Dr Alison Hutchinson has published ‘The Harms and Crimes Against Marine Wildlife’ in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
Alison’s paper builds on her PhD research to examine ‘blue’ harms and crimes towards marine wildlife. From a nonspeciesist green criminological position, she expands on concepts of justice and harm to highlight the uncertainties surrounding the conservation status of marine wildlife and the sustainability of commercially exploited species. She outlines the state of governance towards marine species, including legal frameworks, fishery regulations, and CITES; and discusses how these systems perpetuate an anthropocentric business logic that maintain concepts of sustainability couched in speciesism, with limited recognition for welfare and ongoing harms. Her analysis of these governance systems highlights the increasingly fragile balancing act between commodification and conservation. Such growth-driven models for exploitation are both blind to the harms towards marine species, but also sustain social and ecological injustices towards people and the planet. Green criminology can disrupt this view, but ultimately if we are to collectively address these harms and injustices a fundamental reconceptualization of how we value marine wildlife, and nature more broadly, is urgently needed.
You can read the full paper here