Actors and Networks in the Development of Environmental Territories: The Case of the Right Whale Environmental Protection Area

Abstract

Within a context of climate change and crisis in fish stocks associated to the increase in the global demand for fish and its derivatives, the creation of protected spaces continues to be the main policy tool for the conservation of marine biodiversity. By deploying the general theory of conflict and actor-network theory, this article discusses the social mechanisms and processes that influence the organization of spaces with a view to enhance environmental conservation, as well as understand and establish different types of interactions needed to promote territorial transformation in these areas. To do so, it compares spaces in dispute in two situations of conflict in the field of marine environmental protection in Southern Brazil - conflicts of “fishing” and of “port”, both before and after these conflicts arose. Although social changes have occurred in both cases, territorial transformation only took place in the latter case.