Paper long abstract:

While most marine introduced species have a clear, and often dramatic, negative impact upon ecosystems, economy and livelihoods, some attain high commercial importance. Such cases entail a management dilemma: should the species in question be managed as a resource or as a threat to biodiversity? This paper focuses on the Turkish management in the Black Sea of the introduced sea snail Rapana venosa. In fisheries management is has been considered a resource, but scientists are concerned about the supposedly harmful fishing practice (dredging) and about the dramatic change the sea snail brings to the benthic ecology and biodiversity. I try to untangle the political ecology of how these practices and discourses are played out against each other and ask what kind of 'object' is it to the various actors involved?