Please join us on Zoom for the Marine Biology seminar. Dr. Jennifer Jacquet (New York University) will present 'A consumer approach to fisheries conservation: social theory, science, and values.'
Abstract: The first ocean-related label was the ‘dolphin-safe’ logo for tuna in 1990. Since then, a suite of sustainability efforts have targeted seafood consumers, including the most prominent eco-label for fish, the Marine Stewardship Council’s blue tick. We will run through this three-decade effort, the ‘theory of change’ that suggests how such campaigns might work to improve fisheries management, as well as some of the prominent controversies, including the recent message in the film Seaspiracy that consumers should give up seafood altogether and promises from cellular seafood start-ups that their products will provide the solution. The conclusion drawn in 2007 at my first talk at Scripps — that consumers alone can’t save our fish — remains true. Here I hope to emphasize the deep conflict of values in the scientific community, particularly evident in conservation biology, ecology, and fisheries science. Scientists from all disciplines have adopted the dominant view that fish and invertebrates are a natural resource to be maximally, industrially, and globally exploited for human use. There is an urgent need to confront the paradox that science and policy treat commercially caught fish and aquatic invertebrates differently from other wild animals.