Conference: Marine Environmental Politics in the 21st Century: MacArthur Program on Multilateral Governance, Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
Paper Abstracts:
Carolyn Trist
Department of Geography, UC Berkeley
This paper examines the politics of knowledge concerning the effectiveness of marine reserves in the Eastern Caribbean Island of St. Lucia. Marine reserves are now among the most common ocean conservation methods promoted throughout the tropics. Since 1980, marine parks and protected areas have proliferated in the Caribbean region and hopes are high that will halt the decline of coral reefs and facilitate regeneration of depleted fish stocks. Local governments, regional NGOs and international environmental organizations have adopted the idea that some type of exclusionary spatial regulation is essential to protecting marine life and are actively promoting their implementation. However, since the establishment of marine reserves first and foremost requires the exclusion of fishing, questions of spatial justice frequently arise. In tropical coastal areas where tourism is a significant presence, changes in resource access rights may be perceived locally in terms of race and class power relations. In the opinion of many fishermen who fish along St. Lucia's southwest coast, the newly enforced marine reserves are in fact "tourist reserves," and scuba divers the only marine species that appears to be thriving. Mobilization of ecological knowledge by opposing interest groups is a critical element in the local politics of marine conservation. Marine ecologists who favor marine reserves maintain that they are essential to the future of both the fishery and the livelihoods of fishermen and claim that there is sufficient evidence to support their effectiveness. However, since the question of spatial justice turns, in large part, on the validity of the underlying scientific theory, scientific uncertainty and the perceived interest position of scientists has fueled local controversy.
The debate over the spatial justice of marine reserves inevitably returns to the question of whether, and how soon, no-catch reserves will benefit the fishery. This paper problematizes the assumptions which underlie the effective practice of marine reserves in the context of local resource politics in the Soufriere Marine Management Area. While the spatial design of the SMMA offers highly desirable conditions for testing the assumptions upon which reserve-based reef fisheries management depends, local implementation has been highly contentions, pitting local fishermen against marine scientists and the tourist industry. A complex set of shifting alliances has emerged among the key actors and institutions in which the scientific validity is alternating asserted and challenged in the service of contesting interest positions. What is most clearly evident in the results of this study is that in the practice of marine conservation, scientific knowledge cannot be separated from the interest position of those asserting its validity and the political implications of the course of action it suggests.
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