In the new book Transforming the Fisheries: Neoliberalism, Nature, and the Commons, environmental geography professor Patrick Bresnihan examines how scientific, economic and regulatory responses to the problem of overfishing have changed over the past two decades. Based on fieldwork in a commercial fishing port in Ireland, Bresnihan’s book shows how efforts to address overfishing are transforming how marine environments are valued and governed.
Many concepts that govern contemporary environmental thinking — scarcity, sustainability, the commons, and enclosure — are recognized in light of the collapse of global fish stocks and the different ways this problem is being addressed. Bresnihan concludes that considering these concepts anew can help us to reinvent what he calls the “more-than-human” commons.
