Michael Orbach

Professor of Marine Affairs and Policy, Duke University

Crawfish in the Keys and Our Evolving Oceans Ethos

2004 Schedule

Abstract

Between 1986 and 1992, Mike Orbach was involved, at the behest of both industry and state and federal managers, in the creation of a new policy and management system for the Florida spiny lobster fishery. This process involved initial research, problem definition, consensus building, and passage of legislation in the state of Florida creating a new policy and management system which was eventually incorporated into the federal Fishery Management Plan for Spiny Lobster, making it a uniform state–federal system. The new system is based on Lobster Trap Certificates, which are limited and reducing in number, and marketable under limited conditions. Since its inception in 1992, the system has reduced the number of lobster traps in the fishery from over 1,000,000 to under 400,000, during which time there have generally been stable landings in the fishery. In this presentation, Mike will describe the process of creating this new policy and management system, and its outcomes, and suggest implications for our general cultural attitudes towards "privilege (né "rights") based" fishing in marine waters.

Bio

Michael K. Orbach is Professor of Marine Affairs and Policy and Director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory and the Coastal Environmental Management Program in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. Mike has performed research and has been involved in coastal and marine policy on all coasts of the USA and in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Alaska and the Pacific, and has published widely on social science and policy in coastal and marine environments.

His BA is in economics from the University of California at Irvine, and his MA and PhD are in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at San Diego. From 1976 to 1979 he was Social Anthropologist and Social Science Advisor with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, DC. From 1979 to 1982 he was Associate Director of the Center for Coastal Marine Studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz. From 1983 to 1993 he was Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Senior Scientist with the Institute for Coastal and Marine Resources at East Carolina University. He joined Duke, with offices at the Duke Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina, in 1993.

Website

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/people/faculty/orbach.html

Video

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