| dc.description.abstract | The environment, economy, and culture of the Caribbean (Miskitu) Coast of Nicaragua have been fundamentally shaped, since the colonial period, by boom-and-bust extractive natural resource industries. Coastal residents, many of whom are indigenous or Afro-descendant, have historically had little influence over these industries. In 2003, however, the Nicaraguan government passed a new Communal Property Law (Law 445) that created 23 indigenous and Afro-descendant territories and initiated a multi-level natural resources governance regime that promised a role for these groups. A new extractive industry emerged shortly after the passage of Law 445. A foreign jellyfish processor arrived in the indigenous fishing village of Tuapi in 2008 looking to build a jellyfish processing facility (JPF) to make salted jellyfish for Chinese consumers. The venture failed; however, between 2013 and 2015, several processors arrived on the coast, and at least nine new JPFs were built. The JPFs employed hundreds of seasonal workers and processed millions of kilograms of jellyfish collected by local fishermen; however, production quickly fell after 2015. By 2018, most of the JPFs were abandoned or had re-tooled to process other species. In this dissertation, I use a political ecology approach to elucidate the multi-scale biophysical, political-economic, and cultural-historical factors that contributed to the boom and bust of the jellyfish fishery in order to contextualize it with past boom-and-bust extractive industries and the objectives of Law 445. I demonstrate that the fishery shared many characteristics with past boom-and-bust industries and that many challenges of the past still haunt natural resource governance on the coast. This dissertation provides essential documentation for the short-lived jellyfish fishery on the Miskitu Coast and a valuable case study for the growing body of literature on multi-level governance regimes and their operation on the ground, especially regarding indigenous territorial jurisdictions, implementation gaps, non-traditional resources, and Nicaragua’s Law 445. | |
