Abyssal geography†

Today, we are held to live in the Anthropocene, bringing to an end modern binary imaginaries, such as the separation between Human and Nature, and with them Western assumptions of progress, linear causality and human exceptionalism. Much Western critical theory, from new or vital materialism to post- and more-than-human thinking, unsurprisingly reflects this internal crisis of faith in Eurocentric or Enlightenment reasoning. At the same time, a radically different critique of modernity has gained prominence in recent years, emerging from critical Black studies, which places the Caribbean at the centre of the development of a new and distinct mode of critical thought. In attempting to grasp the ways in which Caribbean thought and practice have been seen to enable a distinctive alternative non-Eurocentric imaginary, this paper heuristically sets out a paradigmatic framing of ‘abyssal geography’. We emphasize two key points. The first is that abyssal thought is not grounded in abstract and timeless philosophical assumptions but figuratively draws upon aspects of Caribbean practices of resistance and survival, for example, from the Middle Passage, Plantation, carnival, creolization, dance forms and speculative fiction. The second is that abyssal work engages the legacies of modernity and coloniality by explicitly seeking to question the lure of ontology: seeking to disrupt, suspend and to problematize the modern project of the human and the world.     

Factors that influence the entry–exit decision and intensity of participation of fishing fleet for the Galapagos lobster fishery

The Galapagos Islands are a prime example of a place where fishery management policies have been established without first understanding the behavior of fishermen. Since the creation of the Galapagos Marine Reserve in 1998, there has not been a single study in the archipelago that investigates fishing behavior and the factors affecting this behavior. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by describing and analyzing the decisions of the fishing fleet for the red spiny lobster fishery. It focuses on factors that affect the short-term decisions regarding both participation and intensity of participation in the lobster fishery. This paper finds that the fishing fleet in the Galapagos Islands behaves as profit maximizing firms, because they consider all the benefits and costs that affect both their participation decision as well as their decision about how frequently to be active after they have decided to participate. The results also show that there is a large latent effort in the lobster fisheries that could threaten the sustainability of any initiatives aimed at increasing catchability, prices, or markets. It is expected that this analysis will be valuable to policy makers when designing or improving the management plans for Galapagos fisheries.     

Marine dependent livelihoods and resilience to environmental change: A case study of Anguilla

There is increasing concern over the consequences of environmental change for people and communities that depend on already fragile marine resources, given the mounting evidence of sustained over-exploitation and climate change impacts on marine systems. In order to explore the potential social resilience of marine-dependent livelihoods to environmental change, interviews with fishers and marine-based tourism operators in the Caribbean island of Anguilla were undertaken, to identify the impacts of hurricane events on marine livelihoods, the perceptions of resource-users and their potential adaptability to future change. For both sectors of resource-users, there is evidence that they have diversified livelihoods to achieve financial security, which may provide resilience to future climate related impacts or resource variability. In addition, specific behavioural changes that have been developed following previous hurricane events, e.g. removal of fish pots during hurricane months, or bringing boats to shore, indicate fishers' flexibility to changing conditions. However, strong personal and cultural attachment to occupations, particularly among fishers, may hinder resilience. Additionally, the reliance of all of these marine resource-users on the climate-dependent tourism industry may undermine their capacity to cope with future environmental change. Many of these problems are common throughout the Caribbean, as thousands of marine-dependent livelihoods are vulnerable to marine degradation and climate change impacts. Urgent attention is therefore required to support the development of adaptive, sustainable management of marine resources that may enhance resilience to environmental change.     

Fishery cooperatives in Cuba: Potential benefits,legal feasibility,and governance pre-conditions

Currently there is a strong interest in Cuba in improving the performance of the fisheries sector with respect to social, biological, and economic outcomes. Many important fishery resources appear to be overexploited, and previous fishery regulations have had mixed success in restoring fishery stocks. The current fishing pressure could also have adverse impacts on other valuable ecosystem services that support economic activities such as dive tourism and recreational fishing. A new State policy to expand cooperative enterprises to non-agricultural sectors provides an opportunity for fishery cooperatives to be created for the first time since the early years of the Cuban Revolution. This paper explores the potential ecological, social, and economic benefits of adopting fishery cooperatives as a co-management scheme for Cuba's marine fisheries. It concludes that well-designed fishery cooperatives can offer substantial benefits to the management of the fishery sector. Based on an analysis of the relative success of fishing cooperatives worldwide, guidelines are provided for the design of fishery cooperatives in Cuba.     

Relative risk assessment of cruise ships biosolids disposal alternatives

A relative risk assessment of biosolids disposal alternatives for cruise ships is presented in this paper. The area of study encompasses islands and marine waters of the Caribbean Sea. The objective was to evaluate relative human health and ecological risks of (a) dewatering/incineration, (b) landing the solids for disposal, considering that in some countries land-disposed solids might be discharged in the near-shore environment untreated, and (c) deep ocean disposal. Input to the Bayesian assessment consisted of professional judgment based on available literature and modeling information, data on constituent concentrations in cruise ship biosolids, and simulations of constituent concentrations in Caribbean waters assuming ocean disposal. Results indicate that human health and ecological risks associated with land disposal and shallow ocean disposal are higher than those of the deep ocean disposal and incineration. For incineration, predicted ecological impacts were lower relative to deep ocean disposal before considering potential impacts of carbon emissions.     

Effects of anthropogenic disturbance on the abundance and size of epibenthic jellyfish Cassiopea spp

Jellyfish blooms in pelagic systems appear to be increasing on a global scale because of anthropogenic impacts, but much less is known about the link between human activities and epibenthic jellyfish abundance. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the epibenthic jellyfish, Cassiopea spp., were found in greater abundance, and attained larger sizes, in coastal habitats adjacent to high human population densities compared to sites adjacent to uninhabited areas on Abaco Island, Bahamas. Cassiopea spp. were found to be significantly more dense and larger in areas with high human population densities. Ambient nutrient levels and nutrient content of seagrass were elevated in high human population density sites, and may be one mechanism driving higher abundance and size of Cassiopea spp. Cassiopea spp. may have important effects on community structure and ecosystem function in critical coastal ecosystems (e.g., seagrass beds), and their impacts warrant further study.     

Miocene to recent Cariaco basin, offshore Venezuela: Structure, tectonosequences, and basin-forming mechanisms

The Cariaco basin, located ∼40 km off the central part of the coast of Venezuela, is the largest (∼4000 km²) and bathymetrically deepest (1400 m BSL) Neogene fault-bounded basin within the right-lateral strike-slip plate boundary zone that separates the Caribbean and South American plates. Using subsurface geophysical data, we test two previously proposed tectonic models for the age, distribution and nature of east-west-striking, strike-slip faults, and basin-forming mechanism for the two main depocenters of the Cariaco basin. The earliest interpretation for the opening of the twin Cariaco depocenters by Schubert (1982) proposes that both depocenters formed synchronously by extension along transverse (north-south) normal faults at a ∼30-km-wide rhomboidally-shaped pull-apart basin between the right-lateral, east-west-striking, and parallel San Sebastian and El Pilar fault zones. A later model by Ben-Avraham and Zoback (1992) proposes that both depocenters formed synchronously by a process of ”transform-normal parallel extension”, or rifting in a north-south direction orthogonal to the east-west-striking and parallel strike-slip faults.We use more than 4000 km of 2D single- and multi-channel seismic data tied to 11 wells to map 5 tectono-stratigraphic sequences and to produce a series of structural and isopach maps showing how the faults that controlled both Cariaco depocenters evolved from Paleogene to the present. Comparison of fault and isopach maps for dated horizons from Paleogene to late Neogene in age show three main phases in basin development: 1) from middle Miocene to Pliocene, the West Cariaco basin formed as a rhomboidally-shaped pull-apart at a 30-km-wide stepover between the northern branch of the San Sebastian fault and the El Pilar fault zone; 2) during the early Pliocene, a new strike-slip fault transected the West Cariaco basin (southern branch of the San Sebastian fault) and caused extension to cease; and 3) during the early Pliocene to recent, a “lazy-Z” shaped pull-apart formed along the curving connection between the southern branch of the San Sebastian and El Pilar fault zones.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: The Vanishing Farmland Crisis, Critical Views of the Movement to Preserve Agricultural Land . John Baden Protecting Farmlands . Frederick R. Steiner and John E. Theilacker Ecological Effects of Fire in South African Ecosystems . Peter de V. Booysen and Neil M. Tainton Geography in China . Wu Chuanjun , Wang Nailiang , Lin Chao and Zhao Songqiao Resource Inventory and Baseline Study Methods for Developing Countries . Francis Conant , Peter Rogers , Marion Baumgardner , Cyrus Mc Kell , Raymond Dasmann, and Priscilla Reining Principles of Remote Sensing . Paul J. Curran Famine As A Geographical Phenomenon . Bruce Currey and Graeme Hugo The Suburban Squeeze: Land Conversion and Regulation in the San Francisco Bay Area . David E. Dowall Senses of Place . John Eyles Uneven Development and the Geographical Transfer of Value . D. K. Forbes and P. J. Rimmer Issues in Wilderness Management . Michael Frome Land-use and Prehistory in South-east Spain , The London Research Series in Geography 8. Antonio Gilman and John B. Thornes with Stephen Wise Regions in Question, Space, Development Theory and Regional Policy . Charles Gore The Colorado River: Instability and Basin Management . William L. Graf Hazardous Waste Sites: The Credibility Gap . Michael R. Greenberg and Richard F. Anderson Peasants, Subsistence Ecology, and Development in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea . Lawrence S. Grossman Silver Cities: The Photography of American Urbanization, 1839-1915 Peter B. Hales Silicon Landscapes . Peter Hall and Ann Markusen Remaking Ibieca: Rural Life in Aragon under Franco . Susan F. Harding The European Energy Challenge: East and West . George W. Hoffman The Global Climate . John T. Houghton The Urban Jobless in Eastern Africa . Abel G. M. Ishumi . The Tourist: Travel in Twentieth-Century North America . John A. Jakle City and Society: An Outline for Urban Geography . R. J. Johnston Residential Segregation, The State and Constitutional Conflict in American Urban Areas . R. J. Johnston Accessibility and Utilization: Geographical Perspectives on Health Care Delivery . Alun E. Joseph and David R. Phillips To the Heart of Asia: The Life of Sven Hedin . George Kish North American Culture , Vol 1. Ary J. Lamme III Past and Present in the Americas: A Compendium of Recent Studies . John Lynch Ethnicity in Contemporary America: A Geographical Appraisal . Jesse O. Mc Kee The Shell Countryside Book . Richard Muir and Eric Duffey 1990 Planning Conference Series. Proceedings of the National Geographic Areas Conference . Proceedings of the Regional Geographic Areas Conferences Wood, Brick, and Stone: The North American Settlement Landscape . Vol. 2: Barns and Farm Structures . Allen G. Noble Bangladesh: Biography of a Muslim Nation . Charles Peter O'donnell     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: Hillslope Processes. Binghamton Symposia in Geomorphology International Series: 16. Athol D. Abrahams , ed. The Atlas of Central America and the Caribbean. The Diagram Group . The Cultural Atlas of Islam. Isma'il R. al Faruqi and Lois Lamaya'al Faruqi . Atlas of Israel Contemporary Africa: Development, Culture and the State. Morag Bell . Fundamentals of Physical Geography. David Briggs and Peter Smithson . The Bicentennial Census: New Directions for Methodology in 1990. Constance F. Citro and Michael L. Cohen , eds . World Patterns of Modern Urban Change: Essays in Honor of Chauncy D. Harris. Michael P. Conzen , ed . New Directions for Agriculture and Agricultural Research: Neglected Dimensions and Emerging Alternatives. Kenneth A. Dahlberg , ed . Water Resources Atlas of Florida. E.A. Fernald and D.J. Patton , eds . Landscape Ecology. R.T.T. Forman and M. Godron . The Myth of the North American City: Continentalism Challenged. Michael Goldberg and John Mercer . The Permafrost Environment. Stuart A. Harris . Climate and Circulation of the Tropics. Stefan Hastenrath . The Island of South Georgia. Robert Headland . The Making of Urban Europe, 1000-1950. Paul M. Hohenberg and Lynn Hollen Lees . Bombay in Transition: The Growth and Social Ecology of a Colonial City, 1889–1980. Meera Kosambi . Plant Closings; Public or Private Choices? Richard B. McKenzie , ed . Malaysia: Tradition, Modernity and Islam. R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy . Technology on the Frontier: Mining in Old Ontario. Dianne Newell . The Maritime Political Boundaries of the World. J.R.V. Prescott . Tall Office Buildings in the United States. James W. Pygman and Richard Kateley (Real Estate Research Corporation). Technology, Regions, and Policy. John Rees , ed . The United States and the Regional Organization of Asia and the Pacific: 1965-1985. W.W. Rostow . Renewable Energy: Progress, Prospects. Stephen W. Sawyer Wisconsin Foundations. Gwen Schultz . Dwelling, Place and Environment: Towards a Phenomenology of Person and World. David Seamon and Robert Mugerauer , eds . Power and Place: Canadian Urban Development in the North American Context. Gilbert A. Stelter and Alan F.J. Artibise , eds . Small Firms in Regional Economic Development: Britain, Ireland and the United States. D. J. Storey , ed . Mathematical Methods in Human Geography and Planning. A. G. Wilson and R. J. Bennett . El Niño North: Niño Effects on the Eastern Subarctic Pacific Ocean. W. S. Wooster and D. L. Fluharty , eds . The Soviet Iron and Steel Industry. Craig ZumBrunnen and Jeffrey Osleeb .