World-making through mapping

Abstract

Ocean conservation is a global concern and marine protected areas (MPAs) are prominent on the ocean conservation agenda. Although MPAs cover less than 8 percent of global oceans, area coverage has expanded 15-fold since 1993. Until 2006, visualizations of this expansion were underwhelming; global maps of MPAs showed mostly thin lines of blue hugging coastlines, barely detectable “edges” to vast undifferentiated oceans. This began to change when the United States (US) established a large-scale MPA (LSMPA), the Papahānaumokuākea US Marine National Monument. LSMPAs have proliferated since, with currently 37 LSMPAs designated. Global maps now reveal the oceans as a differentiated space: what was once uniform is disrupted by LSMPA polygons signifying spaces of conservation where resource use is prohibited or limited. In this chapter, we explore what kind of world-making is performed through global maps of LSMPAs. While these maps perform progress toward “global oceans conserved,” LSMPA expansion can be understood differently: as assertions of sovereignty by small island developing states, evidence of neocolonial conservation or NGO success, or spaces of management. In examining the intersections among mapping, performance, and world-making, we interrogate the “unmaking” and “remaking” of ocean resources and the implications for governing global oceans.