Where Have All the Fish Gone? Notes on the struggle over livelihoods and the environment on an Indonesian atoll

In the last two decades, the practices of blast fishing and the use of potassium cyanide to harvest fish for commercial purposes has grown exponentially across island Southeast Asia. Such destructive fishing practices have severely impacted the sustainability of fisheries and the livelihoods of local fishers and their families.

On December 12, 4 pm, in the Marlboro College, Marlboro, Vermon, USA, the director of Southeast Asian Studies at Ohio University Gene Ammarell will talk focus on local responses to this problem. He has carried out ethnographic research on the Balobaloang Island in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, for 20 years. Not content with the role of “detached observer,” Ammarell recruited several graduate students to work with him to engage with local fishers and others to halt the destruction of the reef and fishery.

In this talk, he will describe local fishing practices, the apparently intractable nature of the problem of habitat destruction and loss of livelihood, and give a critical analysis of the ways in which he and his students have attempted to engage with villagers to combat the destruction of the local fishery.

Source: www.marlboro.edu