THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RESISTANCE TO OCEAN PASTURE DECLINE
Why fishermen and fisheries managers refuse to accept collapse of fisheries is not all about them!
There is no need to Bring Back The Fish, they argue. What the F***, what’s behind this attitude.
1. Cognitive Dissonance: “It can’t be my fault, or my failure”
Fishermen often see themselves as stewards of the sea, while fisheries managers see themselves as protectors through regulation. Both roles rely on a belief that their actions—harvesting or managing—are in balance with nature. But it gets worse, the public often see the fishermen as insatiable predators or pirates, and simultaneously see the fisheries managers as baffle-gabbing bureaucrats or self aggrandizing police.
Let’s put this ocean story into a terrestrial context.
On land when pastures fall into collapse due to drought or other natural causes and the livestock dependent on those pastures disappears, no one points fingers of blame at bad overharvesting or poachers, nor are ranchers and land managers blamed for indifference or negligent liverstock management. Everyone agrees the decline of the pastures simply starved the livestock into crisis. But in our oceans somehow this realization doesn’t seem to happen.
➡️ Acknowledging that ocean pastures have collapsed due to environmental decline (especially something as external and uncontrollable as iron dust decline) would imply that decades of their efforts and adjustments have been futile, not because of negligence, but because the problem was never theirs to solve in the first place.
📘 Reference: Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. This foundational psychology theory explains why individuals reject new information that conflicts with their identity or past decisions.
2. Institutional Inertia and the “Regulatory Machine”
Fisheries management has become an entrenched bureaucracy based around the tools of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), quota enforcement, gear restrictions, and seasonal closures.
Admitting that the productivity baseline itself has collapsed due to ocean pasture degradation means their entire institutional model needs restructuring—from reactive regulation to proactive ecological restoration.
📘 Reference: Jentoft, S., & McCay, B. J. (1995). “User participation in fisheries management: Lessons drawn from international experiences.” Marine Policy, 19(3), 227–246.
This paper outlines how regulatory systems become resistant to change when they are embedded in political and funding frameworks.
3. Scapegoating as a Coping Mechanism
In the face of fish collapse, it’s psychologically easier to blame an identifiable group (overfishing, trawlers, poachers, foreign fleets) than to accept an abstract, diffuse cause like dust decline or ocean demineralization. It creates a moral narrative: there are good guys and bad guys.
Ocean pasture collapse, on the other hand, is nobody’s fault, and thus offers no villain to rally against or legislate out of existence.
📘 Reference: Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t Think of an Elephant! – explains how framing narratives require villains and heroes. Environmental problems without “bad guys” struggle to gain traction.
4. Fear of Losing Control
Fisheries science and management pride themselves on data-driven stock assessment models. But restoring ocean pastures introduces biology, chemistry, physics, and climate into the equation, fields outside traditional fisheries expertise.
To acknowledge ocean pasture collapse means they must:
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Cede control to oceanographers and ecological restoration scientists, or
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Accept that the system is far more complex than their current models allow.
- Acknowledge that the cure/solution was neither invented or approved by them
📘 Reference: Holling, C.S. (1978). “Adaptive environmental assessment and management.”
It underscores the difficulty institutions have in adapting to cross-disciplinary complexity, even when their models fail.
5. Economic and Political Fear: Who Pays and Who Gets Paid?
Restoring ocean pastures might:
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Require investment in new technology and practices.
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Redistribute regulatory power and funding away from existing agencies.
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Threaten market relationships based on current catch volumes and quotas.
In short: change threatens livelihoods in the short term, even if it promises long-term gain.
📘 Reference: Olson, M. (1965). The Logic of Collective Action. – people often resist common-good projects if the benefits are diffused but the costs are immediate and personal.
🧭 WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM TO RESIST?
| Group | What they fear losing | What they gain by resisting |
|---|---|---|
| Fishermen | Their identity as capable providers; agency in managing risk through effort | A clear enemy (overfishing), and hope that stricter regulations will reverse collapse |
| Fisheries Managers | Scientific authority and control over policy levers (quotas, closures) | Continuity of funding, bureaucratic stability, and legislative simplicity |
| Scientists (some) | Their discipline’s central role in fisheries policy | Control over how fishery “science” is defined and who is seen as credible |
📚 Suggested Literature for Deeper Use in Your Work
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Pauly, D., Christensen, V., et al. (1998) – “Fishing down marine food webs” – While this is often used to support overfishing arguments, Pauly also discusses shifting baselines, which helps make your case that productivity itself has collapsed.
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Rayner, S. (2012) – “Uncomfortable knowledge: The social construction of ignorance in science and environmental policy.” – Explores why societies and experts reject evidence when it threatens institutional roles.
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Berkes, F. (2007) – “Community-based conservation in a globalized world.” PNAS. Discusses how local knowledge is sidelined and systems resist structural ecological change.