Blue Box Seminar Series

Department of Geography Presents

Dr. Maximilian Viatori

“La Otra Cordillera’: Conservation and Extraction in a Peruvian Marine Protected Area” 

How is an emergent nexus of ocean conservation and extraction creating new ocean frontiers in zones previously considered politically and geographically “marginal”? And, how is this process generating new social and multispecies inequalities and inscribing them in ocean space and volume? I explore these questions by analyzing the scientific and regulatory debates surrounding the recent creation of Peru’s first large-scale, open ocean marine protected area, the Reserva Nacional Dorsal de Nasca (RNDN). I argue that the RNDN’s three dimensional model of ocean governance fostered a particular way of seeing the ocean that supported a new legal regime for inscribing a conservation-extraction nexus in the eastern Pacific Ocean’s volume. As such, the RNDN provides an interesting example for examining how the ocean and its volume are being reconceptualized to ensure the ongoing production of value in the face of political, economic, and climatic challenges.

When: Friday, November 8, 2024, 3 - 4 pm

Where: SN 2025