Where is the Bio Ocean? Entagled contexts amidst climate change

Keywords: Biodiversity, Marine governance, Political ecology, climate change, high seas
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 73

Abstract

The theoretical and conceptual framework of biodiversity, applied in several contexts, is a subject of broad and divergent debates. —Worse when the term gets spatially/ temporally entangled in other concepts. The term biodiversity is a neologism and a contraction of biological diversity, a term that traditionally refers to the variety of life on earth. Currently, the concept of biodiversity and definitions evolve as diversely as the resource itself, representing ideological dichotomies from scientificity and emotionality, ecology and sociality, profanity and sacrality, to utility and intrinsic value. In legislation, however, biodiversity is often treated as an immutable, well-defined concept, with a single definition serving as the basis for negotiations. This project examines recent international efforts to establish a new legally binding treaty under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, aiming at protecting marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). Marine biodiversity legislation amid the climate crisis is an opportunity to critically rethink biodiversity and its epistemological status. The ocean is a vast, untamed, fluid, voluminous, and borderless space that defies single disciplines, norms, or narrow categorizations. The high seas and climate change challenge the solidity and stability of boundaries, notions of ocean space and the concept of biodiversity and its limits. We unravel the “bio-ocean” through a philosophical, historical, and empirical analysis of biodiversity in colonial and de-colonial contexts in literature, media, film, museums, and policy documents. We further examine what biodiversity means to BBNJ and explore the conceptual tensions, ambiguities, and synergies between biodiversity and the high seas.