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Paper short abstract:

The lionfish invasion is considered an environmental emergency due to its devastating effect on coral reefs of the Yucatan Peninsula. This paper shows how local communities connect to produce knowledge and strategies to face the species in a context of biodiversity change and mass tourism industry.

Paper long abstract:

Native to Asia, the lionfish began invading the Atlantic coast of the Americas—from Massachusetts to Brazil—in the 1980s. This invasion is considered an environmental emergency due to the devastating effect it is having on coral reefs, where the most important marine species reproduce. Biologists have proven the lionfish’s rapid decimation of local species—a critical concern for governments, non-governmental organizations, and communities that depend on local marine resources. As a result, local communities are affected by changes in biodiversity and by imbalanced environmental policies that condition traditional and large-scale economic activities, eventually impacting on the livelihood and sustainability of the community.

Building on ethnography and digital ethnography, this paper shows how communities affected by the lionfish presence in the Yucatan Peninsula and the Mexican Caribbean—and other locations along the Atlantic coast—connect with each other to produce local knowledge, develop and improve fishing and cooking technologies, and find ways of taking advantage of this “new” fish, which is, fortunately, edible. Sometimes these strategies articulate with official management and control plans, but they often challenge environmental policies, scientific conservation ideas and formal knowledge production. At the same time, these changes in the communities generate conflicts and struggles that are compounded by limited resources and restricted access to the local ecosystem and the coastal and marine environment. All this takes place in the context of rapid biodiversity change, strict regulation policies, and mass tourism industry.