Coral reefs are described as among those ecosystems suffering the greatest rates of environmental deterioration, particularly when located near population centers or easily accessible to a variety of resource exploitation efforts. The rates of reef decline worldwide have spurred greater management and conservation efforts, but these have achieved little success as debates intensify over which factors endangering coral reef ecosystems are most important to address, how to mitigate them, and how to measure progress. Coral reef conservation science is thus beset by uncertainty and competing policy prescriptions, while the urgency for action continues to escalate, exemplifying a paradox in the practice of science and its application to environmental policy in general: on the one hand, scientific research is propelled by disagreement and uncertainty in specialized knowledges, yet on the other hand, practical policy-making requires general agreement about discrete causal relationships. Guiding this work is the belief that the current level of contention on this issue is due not to a lack of scientific knowledge about reef systems, but rather to a misuse and mis-emphasis of scientific uncertainties that drive further investigations and distort core conclusions that are generally accepted as fact. Using Q-Methodology, this dissertation research will characterize common understandings from competing knowledges of reef science and conservation, and quantitatively rank the subjectivities and goals surrounding policy. Social Network Analysis will be employed to explore how scientific uncertainties that fuel debates are communicated and evolve in the spatial and conceptual networks through which they flow. Geographic information systems (GIS) will be used to determine where particular contentions about reef systems may have originated and how perceptions of reef decline and mitigation are spatially contingent based on the region where the science is conducted. This research will take place in South Florida, which not only has a well-studied reef tract and established conservation frameworks, but also is home to several academic, international, governmental and non-governmental organizations interested in reef conservation thus providing a strong international network of reef scientists and policy-makers who will be available for interviews.
By examining the ways in which scientists and policy-makers negotiate scientific uncertainty, this research has a strong potential to suggest new avenues for environmental policy-making efforts that have been paralyzed by a lack of consensus within networks that claim a common conservation goal. This work seeks to identify ways in which to surmount the scientific uncertainties that inhibit effective mitigation efforts, which are particularly important in marine environments where scientific research is exceptionally expensive and where observation and sampling techniques are contingent on regional political, biological, and geophysical differences. This research will result in an accessible methodology that will facilitate a way to quickly and accurately deconstruct contested environmental debates by revealing main points that underpin the scientific paradigms around which the contentions are structured, and quantify the degree to which those in the network agree on core beliefs. In a time of increasing environmental vulnerability, this research confronts some of the main obstacles that prevent the timely translation of scientific research into effective remediating policies.
