Sacrificing mackerel for sustainability: case study of a local cultural festival in northeastern Taiwan

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe how people in a coastal community act upon anxieties about overexploitation of a shared resource and their attempts to ease the moral tension caused by the rapid industrialization of their fishery. This anthropological study contributes to the cross-disciplinary discussion of community-based resource management.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on ethnographic fieldwork done at the Nanfang'ao port located in northeastern Taiwan. This port has several prosperous offshore fisheries including a mackerel fishery. The mackerel fishery has undergone important transformations in recent decades. The first was a total transformation of fishing methods in 2013. The second was the government's formulation of the “Regulations for Fishing Vessels Catching Mackerels and Jacks,” implemented in 2014. This research illustrates how people in a community take various approaches to pursue sustainability for the human beings and the more-than-human world.FindingsIn Nanfang'ao port, local people have developed a meaningful cultural festival through the integration of various symbols and rituals from different contexts in an effort to call attention to moral issues associated with the mackerel fishery.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the discussion on community resource management of marine fishery.