Sarah Mund
The Mesoamerican coral reef – between extinction and multispecies survival
My project focuses on human-environment relations in the Mesoamerican coral reef on the Caribbean coast of Mexico. The project is based on an interdisciplinary research collaboration between LMU Munich and UNAM in Mexico. The Mesoamerican barrier reef is the second largest coral reef in the world. It sustains human and multispecies life along the coasts, providing biodiversity, economic opportunities and other services. However, the Mesoamerican coral reef is currently experiencing significant environmental challenges. Working in different locations along the Mexican Riviera Maya, I examine how people understand and scale changes in the multispecies community of the reef and how they actively address these. Drawing on Planetary Healing as a conceptual tool, I explore how different actors respond to this moment of environmental crisis and how their practices may reconfigure human-environment relations across different scales. Thus, this project adds to the discussion of Planetary Healing an analysis of diverse ways of understanding planetary crisis in the reef and human responses in this moment of crisis which address both the survival and extinction of species.
