Abstract
We use a Foucault-inspired environmentalities analytical lens to conceptualize alternative sustainability auditing frameworks. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) claims to administer the international gold standard for sustainability evaluation of fisheries, yet the livelihoods of many people who depend on Canada’s first MSC-certified fishery are in serious jeopardy. After decades of growth that helped fishers and coastal communities alleviate the social consequences of the infamous cod collapse, the northern shrimp fishery in eastern Canada is experiencing ecological change and social conflict over the distribution of quota reductions. However, recent disputes over the distribution, and social consequences, of quota reductions in this fishery are completely invisible in assessment and auditing documents for the successful recertification of the fishery to the MSC’s standard for “sustainable and well managed fisheries” in 2016. We draw upon aspects of an alternative assessment framework to highlight information and knowledge that a socially attentive sustainability audit of this fishery might consider. The alternative auditing framework renders visible social dimensions of Canada’s northern shrimp fishery, including government decision making that incorporates ethical and moral economy principles, the distribution of access to various interests, uses of access benefits for regional and community development purposes, and conflict over policy and resource access during a period of resource decline and dispossession. Although the spread of auditing frameworks across natural resource sectors tends to reinforce neoliberal interests and undermine social justice aims, we argue that the development of alternative assessment frameworks that clearly make visible materialist social development relationship and knowledge can enable action in support of social justice objectives.
Highlights
The spread of auditing frameworks across natural resource sectors tends to reinforce neoliberal interests and undermine social justice aims, we argue that the development of alternative assessment frameworks that clearly make visible materialist social development relationship and knowledge can enable action in support of social justice objectives
Our fieldwork for studying the northern shrimp fishery was completed before the Canadian Fisheries Research Network (CFRN) framework was finalized, the data gathered during the fieldwork, which focused on the relationship between social objectives in fisheries policy and regional development outcomes, aligned well with these categories of elements
The principle of adjacency was subsequently institutionalized as a Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) policy for this fishery by the 1990s (Foley and Mather 2018)
Summary
If we thought the cod moratorium was tough on people and communities, I can’t imagine what this will be. We do not have another fishery to turn to. We could see the closure of four, five shrimp plants here in Newfoundland. That’s catastrophic for Newfoundland and outport communities. – General manager of the Fogo Island Cooperative Society (hereafter Fogo Island Co-op), as quoted in Ensing (2016) That’s catastrophic for Newfoundland and outport communities. – General manager of the Fogo Island Cooperative Society (hereafter Fogo Island Co-op), as quoted in Ensing (2016)
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