Elusive coral and fish: Reconsidering the shore-offshore separation in Caribbean archipelagos

Abstract

To deathly stories of marine biodiversity loss, this article adds stories of deep connectivity and multispecies migrations that cut across the simultaneous promotion of coral restoration nearshore and gas exploration offshore in Colombian governmental strategies to meet international commitments in the United Nations Convention on Climate Change. My argument is that these historically and spatially situated relations in the Caribbean of Colombia are elusive—hard to grasp and predict—when using only the lens of extinction. The limits of coral restoration experiments and artisanal fishing far out in the sea indicate vital spaces of transit that transgress shore/nearshore/offshore separations. In this sense, these vital spaces of transit are elusive to the governmental strategies meant to protect coral and fish. This analysis offers a geography of disappearance to extinction studies, an approach to separations within the sea in times of climate change, and attention to a region overlooked in social research.