Co-producing fisheries governance with new data technologies: Satellite tracking turtles and fishing vessels for co-management and marine protection

Remote sensing technologies that offer unprecedented views of the planet are increasingly important in environmental governance. This paper contributes to understanding the role of these new data technologies in ocean governance, and the effects they have on the agency of governance actors. Specifically, it considers two cases where satellite tracking has been used to support fisheries governance in the UK Overseas Territories: one focused on marine turtles in the Caribbean, and the other on monitoring illegal fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. Through the analysis of interviews, event-based observations, and policy documents, the paper charts how stripped-back data collected and shared through new data technologies are packaged in governance logics to make them meaningful and actionable for governance actors. Emergent ontologies of the ocean enabled by remote sensing are co-produced alongside a social order that defines who needs to know what and who needs to act how as part of fisheries governance. The research has implications for those seeking to collect, share and use data for environmental management, and suggests a need to be more explicit and critical of the frames of meaning that are wrapped around environmental data to make them actionable.