Source: Galice Hoarau
The international research team including Drs. Hoarau-Heemstra, Cavaliere, Nazzarova, Hoarau, & Kline from the United States and Norway, have published the article “Making the wolffish personal”: exploring the role of tourism wildlife equity and biocultural conservation” in the A-ranked Journal of Sustainable Tourism!
(Click the image below for open access to the publication)
The new publication is significant for the Lab because Dr. Cavaliere’s previously co-authored posthumanistic theory (Wildlife Equity Theory) and conservation framework (a Critical Biocultural Identity Framework) informed this empirical fieldwork. The resulting Multispecies Tourism Communities outcome, demonstrates that conscious, complex relationships amongst humans and nonhuman stakeholders, protect this keystone species. Findings indicate that these interspecies relationships with the wolffish allow the wildlife to be recognized as sentient stakeholders that are more equitably conserved within the Marine Protected Area (MPA) of Saltstraumen.
Source: Galice Hoarau
Dr. Cavaliere and co-authors analyze the conservation status of the wolffish within Saltstraumen, as until the summer of 2024, it was legally allowed to hunt the wolffish with a speargun inside the MPA. The MPA is a popular Arctic tourist destination for diving and fishing and is one of the world’s strongest tidal currents.
The new Wildlife Equity Theory (Kline et al., 2023) guided the posthumanistic methodology for this research by positioning nonhuman species as active stakeholders within the system allowing for multispecies community cohesion to be incorporated. In addition, the Critical Biocultural Identity Framework (Cavaliere & Branstrator, 2023) guided the methods by providing indicators that framed the design of the qualitative inquiry.
This study allows insight into the human-wolffish relationship and demonstrates how influential the tourism system is to “decision-making processes, policy formulation, and multispecies community cohesion” (Hoarau-Heemstra et al., 2025, p.20). Wildlife agency is directly related to equity within the Anthropocene, and the paper demonstrates how multispecies perspectives are directly linked to justice and equitable biocultural conservation.
Congratulations to Dr. Cavaliere and her co-authors on this influential contribution to critical biocultural conservation research!