Photovoice for Ecojustice: Following the European Eel from the Sargasso Sea to the River Severn
摘要
This chapter adopts a visual green criminological lens to examine how harms toward the critically endangered European eel (Anguilla anguilla) are conceptualised and responded to. Drawing on photovoice interviews with commercial and recreational fishers, conservationists, government agencies, and interested parties, it traces the eel’s transatlantic migratory route to explore the varied and often competing perceptions of harm surrounding the species. This photovoice journey uncovers a wide range of concerns including: overfishing, pollution, habitat degradation, and infrastructure development - each framed with differing degrees of urgency. These findings suggest that a tendency to focus on fishery specific threats in management responses and conservation interventions has the potential to obscure otherwise commonplace and interconnected harms produced by legally sanctioned and socially normalised activities. The chapter concludes by calling for deeper engagement with species justice perspectives, urging policymakers and conservation practitioners to confront the structural, ecological, social, and economic inequalities that produce harms at all levels – not only to eels, but to other wildlife, ecosystems, and human communities.