The role of state and non-state actors in the management of the Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides)
Creators: name: Fallon, Liza Danielle
Publisher: name: University Of Tasmania
Year: 2023

description: The deep-sea Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) fishery rapidly expanded in the 1990s across the Southern Ocean. This species is now heavily exploited in some regions, and commercial extinction of some stock under the highest pressure has already occurred. Much of the pressure on this stock derives from illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which also profoundly undermines fisheries management by coastal States and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). It also brings into question the capacity of international actornetworks to manage the stocks in a sustainable manner and discipline dissident actornetworks that target the resource. Issues of international geopolitics, global governance, power and hegemonies, ecosystem fisheries management and nature conservation are investigated. This is because they are increasingly important to the current attempts by CCAMLR members, national governments, scientists, licensed fishers, non-governmental organisations (NG0s) and the general public to manage Patagonian toothfish stocks, grapple with IUU fishing and conserve this important but poorly understood fishery. I use a qualitative approach in which I draw upon insights from actor-network theory (ANT) to illustrate descriptively how human, nonhuman and inhuman actors exert power and influence each another in a complex, heterogeneous and dynamic actor-network. To help construct the Patagonian Toothfish Network, I refer to documentary research, and 70 in-depth, semi-structured key informant interviews and participant observations at Australian and CCAMLR fisheries management fora that were undertaken between 2002 and 2006. I found that IUU fishers threaten the stability of the Patagonian Toothfish Network when they act in a dissident manner and continue to target the stocks in contravention to legal and moral norms. State actors seeking to manage and conserve the fishery and stop IUU fishing activities exert power from a distance using cooperative and putative measures. They aim to encourage [VU fishers and their associates to modify their behaviour by acting on their own conduct and complying with normative beliefs, institutional principles, policies and practises. In addition, non-state actors have arguably played a very constructive role in broadening effective action to stop [VU fishing. However, they have not solved the problem in their own right and it is through the combined actions of CCAMLR and its members, concerned fishing States, and licensed fishers, together with the associations they have formed, that have led to developing new ways to manage and conserve the fishery. Whether the focus is on managing and conserving the Patagonian toothfish fishery, other global fisheries or the global ecosystem, this investigation reveals that the key to sustainability appears to rest with building a more inclusive actor-network. In such an actor-network, individuals are connected with one another and encouraged to monitor their own behaviour and risks to cooperatively share resources for the collective good.