Paper short abstract:

The paper analyses the representation of the marble trout in discourse, with particular emphasis on the discourse of marble trout ''conservation'', emphasising that it is economic and national(istic) interests that drive the discourse, excluding any consideration of the marble trout's moral status.

Paper long abstract:

The paper analyses the representation of the marble trout in discourses surrounding aquaculture heritage and how this representation potentially influences the human perception of the marble trout. The analysis reveals that the examined discourses represent the fish as valuable only in terms of their utility to humans, rather then intrinsically valuable. I put the main focus of the paper on the discourse of marble trout ''conservation'' and argue that it is interconnected with fishing discourse in general, since it does not deconstruct but rather reinforces the construction of marble trout as an object with tourism value. Two of the most important justifications for the ''conservation'' of the marble trout are its connection to fishing and to national heritage. The first one is closely linked with the economic interest (the marble trout become objecitvised as a part of the range of tourist activities on offer in Posočje) and the second one with national(istic) interest (the marble trout become singularised with the emphasis on their national uniqueness). For over two decades many fishing defenders, especially angling families, have been calling for the ''conservation'' of the marble trout, protecting the existence of the species to provide sufficient numbers for further killing in the form of fishing tourism. The protectionist rhetoric has therefore been part of the wider neoliberal rhetoric and the efforts of the neoliberal economic-political system to commodify nature, where marble trout become available as a ''natural resource'' for the foreign financial elite, without any recognition of their moral value.