Nature, economy and the cultural politics of theory: The 'war against the seals' in the Bering Sea, 1870-1911

This essay uses Marxian political-economy to make sense of an important international resource problem: the over-exploitation of the north Pacific fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) in the years between 1870 and 1911. Involving multiple economic actors and several nation states, the harvesting of the fur seal almost brought Britain and the U.S. to the point of armed conflict, almost brought financial ruin for all the parties with an economic stake in the fur seal trade, and almost brought about the extinction of the fur seal itself. In addition, the resolution of the fur seal crisis-the 1911 North Pacific Fur Seal Convention-was a precedent setting multilateral resource conservation agreement which enjoyed considerable long-term success. For these reasons, the fur seal case has resonances with present day inter national environmental problems, especially those concerning migratory 'wildlife'. Using the fur seal example, the paper deploys ecoMarxist concepts to work on two fronts simultaneously. First, it offers a critique of currently popular neo-classical and free market approaches to explaining and resolving environmental problems. Second, it offers a critique of the also currently popular 'ecocentric' response to resource problems. Pointing to the inadequacies of both, the Marxian approach used offers an overarching account of the fur seal case in both its material and discursive dimensions. In conclusion, the limits of this approach are signalled and the cultural politics of theories of environmental degradation emphasized. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.