlike other regimes of its kind that govern the oceans. Archival research stretches back a half century to ICCAT’s founding, and traces change in frequency and types of coverage. How is news patterned over time? Who has the authority to speak publically on behalf of ICCAT and the fish in its Convention area? Who is silenced in the process?
After establishing patterns in coverage, this paper shifts to the author’s ethnographic data and writes in what otherwise gets written out of the popular narrative about the bluefin at ICCAT. Based on three years as an ICCAT delegate, I argue that the dominant narrative of the regime's incompetence forecloses important stories about regulatory action on the high seas. Left undisturbed, for example, are the inequalities between the Global North and Global South, including the ability of a handful of ICCAT signatories to control and profit from the supply of the world’s most valuable fish, reproducing the status quo while the animals, decades later, still decline in size and number.
Primary Contact
Dr. Peter J. Jacques, Political Science, University of Central Florida
Adam Kokotovich, PhD, University of Minnesota
Dr. Jennifer E Telesca, Pratt Institute
Presenters
Dr. Peter J. Jacques, Political Science, University of Central Florida
E-mail address (preferred) or phone number
Title of paper
The Political Economy of Fishery Collapse
Adam Kokotovich, PhD, University of Minnesota
E-mail address (preferred) or phone number
Title of paper
How to prevent harm: Exploring conflicts within invasive Asian carp management
Dr. Jennifer E Telesca, Pratt Institute
E-mail address (preferred) or phone number
Title of paper
“Save Bluefin Tuna Now!”: Narratives of Crisis in the Quest for Environmental Justice