Marine environments are important to manage in order to ensure biodiversity and human well-being. New technologies and policies to ensure these goals have pursued in varied settings, yet little is known about how they translate into to socially responsive and ecologically robust conservation practices. To address this issue, this research investigates the relationship between biodiversity-enhancing technologies, marine conservation, and perceptions of the ocean in southwestern Okinawa. There, international conservationists use marine technologies developed by national industries to manage the ocean, with significant impacts on the physical appearance of the seascape and its social meanings for coastal residents.
The research will use ethnographic, interview, and archival research methods to investigate how conservationists, researchers, and marine laborers imagine and construct the ocean environment. The PIs will examine how new methods of management change long-standing perceptions of the ocean, and how scientific and nonscientific ideas about the ocean are integrated and reconciled. This research will provide new theoretical knowledge about the practices and consequences of international conservation, how different kinds of knowledges are reconciled, and how conservation practices are liked to national identities.
Research findings will be disseminated to a wide range of audiences, in both English and Japanese. These findings will help scholars and policymakers to better understand how changes in attitudes toward and the management of environments take place, and how management can be improved.
This research investigated marine and coral reef conservation during 13 months of dissertation fieldwork. The initial research design sought to 1) inquire into the cultivation of Ishigaki’s seascape; 2) investigate representations of the ocean and coral reefs; and 3) historicize marine conservation in Japan. In order to collect data related to these themes, I used three primary strategies: ethnographic field methods like participant observation, conducting interviews, and amassing archival records. Specifically, I participated in a wide range of events that are related to marine conservation, such as coral planting, cleaning clams to prepare them for ‘natural’ aquaculture, and culling crown-of-thorns starfish. I also regularly attended village festivals and participated in conservation activities that involved the sea, like the purification festival associated with the longest tide of the spring and the scrubbing of the clam ‘fields’ in the national park. I held an internship at a snorkel shop that conducted tours in the national park and then, a few months later, with an international conservation organization at their national base in Tokyo. I also joined a research society that investigates the relationship of ‘citizen science’ to conservation and another one that brings interested parties together around the theme of coral reef conservation. In all of these activities I sought to understand how different actors frame the problems facing the ocean, and what kinds of conservation and management solutions resulted from their presentation of marine problems. Through participation in this wide range of activities related to the sea, I met a diverse group of marine harvesters, tourists, researchers, government officials, and sea workers. I conducted forty interviews with individuals in order to investigate the relationship between how they imagined and engaged with the sea. Finally, I spent a month in the archives, seeking data on how the ocean arose as a problem that conservation could ameliorate. Most of this research was conducted in Ishigaki, Naha, and Iriomote, where records of Okinawan national parks and coral conservation are concentrated. Findings: Given its different historical and cultural context, marine conservation in Japan diverges widely from models currently utilized in the United States. Even 30 years ago the seas were viewed primarily as development’s ‘final frontier.’ However, perceived environmental change, a changing political climate, and recent technological advances have contributed to a rise in interest in coral reef restoration and conservation. The most socially successful projects in Japan fall under the rubric of "5-senses" conservation initiatives that incorporate cultural meaning and experiential practices to effect change. These projects have the potential to inform marine conservation projects in developed and developing nations around the globe. Contributions within Discipline: This research documents the changing relationship of humans to the marine environment amidst a climate of rapid modernization and environmental change. It therefore contributes to anthropological theories about the relationship between nature and culture in the marine realm. Further, it analyzes the politics and practices of environmental conservation in Japan as it converses with and contests Western scientific approaches to the environment. Contributions to Other Disciplines: This research contributes to discussions of marine conservation and how local meaning is and can be derived from the marinescape; it is particularly applicable to considering broader shifts in marine conservation under global climate change. The results are relevant to practitioners of conservation as well as theorists of environmental studies, political ecology, and STS.
