Dr. Dean Bavington receives Clio Award

Nipissing University congratulates Dr. Dean Bavington for winning the 2011 Clio Prize Atlantic for his book Managed Annihilation: An Unnatural History of the Newfoundland Cod Collapse (UBC Press).

Bavington is an associate professor in Nipissing’s History department and Canada Research Chair in Environmental History.

The award-winning book discusses the once extremely successful commercial cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador. After the cod industry collapsed in 1992- causing the largest single-day lay-off in Canadian history and detrimental ecological damage- many pointed to errors in fish stock management and careless harvesting by fishermen as the culprits.

The aim of Bavington’s book is to expose that the collapse of the fishery only occurred after it had been entirely state managed and that even after 20 years the industry has still not recovered. Bavington expresses that even though the collapse has caused scientists and policy makers to question their abilities to predict and control nature, the desire and attempt to control it has not waivered. The only changes that have been made are the methods used in their attempt to control nature.

Here’s the entry from the Clio Prize website: “With lucid and highly accessible prose, Dean Bavington offers an insightful, and often disturbing, explanation of how “the northern cod was scientifically managed out of existence” (2). Bavington traces the history of managerial ecology and its hegemony in environmental discourse and practices of the twentieth century. Bavington calls for a shift from managerial to moral ecology. Bavington’s heterodoxy will have its critics, but his challenge to reconsider our conviction that we can control nature reminds us that we have seen this type of hubristic and flawed certainty in the past. His intervention is both timely and important.”

The Clio Prizes are awarded by the Canadian Historical Association to meritorious publications or for exceptional contributions by individuals or organizations to regional history.