Melanie Wiber

Carving Up Our Oceans: Who Gets a Say?

Oct. 9, 7 p.m., Memorial Hall, UNB, Fredericton Campus

The uses to which we put ocean space are multiplying. Fishing and transport are being asked to make way for aquaculture, tidal power, oil and gas development, tourism and coastal amenities.  

Who gets to decide how ocean space will be carved up among these many demands?  Who allocates public versus private rights in the ocean and how are private rights being introduced that affect longstanding public rights?

About the Speaker

Melanie Wiber is an economic and legal anthropologist.  She joined UNB in 1987 and has been full professor of anthropology since 1995.

She conducted her doctoral research on water, land and gold mining property rights among an upland minority group in the Philippines.  

After joining UNB, Dr. Wiber completed a study of gender in human evolution imagery. This was followed by research in the dairy industry, where she examined the impact of supply management and dairy quota. The research led to an interest in the property aspects of fisheries quota, and for the past 15 years, Dr. Wiber has conducted participatory, community-based, fisheries research in the Maritime provinces. Her research has focused on natural resource management, community-based management, local ecological knowledge and property rights.

Her many publications have focused on property theory, including new forms of property rights in dairy and fishing quota, in genetics, and in cultural property, as well as community-based management and local ecological knowledge in the fisheries, and gender issues in human evolution imagery.